From: spcberto@psyche.spc.uchicago.edu (Robert Osterlund)
Subject: SLS installation nightmare:  broken change-line support
Keywords: SLS, install
Organization: University of Chicago, SSPPCC
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 15:40:44 GMT


After much travail and gnashing of teeth, I finally installed SLS Linux (the
latest tsx-11 distribution) on my home system last night.  The cause of my
difficulties?  Broken change-line support.

About a year ago, the change-line support on both of my floppy drives broke. 
(Change-line support is the ability of the physical disk drive to detect when
the drive door is open or a new floppy diskette has been inserted.)  So, when
installing new software or doing backups I would get complaints like "Install
disk #1 is still in drive A:.  Please insert disk #2 of the install set," even
though I *had* inserted disk #2.  I fixed this problem with the appropriate
DRIVPARM command in AUTOEXEC.BAT.  (One could use DRIVER.SYS to accomplish
the same end.)

Unfortunately, the Linux utilities and the SLS installation routine that
invokes them all assume change-line support.  Absent that, I kept getting
error messages like:

installing base... tar: skipping to next file header...
tar: child died with signal 11 (core dumped)
done
installing menus...: i/o error
tar (child): read error on -tar: archive -EOF not on block boundary

As an experiment, I ignored these messages on disk a2 and proceeded with
disk a3.  I got similar messages on disk a3.  When prompted for disk a4,
I kept receiving the complaint

error: you may have inserted the wrong disk, try again (y/n)?

After studying the doinstall and sysinstall scripts and attempting numerous
installations by hand, I had definitive proof that the problem was with
change-line support.  I would umount a floppy, mount the next floppy, do an
ls, only to see the listings for the previous, now umounted, diskette.

Finally, I was able to achieve a successful base install.  Installing stuff
from the b and c sets, however, was and is a real pain:  I am able to install
only one disk at a time.  I cannot force the system, no mater how many times
I issue the appropriate mount, umount, and sync commands, to recognize a
newly inserted replacement floppy.  I have to do a reboot (I kid you not!)
for each new floppy.

Needless to say, this is an unacceptable situation.

Short of replacing my floppy drives and possibly disk controller, is there
a software means of solving this problem?  (I should add that I *had* change-
line support on these floppies for over a year before they mysteriously
broke.)

Specifically, would defining a new device file, with the appropriate minor
number, do the trick?  Or, would the setfdprm command (I lack documentation
for this) or some other analog to DOS' DRIVPARM or DRIVER.SYS work?  Or would
this require a kernel mod?

This is a serious problem, I think, that needs addressing.  I almost gave up
on Linux in disgust over it.  Who knows how many other Linux wannabes might
experience the same frustrations?

Oh, yes, now that I've got a working system, I can't wait to put it through
its paces!!

Bob Osterlund
berto@clio.spc.uchicago.edu
SSPPCC--University of Chicago

Newsgroups: comp.os.linux