Howdy!!

Thank you for writing this!  I have been following the Mac BSD story for 
awhile, and I continually get confused.  Don't get me wrong, I want this 
effort to succeed, and I appreciate the efforts of the alice group, but a 
better explanination of what a person should do and the problems they 
should expect would IMHO go a long way.

James Mclvin Thomas
<tobius@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>
Student Christian Fellowship
1909 University Avenue
Austin, Tx 78705


On Thu, 29 Dec 1994, Erik Bjorling wrote:

> Hello all, I think you all might find this rant interesting and maybe even
> helpful.
> 
> SO I hears abouts this MacBSD thing...
> It lets you run BSD Un*x on the mac.
> Cool I says.
> A friend gives me the cray site as a source.
> cray-ymp.acm.stuorg.vt.edu
> 
> So I FTP there and I find the directory.
> I go to /pub/NetBSD_Mac and I find chaos.
> I read the README. I look around.
> I get both FAQs and Read them.
> I find the 1.0 folder and read that README and the readme.late.
> I grab the 1.0 distribution stuff.
> I grab the latest kernal out of the new kernals folder(It's not new it is
> from before the 1.0 release).
> I install Mac BSD on an 80 meg Quantum partitioned with FWB Hard Disk
> Toolkit after running MKFS.
> Everything installs ok.
> I get mode 32 and put it on my IIx with 8 Megs RAM and a Mac II Video Card
> (Toby).
> I run the booter. I set the options save, quit and boot.
> The system boots. I get Grey bars (Blue if you have color on).
> It hangs. I do this a couple of more times till it works.
> 
> After getting a prompt I go into sh and get the ADB bug after doing an ls.
> But hey this wasnt that bad after 4 Hours.
> 
> So then I went seeking information. I checked out the mailing list archives.
> I read about this and that and newer kernals and newer booters.
> Nobody seems to post FTP sites though.
> Mentions of the 'puma' site wasnt really helpful.
> After going back to June I find a message with the 'puma' URL.
> Also in the archives somewhere I find a couple of other URLs.
> It would be nice if everyone posted the URL of whatever site they are
> referring people too.
> (Im going to have to redo all my hunting as my Hotlist got killed after a
> crash and I lost all those sites I had found :-( )
> 
> Somewhere I see a message about Mac ROM Gluing and I somehow I find a site
> reference somewhere. Turns out that it is in some odd directory (For a
> current version that is) and it includes this Booter 1.6 that everyone is
> looking for.
> 
> All in all this was very frustrating searching high and low for what was
> current what was current for testing and where things were. Obviously this
> stuff should all be in the FAQ, but since there are 2 of them and so many
> things are unknown or unanswered, who knows. The FTP site should be more
> organized if you want more people to get somewhere with this project.
> 
> SO now we get to what I have learned.
> None of the kernals worked on my machine except the 071194.gz one found in
> new kernals on the ftp://cray-ymp.acm.stuorg.vt.edu/ site.
> I thought this was kind of funny. Here I grabbed this one first thinking it
> was the latest and none of the current, semi-current, patched, fixed or
> otherwise, kernals work.
> All of them bomb out for some reason or another.
> Most of them die with the ADB bug right after I get into the shell.
> (Which makes me think it isnt the same ADB bug since there isnt any
> scrolling, mousing or typing going on.) Oh I almost forgot I have the
> original Apple Extended Keyboard and an original mouse, so it aint them.
> 
> DT never worked for me at all. Bus Error.
> Screen 3.5.2 works fine except that the Termcap or something seems screwed
> up for vt100 and vt220 and anything else. I think it is the console. But I
> have no Idea what it is supposed to emulate. All I get with 'clear' or
> while running screen are a bunch of control codes before every prompt and
> bolded text in more or man.
> 
> So Ive got MacBSD running, what can I do with it?
> 
> The built-in console isnt usable, due to the control codes showing
> up/not-working. No one has written a nice little explanation of setup for
> using a serial terminal. I have no clue how the booter's serial terminal is
> set up or what I should do if I turn it on. Someone who has done this
> please jot down the process on both the mac and Un*x sides.
> What about hooking up to a network? I have seen a little blurb on getting
> slip going, but it made litle sense to me as the explanaition of the
> commands was vague. PPP would be better. What about AppleTalk, TCP, Ether
> and so one?
> I know Ether is in the works, but what are the options until then?
> It would be nice to be able to use this box for something, but since I have
> no way to connect and be able to see what I am doing, I am stuck. I cant
> even make an account for myself. vi is like hell in acsii.
> 
> For new people just getting into this I recommend reading all the archived
> messages so you have an idea of what is going on before you go and try
> running anything. At least until the FAQ(s) has been updated.
> 
> I think this project is a great idea and is looking really good so far but
> it seems like there is a lot of confusion and disorganization about it.
> 1.0 behaves more like a beta.
> 
> oh, and if anyone wants a IIx I have about 10 from when I upgraded my company.
> I would consider allowing the developers a chance to use one for testing if
> there is interest. And I am willing to sell one at a reasonable price to
> anyone that wants one.
> 
> Help me make this useful.
> 
> 
>