Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 05:34:46 -0700 (PDT) From: Fabrizio Diversi Hello all, just to say "ciao" for the moment. Fabrizio From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Tue, 18 May 1999 17:18:20 +0200 (METDST) Subject: [ql-developers] Re: Q40 Murphy Law Hi, I forgot to tell you, the newest installation guide is now on my web page, http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/2602/q40.html Bye Richard From: Richard Zidlicky Subject: [ql-developers] new loader available Hi, I have uploaded a new loader - does now flush cache before disabling them. Also a small fix for the memory display routine added. Bye Richard Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 02:20:27 -0700 (PDT) From: Fabrizio Diversi Subject: [ql-developers] MKPart Richard, this is the situation at the moment. I have installed a complete new HD (formatted at low level) as 1st hard disk into q40. I have used Mkpart to partition it in this way : - Base partition 1 sector (what does it mean , what is it used for the base partition ???) - 1st partition 60000 sector (QWA) - 2nd "" "" 10000 "" (SWP) - 3rd "" "" remaining sector (LNX) No formatting of any partition . Using the second hard disk as win2_ I have launched Linux as usual........Linux start and I am able to see the 3 partition usin cat/partitions : dev/hda1 dev/hda2 dev/hda3 great !!!!! BUT : as soon after the linux reboot I try to format the first QWA partition of the first disk , the format of win1_ destroy everything allocating 2GB also if I allocate less than 2gb for it. A subsequent start of Linux hang as before . Conclusion : - mkpart does not work - I am not able to use it or i miss some format parameters . Can some of the Q40 guru listening give me a suggestion??? Ciao fabrizio --- Richard Zidlicky wrote: > Hello, > > I hope you don't mind when I croospost the answer to > ql-developers.. > maybe someone else has better ideas than me. > > > I am reversing back to only one HD (6GB) and > CDROM. > > But now I am becoming crazy with MKPART to > partition > > the unique hard disk installed. > > > > After having partitioned the HD (2 QWA , one SWP > and > > one LNX) there is no way to format win2 but also > win1 > > when formatted take the whole disk !!!! > > I am using only 1 QWA partition untill now so I do > not know > about this. > > > - Do you know how big is a HD Sector ? > > I believe 512 bytes in SMSQ. If you know the HD size > you could > deduce it from the information mkpart displays for > the first > partition. > Has probably nothing to do with the real blocksize > on the HD > and afaik SMSQ might use larger block sizes for > large partitions > which could further complicate things. > > > - The information about mkpart is a little bit > > complicated. > > do you have any information about mkpart in > particular? > > What I found greatly confusing is how to assign > drives > in SMSQ. > > > What exactly do I need to do step by step ? > > I would skip the win2_ formatting for now - it is > likely > it will be much easier with later SMSQ/mkpart > versions. > > The important thing is to have a few spare > partitions and > in the case of a 6GB disk I would create quite a few > more > of them. Changing partition tags (QWA,LNX,SWP) or > creating > filesystems or even spliting unused ones can be done > later. > (once mkpart is fixed to be really AHDI compatible) > 1GB for Linux appears fairly generous for now. > > > Btw, was there any progress booting Linux? > > > Bye > Richard > From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Fri, 21 May 1999 13:48:54 +0200 (METDST) Subject: [ql-developers] Re: MKPart Hello, > this is the situation at the moment. > > I have installed a complete new HD (formatted at low > level) as 1st hard disk into q40. > I have used Mkpart to partition it in this way : > - Base partition 1 sector (what does it mean , what is > it used for the base partition ???) probably to store extended partition information, but some atari drivers also liked to store the bad sector list in a similar manner so I can only guess. Anyway I didn't have any trouble just accepting the mkpart suggestion here > - 1st partition 60000 sector (QWA) this is 30 MB?? > - 2nd "" "" 10000 "" (SWP) 5 MB?? not very much swap.. > - 3rd "" "" remaining sector (LNX) > No formatting