[ On Sun, March 17, 1996 at 07:50:29 (-0500), der Mouse wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: diskless install?
>
> > Why oh why doen't init spit out a simple little error message the
> > first time this fails?
> 
> How?  With nothing in /dev/, how can init print anything?

Hmmm...  I had for some reason assumed that the kernel could/would keep
init's STDIO file descriptors opened on the same device it was reading
and writing to, making it trivial for init to write out error messages....

Is this not how the UNIX SysV kernels start up init?

> One could make a case that the kernel should check for /dev/console
> just before it execs init, and print a warning if it's not there (the
> _kernel_, on the other hand, _can_ print a warning at this point).
> This might save more people than it bothers, even if it does mean
> hardwiring a user-land pathname into the kernel.  (As long as the
> message is just a warning, I don't see this as a serious problem.)
> 
> In fact...expect a PR that does exactly this, soon.  Probably today.

This would indeed help a great bit.  I have no problem with hard-coding
pathnames in the kernel which are also hard-coded in /sbin/init.

However if it's easier to just pass the kernel's open console file as
init's stdin/stdout/stderr, that would be my preferred change -- it
seems far more elegant to me.

Doesn't the kernel already properly hook /dev/console onto whatever is
specified by the EEPROM?

Which reminds me....  What the heck is this /dev/kd stuff the sun3 port
is using now?  Why no just use /dev/console for what it is?  It seems to
mess up headless machines to no end (assuming I've done other things
properly), not to mention that the kernel debugger seems incapable of
hooking on to the EEPROM defined console no matter what.

Now to stretch this thread to its breaking limit -- does anyone know if
the new savecore changes will make kernel dumps work on the sun3?

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 443-1734			VE3TCP			robohack!woods
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>