In message <Marcel-1.26-0810115035-0b0+YEw@kjetilbt.eunet.no> you recently
said:

> On fre 08 aug, Stuart Halliday wrote:
> > I'm at a loss regarding the cylinders aspect of the install program.
> > 
> > I've got a 1GB Jaz drive on my Powertec SCSI -II card and I've
> > partitioned it into 511 MB for RISC OS and 509MB for the BSD.
> > 
> > 
> > RiscBSD on the boot up side says 1021cyl, 64 heads, 32 sec,
> > 512bytes/sec, 2091050 sectors.
> > 
> > FSCK just says of the logical RISC OS side:
> > 
> > Sector size = 512
> > Sectors per track=17
> > Heads=2
> > Disc size=536862720 (511MB).
> > 
> > How do you work out how many cylinders the RISC OS side has?
> 
> 536862720/17/512/2 = 30840 cylinders
> 
> This may sound like a lot, but the figure is correct when you take
> into account that each logical cylinder can only hold:
> 17*512*2 =  17408 bytes (17 KB)
> 
> After having re-read Appendix E in the new installation guide, I can
> see why this question comes up. In this appendix, I have given the
> number of cylinders without explaining how I have found that figure.
> 
> I will update the installation manual to include this information.
> Thanks for pointing this out.
> 
> I hope the information above will help you out with completing the
> installation of RiscBSD.
> 
> Another thing you should be aware of is that you will run into another
> problem with the Power-tec card if you are installing the 1.2 release
> (probably not with the new release in testing). As specified in
> the installation manual, you *MUST NOT* run bb_riscbsd on a Power-tec
> drive.
> 
> But, you will have to change the Empty: partition to RiscBSD using a
sector
> editor like !DiscEdit by Chris E. Poole. You just go into the boot
> block (the first sector that !DiscEdit brings up) and change the
> Empty: to RiscBSD (no colon) starting on the E (turn the E into an
> R, the m to i etc.).
> 
> I have done this twice on my Power-tec drives, and it has worked both
> times. With this procedure you just set the partition type to RiscBSD
> and boot RiscBSD and install as explained in the installation manual.
> 
> Kjetil B.

I'm getting there, I think!
I'm still finding that I've now entered the fiqures and it now tells me
that its has placed files on my RiscBSD.

But section "4.3 Booting RiscBSD off the harddrive first time" doesn't work.

Quoting the INSTALL file:
>Now you should be back in RISC OS. You are now going to boot
>RiscBSD off the harddrive to see that it works and that the
>filesystems are ok.

OK, I'm back to RISCOS....


>Assuming you saved the state of the !BtRiscBSD application above
>you should change the following two things:
>	- Set the root device to where you installed the root
>	  partition

Sorry, what???

Is this talking about the Root device option in the 'Boot Options section
of !BtRiscBSD? If so why not say that?

I've got it set to '/dev/sd1a' as I've got a JAZ SCSI drive in drive :5
Do I need to set it to anything different?

>	- Set the RAM disc to 0K (Normally automatic when
>	  changing the root device)

OK, it is set to 0K


>Then click on boot to boot RiscBSD off the harddrive.

Sorry, but when I click on BOOT it takes me back to a floppy read-only boot.
ie it offers me INSTALL, UPGRADE or SHELL.

What do I do now...?

(Using BtRiscBSD V2.88 off the Acorn developers CD.)

Can anyone help me get further....?

BTW the INSTALL text file is a real dog's dinner for first time users,
filled with lots of info that is just not applicable at the beginning.

Why not split up the INSTALL file into a version for each RISCOS and type
of disc drives used.

BTW the INSTALL file doesn't even talk about the possibility that the
RiscBSD boot program may not tell the user the true disc geometry in the
first place.

Surely a BASIC program could be written which examines the disc and asks
the user the questions about cylinders sizes, etc. and then stores the
necessary answers on a text file which the user could print out and then
feed back in during the BSD install option in a nice and easy step by step
manner?


-- 
Stuart Halliday - Web Manager of the
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