of any partition . > Using the second hard disk as win2_ I have launched > Linux as usual........Linux start and I am able to see > the 3 partition usin cat/partitions : > dev/hda1 > dev/hda2 > dev/hda3 > great !!!!! the partition size dislpayed here seems ok? > BUT : > as soon after the linux reboot I try to format the > first QWA partition of the first disk , the format of > win1_ destroy everything allocating 2GB also if I > allocate less than 2gb for it. > > A subsequent start of Linux hang as before . this should not happen regardless how or if the HD is partitioned or whether or not it is low-level formated - thus there is a slight suspicion that the HD itself has something to do with the trouble. Did you write down what Linux wrote about the HD geometry and such things at startup? These messages are probably also recorded in /proc/dmesg or similar - you might also cat them to a serial port. Also in the case linux "hangs" with the badly formated disk, could you look at the output when "debug=mem" or "console=ttyS0,9600n8" or similar as described in the loader description? > Conclusion : > - mkpart does not work > - I am not able to use it or i miss some format > parameters . Please try this: adequate size for QWA and SWP. All partitions - except perhaps the last one - should have a length in sectors divisible by at least 1024, eg QWA 1 1024*200 = 100MB etc.. Reserve a big last partiotion that may be unused for now so that you can create more filesystems later. Argh.. could please anyone who succeeded partitioning and formatting more than one partition with mkpart/SMSQ tell us about the used geometry and the like? Bye Richard Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 02:10:58 -0700 (PDT) From: Fabrizio Diversi Subject: Re: [ql-developers] How many people ? At the moment I have booted Linux on my Q40 and partially installed on it, also if at the moment is not a real full installation. The problem is that with Linux I am able to see and use my 6GB Maxtor drive, but there is no way to partition it to use at the same time SMSQE and Linux and this is what exactly I do not want . The situation is : - with 6GB HD , MKPART see only 2GB of it. - with 2GB disks MKPART see perfectly all the disk and is able to partition it, bus as I format with SMSQE the drive all the partition disappear (Linux included) I think Roy is working on that. Obviously Linux see all these disks perfectly and is able to use it . The same when these disks were on my PC. I have tried to use Atari fdisk , taken the binary from FTP site, but , probably because I am not an expert it did not work . Ciao Fabrizio Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 09:55:49 +0000 From: Bruce N Subject: [ql-developers] How many people ? How many people have installed Linux for Q40 ? Bruce N From: Timothy Swenson Subject: Re: [ql-developers] How many people ? I will install it as soon as I get my Q40 (been in the mail since 5 May). Tim Swenson From: Chgraf@aol.com Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 11:50:38 EDT Subject: [ql-developers] Q40 Linux boots from floppy Hello! It's possible to boot Linux on the Q40 without a hard disk. What you need are two floppies. Disk1: lxx, ramimg_gz, boot Disk2: vmlinux The 1st disk contains the Loader "lxx", the ramdisk file plus the boot file. In the boot file there should be at least a line like this: EX lxx;"-k flp1_vmlinux -m16 -v -r flp1_ramimg_gz -p -- root=/dev/ram" Presumed is here a 16 MB Q40. If there is a root file system on another device then you might adapt the kernel parameter root=.. according. The 2nd disk contains the kernel image. All the best Claus From: Chgraf@aol.com Date: Mon, 31 May 1999 14:48:53 EDT Subject: [ql-developers] www.q40.de Hello! I have set up a Q40 web site. If you want to, check it out, please. It is http://www.q40.de It is still under construction, of course. Now that I have finished some pages and I have learned how much effort it takes, I really appreciate Thierry's site :-) So, please be patient. In the program download area you can find * pqiv - a high color (!) image viewer for PCX and PIC files for Q40 * qsplayer - a small sound player for Q40 (sample file included) and others. If you are interested in Q40-Linux, you can register as an Linux/m68 user. The registration helps to encourage and support the Q40 Linux port as well as the whole Motorola 680x0 series of computers: http://www.q40.de/os.html or go straight to http://www.