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Last modified Fri Nov 11 13:03:40 EST 2005
The initial bootstrap of a new operating system on new hardware is often problematic. Here follow some suggestions that might help you clear some hurdles.
First, check the supported PC hardware list to make sure the hardware you're running is supported.
Your plan9.ini file must be an accurate description of the machine. The first line of defense is therefore to look at the plan9.ini file and edit it. The floppy is a DOS floppy, so you should be able to edit plan9.ini from a Windows machine or other system.
9load(8) is the program that loads and starts the kernel. It needs to find and load the kernel, based on plan9.ini and the hardware it can discover. The last line 9load prints before loading the kernel is
entry: 0x80100020
If you don't see that line, then your problem is with 9load. In this case, you can turn on debugging by typing a control-R at any time while it's running. Even if the debugging output doesn't help you, what's printed might help others, so make notes.
If there are problems during the boot of the CD, try some combinations of the boot parameters: sdXX!cdboot!9pcflop.gz, where: C0 is Primary Master, C1 is Primary Slave, D0 is Secondary Master and D1 is the Secondary Slave.
On some Linux systems and running in vmware4, it seems 9load hangs at bootup, before it finds plan9.ini. When 9load starts running at physical address 0x10000, and later at 0x80010000, in order to find configuration information, it searches all units on devices fd and sdCn, in that order, for a file called plan9\plan9.ini or plan9.ini on a partition named dos or 9fat. Unfortunately, if you are running vmware 4 under GNU/Linux, and you have loaded the scsi-ide emulation layer in linux (maybe to use your CDRW), 9load will probably hang. In order to solve the problem, you need to use an iso image for you cd drive virtual device, making sure the iso image does not contain a dos partition. VMware comes with a linux.iso sample image (/usr/{whatever}/lib/vmware/isoimages/linux.iso), which can be used in this rare situations.
The first line the kernel prints is the CPU identification. For example, you might see:
cpu0: 40 MHz GenuineIntel 386SX
If this (or a similar) line is printed, your problem is with the kernel rather than 9load. (If you see the entry: line above but not the cpu0: line, it could be either 9load or the kernel causing trouble.)
If the kernel hangs after printing "kfs...version...time...", something in the startup scripts has failed. To see each command before it is executed, add the line "debug=1" to your plan9.ini. Also, while the kernel is hung, press the following: Ctl-t, Ctl-t, p. This will print a process listing. Look for the few lines with the largest numbers in the first column, and note their names (the names look like kfs, ipconfig, genrandom). That will help determine which program is hanging.
If the kernel reboots before you get a chance to read what is on the screen, you might try attaching a serial console and adding the line "console=0" or "console=1" to send kernel output to DOS's COM1 or COM2 as well as the screen. The serial console will run at 9600 baud, 8-bits, no parity, and 1 stop bit.
If the kernel gets running but the VGA doesn't turn on, you may need to play with the screen settings.
If the screen goes black and you see nothing, aux/vga (see vga(8)) thinks it recognizes your video card, but either the monitor settings being used are incorrect or aux/vga doesn't really know everything it needs to program your card. In this case you might try a smaller screen resolution, starting at 640x480x8 and working up. A 640x480 screen is perfectly adequate for the installation. If you are using an LCD, you should use the exact size of the LCD; aux/vga sometimes has problems stretching smaller resolutions on LCDs.
If the kernel doesn't switch into VGA mode but continues to run in CGA mode, along with a complaint along the lines of "no frame buffer" and a shell prompt (%), the system doesn't recognize your video card at all.
Aux/vga will have left a hex dump of your VGA BIOS memory on the screen VDA cards are identified by matching text in their bios with the list of know strings in /lib/vgadb. If your card is not identified it may only be because it has different text in its bios (E.G. a different copyright message), or it may be wholy unsupported (see Supported PC hardware).
Look through the strings in the hex dump for a text string which describes your card, write this down together with the address it starts at. Now create a RAM /tmp file system and edit /lib/vgadb using the venerable ed(1) editor. Search for a similar entry, and append your new one after it.
ramfs ed /lib/vgadb 28683 /Stealth/ 0xC0045="Stealth 64 Vers. 1.05" a 0xC0045="Stealth 64 Vers. 2.03" . w 28712 q
You will now be able to restart the install process by typing
aux/vga -l $resolution^'x'^$depth rio -i /bin/inst/gui
If your Card is not supported but you can find out the exact chip type -- such as by looking in the hardware manual, the Display Properties in Windows 95, 98, or NT, or the configuration information used by a Unix-like system -- see if /lib/vgadb supports it. You can then add an entry for that device as above, however adding an BIOS string to a random chip type type is unlikely to be successfull.
If you have other video cards, it can't hurt to try a different one.
Before invoking aux/vga to start the VGA, the floppy boot script writes the output of "aux/vga -vip" to the file vgainfo.txt in the root directory of the floppy disk. It also writes the output of "pci" to the file pci.txt. Both are useful for debugging unrecognized cards.
The boot disk uses the vgadb file from the root directory of the floppy disk as /lib/vgadb, to make it possible to edit on other systems. Note that vgadb now identifies cards both using BIOS strings and using PCI identifiers, the latter being the preferred method of identification since it is more general.
Sometimes it suffices to add some information to /lib/vgadb; if you find this to be true, please let us know so we can update our master database.
The Installer can run in text mode if your video card is not detected, but for reference here is an old guide of how to do a manual install in text mode:
If your system prints "no physical memory" during the installation but you have at least 32MB of memory, then perhaps your BIOS is not reporting it in a way that Plan 9 understands. Some BIOSes have an option to "report alternative memory". Try toggling it. (If that doesn't work, the *maxmem= entry in plan9.ini(8) will override anything the BIOS reports.)
If you encounter troubles booting plan9 from lilo, see troubleshooting plan9 & lilo.
As a last resort, look in the comp.os.plan9 archives, ask in comp.os.plan9, or mail the Bell Labs Plan 9 trouble line 9trouble@plan9.bell-labs.com.
If you mail 9trouble, please include the contents of plan9.ini(8), vgainfo.txt, and pci.txt from your boot floppy, as well as any hardware information gleaned from other sources.
Finally, if you resolve a problem via some method not listed here, edit this page (see bottom) to tell the world about it!
