MGR and getting it going...

[Brent Burton]

**THIS MESSAGE IS ABOUT MGR RELATED STUFF -- FAIRLY LENGTHY***

Well, I've finally downloaded the mgr stuff and also the vidpal emulator.
I've moved the current /etc/inittab and /etc/rc to inittab.old and rc.old.
The inittab and rc files that came with the mgr distribution were moved
into /etc.

I edited the net /etc/inittab so that it is:
is:2:initdefault:
rc::bootwait:/etc/rc >/dev/null 2>&1
 con:2:respawn:/etc/getty console 9600
:vid...
:ph0...
:ph1...
:000...

The difference is that I've eliminated the getty processes from tty000
and from ph0.

In the /etc/rc file I've added a bunch of

echo xx: just before yyyyyy >/dev/console

where xx is the line number and yyyyyy is a 'topical' part of /etc/rc so
I can trace execution of /etc/rc to find problems.

So when I reboot the machine, the typical OS Version, memory, and MB revision
appear, but then the interesting problem starts.

Nothing appears on the screen, but when you type something, rectangular boxes
made up of asterisks move up the screen with text in hot pursuit -- the text
belongs inside these rectangles like windows, I think.  By pressing the
special keys (help, msg, exit...) on the right side of the keyboard, more
text appears.  This looks like, from my very distorted images of it, like
a text-based UA running.  When I press the Exit key, it goes away and
the next "echo" trace statement in my /etc/rc file is printed.

What is this program??
(I've looked, and when you exit this program I 
get a trace print just before the keyboard setup part of /etc/rc.  It appears
that those files in /etc that are started with a for... loop start this
program up; specifically, .phinit which runs /etc/ph.  Is this ph the
mystery program??)


Next, after /etc/rc finishes, the normal welcome and login messages appear.
However, the next trick is logging in.  At login: I enter 'root' but no
matter which login I use, it immediately returns with "login incorrect."
Is it not reading the passwd file or what?


Standard Questions:

1) Has anybody  else had this happen?
2) what'd you do?

-----
I'd like to get this vidpal emulater cranking so I could try out mgr.
However, I'd like first to be able to boot my machine and not have the
window driver load up.

_ANY_ hints are appreciated!
             +----------------------+--------------------------+
             | Brent P. Burton      | n138ct at tamuts.tamu.edu   |
             | Texas A&M University | Computer Science/Physics |
             +----------------------+--------------------------+