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/~geert/Linux/m68k/Registration.html The statistics tell (see below), that Apollo and Next systems are already behind Q40. Next target is Custom, HP9000, SUN3 and VME :) All the best Claus Registered Linux/m68k system platforms Platform Count Percentage Amiga 1267 66.40% ################################## Apollo 3 0.16% # Atari 239 12.53% ####### Custom 9 0.47% # HP 9000/300 14 0.73% # Macintosh 320 16.77% ######### NeXT 4 0.21% # Q40 5 0.26% # Sun 3 18 0.94% # VME 29 1.52% # Total 1908 From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 16:10:09 +0200 (METDST) Subject: Re: [ql-developers] Q40 Linux boots from floppy > > Hello! > > It's possible to boot Linux on the Q40 without a hard disk. What you need are > two floppies. > > Disk1: lxx, ramimg_gz, boot > Disk2: vmlinux > > The 1st disk contains the Loader "lxx", the ramdisk file plus the boot file. > In the boot file there should be at least a line like this: > > EX lxx;"-k flp1_vmlinux -m16 -v -r flp1_ramimg_gz -p -- root=/dev/ram" > > Presumed is here a 16 MB Q40. If there is a root file system on another > device then you might adapt the kernel parameter root=.. according. > The 2nd disk contains the kernel image. > does it work without the disk-change workaround in newer SMSQ versions? Bye Richard From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 17:22:01 +0200 (METDST) Subject: [ql-developers] RH 5.2 and other news Hello all, sorry for my absence from the net which was caused by a dingy event called "Bergwoche" in Erlangen. I have tested RH 5.2 on the Q40 and it seems there are no more difficulties than with 5.1 :-). To be positive, you get a working Xserver, jed and linuxconf with it. BTW do not use linuxconf on a freshly installed machine, I had the impression it is too easy to screw up this way. It is probably better to create some reasonable settings at least for /etc/fstab /etc/hosts /etc/networks /etc/resolv.conf and probably some others by hand before trying it out. The X server has a bug in xkb that screws up the keymap for cursor and AltGr keys, I have one that works but would be also interested to hear about your experience with this. An old, ever-persisting bug in the IDE driver seems to have reappeared again, making it not advisable to run 2 HDs fully parallel. So far I had no damage doing so but the driver messages can be very anoying and it can slow down things a little bit. Bye Richard Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 17:36:07 +0200 Subject: Re: [ql-developers] RH 5.2 and other news From: pgrafq@t-online.de (Peter Graf) Hi, >Where did you get RH 5.2 from ? http://linuxservice.de/ Peter From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Tue, 1 Jun 1999 17:56:07 +0200 (METDST) Subject: Re: [ql-developers] RH 5.2 and other news > > Where did you get RH 5.2 from ? Do you use a CD Rom ? Peter Graf mailed me the CD, I hope he will disclose his source as I have forgotten this information ;-) Currently I nfsmount the CD of linux-PC, it seems others have no problesm attaching the CD directly to the Q40. Btw it is quite possible that we will get "official" Debian support, no idea how long it may take. Bye Richard Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 16:45:04 +0000 From: Bruce N Subject: Re: [ql-developers] RH 5.2 and other news Richard Where did you get RH 5.2 from ? Do you use a CD Rom ? Bruce N Richard Zidlicky wrote: > > Hello all, > > sorry for my absence from the net which was caused by a dingy > event called "Bergwoche" in Erlangen. > > I have tested RH 5.2 on the Q40 and it seems there are no more > difficulties than with 5.1 :-). > To be positive, you get a working Xserver, jed and linuxconf with > it. > > BTW do not use linuxconf on a freshly installed machine, I had > the impression it is too easy to screw up this way. It is probably > better to create some reasonable settings at least for > /etc/fstab > /etc/hosts > /etc/networks > /etc/resolv.conf > and probably some others by hand before trying it out. > > The X server has a bug in xkb that screws up the keymap for cursor > and AltGr keys, I have one that works but would be also