Re: XENIX Question

From: Natalia Portillo <claunia_at_email.domain.hidden>
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2011 14:30:44 +0100

Hi,

El 13/09/2011, a las 13:40, gilles escribido:

> By error I posted on a new thread while trying to post here (needs an
> admin delete ?) ...
> 
> xenix install scripts are plain shell scripts. so you may analyze/
> modify
> them to do the job. But I experienced problems with some xenix
> internal
> commands while emulating it.
> 
> On 12 sep, 17:44, snhirsch <snhir..._at_email.domain.hidden> wrote:

>> On Sep 12, 3:47 am, Natalia Portillo <clau..._at_email.domain.hidden> wrote:
>>

>>> El 12/09/2011, a las 02:00, snhirsch escribido:

>>

>>>> Is anyone on the list familiar enough with Xenix to tell me how it
>>>> sets up a Profile volume?  I'm trying to copy a working Xenix system
>>>> (from a kind third-party) from a 5MB volume on my X/Profile to a
>>>> "real" 5MB unit.  The simple approach did not work:

>>

>>>> # cp /dev/pf0 /dev/pf2

>>

>>> Tried dd if=/dev/pf0 of=/dev/pf2 ?

>>
>> I didn't notice that Xenix had the 'dd' command - thanks for pointing
>> that out. However, I think the real underlying issue is that the
>> Xenix /dev/pf0 device does not represent the full physical device.
>> There's almost certainly some space used by the boot blocks and I
>> believe the swap partition is carved out prior to the root volume. I
>> cannot find any explicit inititalization command that sets swap like a
>> modern Unix, so I'm guessing the layout of the boot disk is "baked
>> into" the Xenix kernel.
>>
>> Anyone know of a Lisa tool that can do a "blind" block-by-block copy
>> between ProFiles? I know that X/Profile can do this internally, but I
>> am trying to target a real disk drive.

That's what dd does.

Guessing by the device names pf0 is not a partition or a slice but the whole disk.

/etc/fstab should tell where the swap is.

When dd ends it will say how many blocks copied, if it corresponds to the Profile blocks (or -1) it is.

Note a thing, dd only supports, reads and writes 512 bytes per sector, losing the extra bytes used by Lisa's Profile. This is not a problem for UNIX filesystems but you cannot copy LisaOS disks AAAAAAAAAAAAAAND, the first sector on a Profile when XENIX is installed.

The first sector is the boot sector, and the firmware requires the tags to recognize it as so and boot it. This boot sector then boots XENIX that uses untagged sectors.

David Craig utils included a tool to dump raw sectors, including the tags, from within Lisa Workshop. I'm not sure if there is one to restore them.

In resume, you need to copy the whole disk with dd and retag the first sector, or the copy will never ever boot.

There should be an easier way, there must be any kind of XENIX application that is able to create the boot sector and the partitions. Reading the install scripts may help you. If you do not understand them, paste them in the list and I'll try to interpret them.

Also even being a Lisa, XENIX is still XENIX and is still UNIX so in the TUHS mailing list you can get help on exact commands.

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Received on 2015-07-16 06:21:14