Subject: A few limiting factors
To: None <port-mac68k@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Aaron Mansheim <a-manshe@runet.edu>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 07/30/1996 17:25:21
I now have MacBSD installed and running on my Mac. I even have
PPP, lynx, and serial logins, some of my biggest intermediate goals.
But I have a couple problems that are fundamental to my use of MacBSD.
Are they easy?

1. Filesystem: /usr/bin ends up screwy after fscks.

Are crashes that wreck the filesystem a problem for others?
If not, why not?

I have two partitions for MacBSD, swap and root&usr. A couple times
I've been unable to figure out my way back to the prompt, so I was
forced to reset the machine. Once I was trying things with chat and
cu; another time I was running a make that failed. I suppose if I'd 
had another terminal, such as via dt, I would have been fine. But
I'll get to that in a minute.

After these resets I booted single-user and ran fsck. The first
time I went through this, I agreed with fsck that it should delete
some programs such as /usr/bin/rcsmerge that were apparently in
unallocated blocks. After that they were gone. Within a couple days
I newfs'd and installed things all over again; soon after I
found myself in the same position. This time I did not agree that
fsck should remove those programs. They showed up, but some had
bad permissions, owners, and modes and some ls wouldn't list,
saying "bad file descriptor". One affected program was tset.
Now whenever I find permissions that don't do what I think they
should, I wonder if the files involved got stomped.

I can expect occasional crashes if only due to unexpected storms
and accompanying power outages. If I lose stuff on the disk every
time, even stuff that wasn't being touched at the time, I'll be
very disappointed. 

2. dt: too big, too small, not just right

Where do I get a binary just right for my system, or else
how can I manage to compile one?

It seems clear that everyone with MacBSD should have dt.
Well, I sorta do.

I've tried the dt binaries in version 1.0.1 and version 1.1.4
distributions. But on my SE/30 internal video, 1.1.4 displays
a blank screen; 1.0.1 works but has a keymap obviously unsuited
to my machine. I tried recompiling 1.0.1 telling it to use my
machine/keyboard.h but couldn't get grf to compile -- I get
cc1 internal error 11. Maybe I'm short on memory (5 Mb RAM, 12 swap).

PS: with 1.0.1 my keys type letters right and most everything else wrong:

<1234567890+@  >!"#$%&/()=?`
 qwertyuiop{~'  QWERTYUIOP[^*
 asdfghjkl|}    ASDFGHJKL\]
 zxcvbnm,.-     ZXCVBNM;:_

3. su: hears me knocking but I can't come in

When I su from my account, which is included in group wheel according
to passwd and group settings, why does the system say 'Sorry'?

At first I didn't have myself listed under wheel in /etc/group,
so it would tell me I wasn't in the correct group to su root.
But I fixed that. I could always log in as root, but a) that is
deprecated and b) in conjunction with dt it would be better to su.