How Do You Solve the Multi-OS Development Nightmare?

[Ronald S H Khoo]

In article <2289 at artcom0.north.de> pf at artcom0.north.de (Peter Funk) writes:

> Afterwards the OS is installed using 'cpio -icvdumB < /dev/erct0'
> from cartridge tape.

I prefer tar for this, so you can do the same tar tqnf $tapedev ./tmp/_lbl
trick that custom(C) does to make sure the *right* tape has been inserted.
For best results, make sure ALL your tar tapes have a ./tmp/_lbl
label on them so that the check aborts early if the wrong tape is inserted.

WHY ISN'T THE 'q' OPTION TO TAR DOCUMENTED ?  IT'S USEFUL, YOU KNOW.

Don't forget to run fixperm -c <relevant perms files> after that to make
sure that the setup is OK and to create the relevant device files.
BTW If you need to install time configure what devices need creating, an
awk script which generates a perms file is MUCH quicker than running
zillions of mknods!

> unbranded versions of libsys.a

Actually it's libmdep.a
For a complete list, you can do
	grep ser= /etc/perms/*

> Using the standard floppy-disk approach is indeed a nightmare. :-)

Agreed.  I'm dreading having to install ODT like that -- Xenix is bad
enough.  SCO do have a tape based installation media kit for ODT
but they don't seem to like selling it for some reason or other.

>  How do you solve the multiple peripheral device nightmare ?  

I'm not sure I understand what you mean, but I do have several sets of
/usr/sys/conf/{master,xenixconf,link_xenix} -- one for each possible
required driver combination, and all the possibly required .o files get
put on the tape.  Then determine during installation which is required,
copy the appropriate set into /usr/sys/conf,
	cd /usr/sys/conf
	./configure -rw
	./link_xenix
and install the new kernel.

-- 
   ronald at robobar.co.uk | +44 81 991 1142 (O) | +44 71 229 7741 (H) | YELL!
   "Nothing sucks like a VAX"   --   confirmed after recent radiator burst!
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