Changing Kernel Configurations (Strange solution!)

[Kambiz Aghaiepour]

A few days ago I asked for help as to why I got a strange error
message after rebuilding the Kernel.  To recap, after running
/usr/sys/conf/configure, link_xenix, and hdinstall, I would get the
following error message after rebooting :

bn void <number>
bn void <number>
.
:
etc

where the numbers where integers  increasing by one until around the
number 695 or so.  Then the system would hang.

Well, after reloading off of a copy of the Kernel (/xenix.virgin)
(strange that both /xenix and /xenix.old would give the above
message), changing the parameters to their original settings, and
reinstalling the kernel, I was able to boot off the Kernel I was using
before.

I did some further investigating and found the following simple
solution :

I ran the link_xenix script while running the bash (version 1.04)
shell.  Bash is the bourne again shell (by gnu).  It has a lot of neat
additional features and one of them is that things don't always work
like they're supposed to.  (I still use it though, it's great!)  What
bash does is that when it sees a bourne shell script, it runs in the
current shell instead of spawning a ``sh'' for the process.  The
script /usr/sys/conf/netlink which is included in link_xenix is where
the problem occurs.  (I'm not sure where it blows up...it is supposed
to work exactly the same in bash and sh).  Anyway, the fix for it is,
when running bash, run link_xenix (and hdinstall as well to be safe)
as arguments to sh,  i.e.

bash$  sh link_xenix

and things will happen correctly.

---Kambiz
-- 
"If everything in life was easy, then nothing would be easy."
--
Kambiz Aghaiepour @ Transact Software, Inc -*- Los Altos, CA (415) 961-6112 
Internet:   kambiz at mrspoc.Transact.com, cccbiz at bullwinkle.ucdavis.edu \/\/\