interested > to hear about your experience with this. > > An old, ever-persisting bug in the IDE driver seems to have reappeared > again, making it not advisable to run 2 HDs fully parallel. So far I had > no damage doing so but the driver messages can be very anoying and > it can slow down things a little bit. > > Bye > Richard From: Fabrizio Diversi Subject: Re: [ql-developers] RH 5.2 and other news Richard , I am doing the Linux installation using the Red_Hat Rough Cuts distribution (this is the name !!) using the CDROM under hdb (slave IDE). Basically I have installed the base Linux on Q40 and it works, I have some problems installing other packages but I need more time to make tests. To solve the problem of MKPART that is able to partition the disk but at the same time is not possible to format it under SMSQE I have adoptet a removable IDE cabinet to swap the primary IDE disk . I have one disk of 2GB all for SMSQE, the second one of 6GB for Linux and the CDROM permanently installed. BTW Mkpart see only a part of the Maxtor 6GB disk (anyway less than 2 GB !!!!, also if formatting it with SMSQE I obtain 2GB... strange). My question is : can I use Atary m68k fdisk to further partition the rest of the 6GB ? or better can you include atari fdisk into your initial ramimg ???? To start Linux I use diskettes (it take ages ......) I still do not understand how you was able to partition the disk under SMSQE, can you pls write down in sequence the operation you did ? I have tried thousand of different combination without success, but maybe you have the right one (!) ex: win_format 1 win_drive 1,0,0,0 ex mkpart (what partition dimension have you used ?) etc...etc.... Ciao Fabrizio --- Richard Zidlicky wrote: > > > > Where did you get RH 5.2 from ? Do you use a CD > Rom ? > > Peter Graf mailed me the CD, I hope he will disclose > his > source as I have forgotten this information ;-) > > Currently I nfsmount the CD of linux-PC, it seems > others have > no problesm attaching the CD directly to the Q40. > > Btw it is quite possible that we will get "official" > Debian > support, no idea how long it may take. > > > Bye > Richard > From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 14:19:39 +0200 (METDST) Subject: Re: [ql-developers] RH 5.2 and other news Hello, > I am doing the Linux installation using the Red_Hat > Rough Cuts distribution (this is the name !!) using > the CDROM under hdb (slave IDE). > Basically I have installed the base Linux on Q40 and > it works, I have some problems installing other > packages but I need more time to make tests. the base installation is really not well tested, using the full installation should be a lot easier. Removing packages almost neever fails.. > To solve the problem of MKPART that is able to > partition the disk but at the same time is not > possible to format it under SMSQE I have adoptet a > removable IDE cabinet to swap the primary IDE disk . > I have one disk of 2GB all for SMSQE, the second one > of 6GB for Linux and the CDROM permanently installed. if you have a second IO card it is worth a try. > BTW Mkpart see only a part of the Maxtor 6GB disk > (anyway less than 2 GB !!!!, also if formatting it > with SMSQE I obtain 2GB... strange). > My question is : can I use Atary m68k fdisk to further > partition the rest of the 6GB ? yes. The binary is compiled for use with glibc-2.xx which is why you might have had some difficulties. Recompiling should be easy. SMSQ did recognise such partitions, but that was on a 2GB disk. > or better can you > include atari fdisk into your initial ramimg ???? I will look for some version compiled against libc5, glibc-2.xx would bloat the ramdisk by 3 MB :-( > I still do not understand how you was able to > partition the disk under SMSQE, can you pls write down > in sequence the operation you did ? > I have tried thousand of different combination without > success, but maybe you have the right one (!) > ex: > win_format 1 > win_drive 1,0,0,0 > ex mkpart (what partition dimension have you used ?) > etc...etc.... Pure luck I am afraid. win_format 1 ex mkpart ENTER for base partition, QWA 200*1024 QWA 100*1024 SWP 200*1024 LNX rest of the 2 GB format win1_ I hope I have got the sector counts ok.. Bye Richard Bye Richard From: Chgraf@aol.com Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1999 