Can't install AUX 2.0

[Dan Gerson]

I just got my A/UX 2.0 upgrade, but I can't seem to get it installed.
First off, I was foolish enough to order the floppy disks, and indeed,
that is what I got.  About 32 floppy disks, without a scrap of documentation;
not even a README file!  No manuals, nothing.  The only paper in the box
was the product contents list, which essentially was just the floppies.

Now, the first floppy in the bundle was a MacOS floppy with a version of
SASH setup to boot from another floppy containing a root directory.
Booting this floppy rc's an initialization dialog, which goes ahead and
checks my partitions, creates a file system, and copies over some "critical"
files into the HD root fs.  However, it then says to run read_disk in
the MacPartition (by which I assume it means a SASH command), which in
essence runs either a SASH tar or cpio program.  However, although the
SASH program describes these commands in its help command, guess what,
there are no such programs around.  The floppy distribution did not
include any SASH commands other than launch.  And the A/UX 1.1.1 version
I am upgrading from does not have cpio or tar commands.

So, instead, I was able to boot the old 1.1.1 version, and run cpio there
to read in the third floppy containing the kernel.  Unfortunately, v1.1.1
can't read v2.0 file systems (at least I couldn't mount it although I could
mount the floppies), but I was able to copy the xunix kernel from the
1.1.1 disk to the 2.0 disk using the old SASH cp command from 1.1.1.

Great.  However, the next step is supposed to be booting from the HD disk,
which has a rc file to run the second initialization step.  Unfortunately,
trying to boot the system now reads the kernel correctly in launch, but then
just clears the screen and hangs forever.

I tried various things, such as running kconfig to setup various parameters,
and checking the disk partitions using dp, but everything looks fine, and
yields the same result when I try to boot.  If I get creative, and try
launch -n -r -m -f floppykernel
to try to get it to use the kernel on the Mac partition, but still using
the HD root, it complains that there is no valid root partition.  However,
looking at the BZB entry in the partition map does indeed show that
the root/usr partition is truely a root/usr partition.  At least this does
clear the screen and bring up a console window.

This is all on a MacII with a PMMU installed which runs A/UX 1.1.1 just
fine.  I've tried using an unmodified apple HD SC Setup on an Apple
40MB quantum drive (yes, that is supported in the installation script),
and on a 100MB CMS drive (CONNER) using a patched HD SC Setup.

Anyone else succeed using a floppy upgrade kit?  I have a call into
Businessland corporate sales, who is in turn calling Apple, but there
was not even any Apple tech support info listed, and Businessland has
not come up with any answers yet.

By the way, the problem is not due to the startsysrc or whatever it
is called; I created one which simply creates a file letting me know whether
it got that far, but it doesn't.  This indicates that it is hanging prior
to running the rc script, and that the problem isn't that it is simply
using a serial line or something as the console.

Also, I don't think the problem is with autoconfig, since I've tried
launching with both the -n and the -a flags.

Any clues?