12:34:41 EDT Subject: Re: Re: [ql-developers] Q40 Linux boots from floppy In einer eMail vom 01.06.1999 16:22:22 Uhr, schreiben Sie: >> >> Hello! >> >> It's possible to boot Linux on the Q40 without a hard disk. What you need are >> two floppies. >does it work without the disk-change workaround in newer SMSQ versions? >Bye >Richard SMSQ/E 2.92a doesn't work on my Q40. The version that was before (2.92 without a) shows a strange behaviour: If the floppy light is still on from booting and I press Enter within lxx in oder to load the ramdisk, then everythings is OK. But when the drive light switched off after booting the loader and I try to load the ramdisk, then the file cannot be found. Claus From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 13:59:23 +0200 (METDST) Subject: [ql-developers] HD partitioning and formating Hi All, I have now uploaded a new ramdisk with atari-fdisk and qxltool which should in theory be perfectly sufficient to partition and format HD's on a Q40. If you HD is already partitioned in an atari compatible way I would advise you not to use atari-fdisk as it tries to correct errors made by mkpart if you change the partition table - this can be good or bad but you certainly don't want to try. qxltool can be used to create a SMSQ compatible filesystem on some partition - make absolutely sure its size does not exceed the partition size. Also I would not attempt to create filesystems >128MB with it. The stuff has been uploaded to the usuall place in Erlangen and I may also temporarily store it at geocities as it seems that our ftp-admin is out for weekend once again. Bye Richard From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 14:16:35 +0200 (METDST) Subject: Re: [ql-developers] HD partitioning and formating > > Hi All, > The stuff has been uploaded to the usuall place in Erlangen and I may > also temporarily store it at geocities as it seems that our ftp-admin > is out for weekend once again. ;-) got him right before he went for the weekend, so the files are in q40/install now - see README Bye Richard Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 05:32:07 -0700 (PDT) From: Fabrizio Diversi Subject: Re: [ql-developers] HD partitioning and formating Richard, in the mean time you did these changes (thank you !!) i have downloaded the atari fdisk (libc5) and succesfully partitioned my 6GB disk. I have repartitioned all the disk, atari fdisk recognise perfectly all the disk, and succesfully installed Red_Hat Linux (not yet Xwindows) in 30 mins. Some questions : - if I well understood what you mean , if I start again the installation reserving a partition free (LNX partition ) i will able using qxltool to format it under SMSQE , this will solve my problem to use Linux and SMSQE under the same disk .... - why lxx has to read the vmlinux kernel from QDOS devices instead use directly the hdx partition , something like lilo I mean. Because in this case the second step will be to incorporate lxx in the rom and prepare a DualBoot. Ciao Fabrizio --- Richard Zidlicky wrote: > > Hi All, > > I have now uploaded a new ramdisk with atari-fdisk > and qxltool > which should in theory be perfectly sufficient to > partition and > format HD's on a Q40. > > If you HD is already partitioned in an atari > compatible way I would > advise you not to use atari-fdisk as it tries to > correct errors made > by mkpart if you change the partition table - this > can be good or > bad but you certainly don't want to try. > > qxltool can be used to create a SMSQ compatible > filesystem on some > partition - make absolutely sure its size does not > exceed the partition > size. Also I would not attempt to create filesystems > >128MB with it. > > The stuff has been uploaded to the usuall place in > Erlangen and I may > also temporarily store it at geocities as it seems > that our ftp-admin > is out for weekend once again. > > > Bye > Richard > From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Fri, 4 Jun 1999 15:00:57 +0200 (METDST) Subject: Re: [ql-developers] HD partitioning and formating Hello, > in the mean time you did these changes (thank you !!) > i have downloaded the atari fdisk (libc5) and > succesfully partitioned my 6GB disk. > I have repartitioned all the disk, atari fdisk > recognise perfectly all the disk, and succesfully > installed Red_Hat Linux (not yet Xwindows) in 30 mins. > Some questions : > - if I well understood what you mean , if I start > again the installation reserving a partition free (LNX > partition ) i will able using qxltool to format it > under SMSQE , this will solve my problem to use Linux > and SMSQE under the same disk .... better reserve more than one free partitions. Yes, it should work like this if you respect the advices in the README. which version was the atari-fdisk you used? I spent a lot of time compiling 0.7 because it seemed to handle mkpart partitions lot better than earlier versions - these reported only garbage if the HD was partitioned by mkpart. > - why lxx has to read the vmlinux kernel from QDOS > devices instead use directly the hdx partition , > something like lilo I mean. because as of now there is no official way for a QDOS program to access the HD directly. Once this is solved I already have a program to access ext2 partitions from QDOS :-) > Because in this case the > second step will be to incorporate lxx in the rom and > prepare a DualBoot. SMSQ isn't really so bad to boot linux, if only the HD access would work as advertised. Actually 'lxx' has been designed so that it is easy to write sophisticated SuperBasic or even PointerDriven programs to start it. Doing a DualBoot in ROM has some nice advantages but is a lot of work, especially if it has to fit into a rather small ROM Also it is useless for the installation as long as you don't include the complete linux image into the ROM - even more work. Bye Richard BTW - consider not making the Linux partitions much larger than needed. Even if most of the partition is unused 'fschk' will check all of the partition - and this may take a long time with 6GB. If you later find out that more space is needed you can always swap /usr, /home or /var or parts of itto different partitions, a reasonable size for now is 1GB. From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999 14:25:23 +0200 (METDST) Subject: Re: [ql-developers] HD partitioning and formating Hello, I have done some more testing with qxltool and it appears it can't be easilly used for formatting now :-( The reason is that SMSQ additionaly stores the drive geometry and some other info I have not yet deciphered in the fs header block. This values are 0 for normal QXL files and on SCSI and software like uqlx or qxltool never evaluated them as they don't need to know the geometry. As a quick patch it is possible to write the geometry manually into the header block and the filesystem will be useable at least to some degree, the required info is sectors/track at 0x24 word heads at 0x26 word , take that from the CHS=startup message.. The word at 0x28 is supposed to be the number of cylinders per drive though the actual value doesn't look like that for my drive - more debugging is needed into this. In the meantime qxltool can be at least used to read the SMSQ filesystems. Bye Richard From: Fabrizio Diversi Subject: Re: [ql-developers] HD partitioning and formating Richard, I was able to create a SMSQE Partition of 128MB and other 2 Linux partition ,LNX(hda2) and SWP(hda3) and it works . This using atari-fdisk and qxltool. As you said the only problem I found for the moment is that the number of sectors indicated is wrong. So now I boot Linux from the first SMSQE disk partition. The only difference I found in the procedure is that I had to change the partiton id from LNX to QWA using atari-fdisk, because using qxltool the partition id did not change and smsqe did not recognise the partition. Ciao Fabrizio --- Richard Zidlicky wrote: > Hello, > > I have done some more testing with qxltool and it > appears > it can't be easilly used for formatting now :-( > > The reason is that SMSQ additionaly stores the drive > geometry > and some other info I have not yet deciphered in the > fs header > block. This values are 0 for normal QXL files and on > SCSI > and software like uqlx or qxltool never evaluated > them as > they don't need to know the geometry. > > As a quick patch it is possible to write the > geometry > manually into the header block and the filesystem > will be > useable at least to some degree, the required info > is > sectors/track at 0x24 word > heads at 0x26 word , take that from the CHS=startup > message.. > > The word at 0x28 is supposed to be the number of > cylinders > per drive though the actual value doesn't look like > that > for my drive - more debugging is needed into this. > > In the meantime qxltool can be at least used to read > the > SMSQ filesystems. > > > Bye > Richard > > From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999 15:19:05 +0200 (METDST) Subject: Re: [ql-developers] HD partitioning and formating Hello, > I was able to create a SMSQE Partition of 128MB and > other 2 Linux partition ,LNX(hda2) and SWP(hda3) and > it works . > This using atari-fdisk and qxltool. > As you said the only problem I found for the moment is > that the number of sectors indicated is wrong. > So now I boot Linux from the first SMSQE disk > partition. I suspect you will get more problems soon, my SMSQ version relies on the disk geometry beeing saved in the fs header. Possibly things will work fine as long as your SMSQ files all fit into on track - this may be quite a large value in your case - and everything gets corrupted when this is no longer true. So I would advise not to write the fs from SMSQ at all. qxltool should be safe though SMSQ might not read the files correctly when they fall beyound the boundary. BTW, can you please send me the first sector of this fs and your CHS values? For QWA on hda1 it is dd if=/dev/hda1 count=2 of=some_file - I need to find out why it worked for you as it is rather odd when things work only because of some bug. BTW always keep a backup of your partition table on a floppy, dd if=/dev/hda count=1 of=backup should be sufficient if you have only 3 partitions. For more partitions things can be fairly complicated. Maybe atari-fdisk has some clever option to store the table, I haven't looked yet. Bye Richard From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999 16:33:59 +0200 (METDST) Subject: [ql-developers] Q40 with two disk or 1disk+1CD Hello, trying to do a little survey to localise the bug in the IDE driver, so: a: who is using linux-q40 with 2 or more HDs at a time OR 1 HD + 1 CD or more b: who got any messages like "ide_set_handler: timer already active" or similar. Bye Richard From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 18:44:40 +0200 (METDST) Subject: Re: [ql-developers] HD partitioning and formating Hello, continuing the never-ending story, I have uploaded the next ramdisk to the usual place. This time I also included a special 'qxl_fschk' program to diagnose faulty filesystems. Bye Richard From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 16:40:34 +0200 (METDST) Subject: [ql-developers] Q40 HD partitioning and formating, new Linux kernel Hi, I have uploaded linux2.2.8 kernel to Erlangen. It fixes an old m68k bug which appears to be completely negligible on the Q40, so the more important change is that I have removed the 'minix' and include 'msdos' fs to the kernel. This should make it easier for those who don't want to use linux regularly to exchange data on floppies with SMSQ. All usual filesystems are stil available as modules if installed.. Also uploaded a new ramdisk, added mountpoint for /a,msdos, improved 'qxltool' and 'qxl_fschk'. I hope to port qxl_fschk back to QDOS/SMSQ when I know how to access the HD from these OS's. Bye Richard From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 13:42:41 +0200 (METDST) Subject: Re: [ql-developers] Q40 HD partitioning and formating, new Linux kernel Hello, > I installed the new versions last night. All the programs worked fine on > the Linux side including the improved qxltool and qxl_fschk. I have one > problem in that I created hda1 and hda2 with QXLTool but on running SMSQ > it seems to think that win1_ takes all the space and win2_ is exactly > the same size. When I write something into win2_ it appears in win1_ as > win2_filename and when I do a dir win2_ SMSQ only sees the filename (I > have 3 parameters shown in the CHD field can you confirm which ones to > use for fix_geometry). most HDs have a geometry like CHS=xxx/16/63, thus you need to set it to 63,16 I have already worked out how the query the HD geometry from qxltool if that helps someone. > Have you any thoughts on what is happening? Are you sure you have assigned win2_ correctly? This seems like a typical drive not there error. (You would get exactly the same behaviour if you tried to access any other nonexisting drive, eg 'cau3_') I think the command was win_drive 2,0,1 but better have another look into the docs.. Also running qxl_fschk from time to time on the SMSQ partitions should show any problems with FS consistency. Bye Richard From: Fabrizio Diversi Subject: [ql-developers] Back from Vacation Richard, using the new qxltool with fix_geometry there is no way to make SMSQE partition usable. Instead of before where I was able to use both SMSQE and Linux . Question: - probably I use the wrong figures in fix_geometry, Linux CHS says I have 4092/16/63 (it is correct because I have 2014 MB disk), can you please tell me exactly what I need to use for Sect/track and head/cyl in fix_geometry ? - the command " qxltool -w /dev/hda1 128 QWA Q40_1 does format the partition or I need to format it later ? If you omit the dimension (128) qxltool seems format the partion anyway taking only more time to do it , is it correct ? I can confirm you that the boot of Linux from floppy is extremely fast if you grab all the memory of Q40 , to boot linux I use this boot : format ram1_6000 a = alchp(free_mem) copy flp1_ramimg,ram1_ramimg pause (to swap disk) copy flp1_vmlinux,ram1_vmlinux rechp a ex flp1_lxx;................. and in this case it take really few seconds. Ciao Fabrizio From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 16:48:35 +0200 (METDST) Subject: Re: [ql-developers] Back from Vacation Hello, > using the new qxltool with fix_geometry there is no > way to make SMSQE partition usable. :-( > Instead of before where I was able to use both SMSQE > and Linux . > Question: > - probably I use the wrong figures in fix_geometry, > Linux CHS says I have 4092/16/63 (it is correct > because I have 2014 MB disk), can you please tell me > exactly what I need to use for Sect/track and head/cyl > in fix_geometry ? 63,16 The first version did not set this values at all so I am now very surprised it worked for you. Just the same as if you omited the 'fix_geometry' There have been other changes resulting in a supposedly much better constructed SMSQ filesystem - it always worked well with my 2GB drive where I use a small partition for such tests. > - the command " qxltool -w /dev/hda1 128 QWA Q40_1 > does format the partition or I need to format it later > ? it should do everything that is necessary. > If you omit the dimension (128) qxltool seems format > the partion anyway taking only more time to do it , is > it correct ? No, this is not supposed to happen.. However I already had reports that something was wrong with ramimg3_gz, with similar results. I wonder whether qxltool has some bug in parameter scanning, I have only hacked the formating part of it so far. You haven't repartitioned the disk? > I can confirm you that the boot of Linux from floppy > is extremely fast if you grab all the memory of Q40 , > to boot linux I use this boot : > > format ram1_6000 > a = alchp(free_mem) > copy flp1_ramimg,ram1_ramimg > pause (to swap disk) > copy flp1_vmlinux,ram1_vmlinux > rechp a > ex flp1_lxx;................. very nice bootprogram :-) Bye Richard From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 18:22:04 +0200 (METDST) Subject: [ql-developers] linux-2.2.8 Hi, I have just managed to read old linux-kernel messages and it appears linux-2.2.8 is one of the less stable kernels so it is probably better to avoid it. Bye Richard From: Richard Zidlicky Date: Fri, 2 Jul 1999 14:09:23 +0200 (METDST) Subject: [ql-developers] Q40 and big HD's Hello, I received plenty of information from Tony Tebby and found out some of the mysteries. The mysterious word at 0x28 is simply cylinders per drive as specified, only when "drive" is a partition the wrong values are used to compute this value (partition_sectors/sect_per_cyl) I assume this has no effect an anything and is simply some relict from the past. More importantly, SMSQ apparently does not use CHS in all cases (on the Q40), but may use LBA especially for large drives. That would apparently mean that for such drives a geometry of 0,0 (or nothing at all) has to be specified with qxltool. Sorry but I have not a drive to test this.. If you already have some SMSQ formatted partitions you might be able to find out by looking at the words 0x24,0x26 of its first sector - they should be non-0 for CHS, 0 for LBA Bye Richard