20 Aug
2021
20 Aug
'21
11:50 a.m.
I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from
https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en
which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video on
YouTube that I think started this thread.
It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on /usr.
How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at
installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be
done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a
system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do,
especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create
/user1.
I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other
locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional
software?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Peter Allan
20 Aug
20 Aug
12:20 p.m.
On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 9:50 AM Peter Allan via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible
to do this at
installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be
done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a
system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do,
especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create
/user1.
Ultrix-11 is old-school Unix. This means that it uses hard-wired partitions.
It's based on the controller that you use. So for an RD54 connected to an
RQDX3 would use the rq_sizes entry from dksizes.c:
/*
* Sizes for RD31/RD32/RD51/RD52/RD53/RD54/RX50/RX33 disks.
*/
struct rasize rq_sizes[8] = { /* RQDX1/RQDX2/RQDX3/RUX1 */
9700, 0, /* RD31-32,51-54 root (swap+error log -
rd51) */
17300, 9700, /* RD32/RD52/RD53/RD54 /usr */
3100, 27000, /* RD32/RD52/RD53/RD54 swap + error log */
-2, 30100, /* RD32/RD52/RD53/RD54 user files */
-2, 9700, /* RD51 /usr */
3100, 9700, /* RD31 swap + error log */
-2, 12800, /* RD31 /usr */
-1, 0, /* RD31-32, RD51-54 entire disk */
};
* Note - nblocks has two values with special meaning:
*
* An nblocks value of -1 specifies a partition length of
* the size of the entire disk minus the partition's
starting
* block number. In other words, the partition ends at the
* end of the disk.
*
* An nblocks value of -2 specifies a partition length of
* the size of the disk minus the size of the maintenance
* area minus the starting block number of the partition.
* In other words, the partition ends at the start of the
* maintenance area.
So a RD-54 is
* RD54
* +-----------------------+
* | 0 9700 root |
* | |
* +-----------------------+
* | 1 17300 /usr |
* | |
* | |
* +-----------------------+
* | 2 100 error log |
* | 3000 swap |
* +-----------------------+
* | 3 281068 user |
* | |
* | |
* | |
* +-----------------------+
* | 32 maintenance area |
* +-----------------------+
* 7 311200 (user = 311168)
*
and that's what you get. You could change the rq_sizes array, but that's
tricky to set up...
It's a lot easier to use a RA81 instead. It's 450MB instead of the 150MB
the RD54 in the
example and gives plenty of room.
You could also use a RA80 instead. It's a little smaller than the RD54 at
120MB, but it
as a 20,000 block /usr instead of the kinda tiny 17,200 block area of the
RD54. The RA60
is also an option at 200MB with the same 10MB /usr.
Warner
P.S. Kudos to the anonymous DEC employee that drew all the pictures for
each of
the supported disks in dksizes.
12:24 p.m.
On 8/20/21 11:50 AM, Peter Allan via cctalk wrote:
I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap
file from
https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en
which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video on
YouTube that I think started this thread.
It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on /usr.
How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at
installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be
done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a
system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do,
especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create
/user1.
I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other
locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional
software?
That worked for me.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Peter Allan
bill
12:53 p.m.
Bill;
I started this thread by asking what I thought was a simple question
about Ultrix-11.? Yes, I am trying to install and learn about this
fascinating piece of old software.
Some of the folks who have posted know much more about Unix than I do
and I am learning and enjoying this.
I just tried using the f77 compiler to see how it works.? It is really
outdated and wouldn't recognize some accepted f77 items.? Even under
SIMH it is slow!? But the load libraries are there.
There is a plot command in there that will drive a Tek 4014 graphics
terminal.? Eager to find out how that works.
In the long run I would like to see if it can run on real pdp11 hardware
and support multiple terminals/users.? Just for fun!
Doug
On 8/20/2021 12:24 PM, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
On 8/20/21 11:50 AM, Peter Allan via cctalk wrote:
I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the
ultrix31.tap file from
https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en
which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room
video on
YouTube that I think started this thread.
It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space
on /usr.
How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at
installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can
it be
done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a
system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do,
especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create
/user1.
I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other
locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional
software?
That worked for me.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Peter Allan
bill
1:33 p.m.
On 8/20/21 12:53 PM, Douglas Taylor via cctalk wrote:
Bill;
I started this thread by asking what I thought was a simple question
about Ultrix-11.? Yes, I am trying to install and learn about this
fascinating piece of old software.
Some of the folks who have posted know much more about Unix than I do
and I am learning and enjoying this.
The fun doesn't begin until you get to doing overlays. :-)
I just tried using the f77 compiler to see how it works.? It is really
outdated and wouldn't recognize some accepted f77 items.
Of course it is outdated, it comes from the late 70's. But I don't
understand what F77 items it would not recognize. It was based on
what was considered the most complete implementation of the then new
F77 standard dated April 3, 1978. Are you sure you are not trying to
use items from later standards?
Even under
SIMH it is slow!? But the load libraries are there.
I am sure Ultrix-11 could be tuned to get more speed. As for SIMH,
speed depends on what you run it on. Under SIMH I would expect it
would be the same speed running on an 11/23 as on an 11/83.
There is a plot command in there that will drive a Tek 4014 graphics
terminal.? Eager to find out how that works.
In the long run I would like to see if it can run on real pdp11 hardware
and support multiple terminals/users.? Just for fun!
I have run it on 11/23, 11/24, 11/73, 11/93 and 11/44 real hardware.
Using RL, RD and RA disks,
I still have some but it is usually easier to set up a SIMH entity
than a real hardware machine, even though I still have a number of
them.
bill
12:38 p.m.
On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap
file from
https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en
which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video on
YouTube that I think started this thread.
It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on /usr.
/usr was usually tight back in the day.
How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible
to do this at
installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be
done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a
system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do,
especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create
/user1.
In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple
disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user
files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space
in the system areas. Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper
than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together
from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new.
For a single
data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984. For 424MB it was
$24,000. Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days. Our main
UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each). It
was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80. The CPU
was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a
machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was
fine.
When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was
totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine.
All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to
assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes...
http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.…
I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set
up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions). Prior
to restoring the contents from tape. That didn't appear to be as easy
with this installer script.
I noted the options for installing software using soft
links to other
locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional
software?
That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr. One of
the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the
boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional
devices. This is part of why there are system tools in /bin,
/usr/bin, etc. You could depend on the contents of /bin being there
before /usr was mounted. Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were
statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries
available at the time.
The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where
that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft
links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by.
Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install
2.9BSD on an 11/24. Two RK07s would have been a luxury. I had an
RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01. I could get the initial
restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel.
-ethan
1:14 p.m.
On 8/20/21 12:38 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote:
sadly, using an RA81 still only gives you:
/dev/ra01 9598 2849 6749 30% /usr
On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via
cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
test1# df
Filesystem total kbytes kbytes percent
node kbytes used free used Mounted on
/dev/ra00 4606 3080 1526 67% /
/dev/ra01 9598 2849 6749 30% /usr
/dev/ra03 423041 8773 414268 2% /user1
/dev/ra17 440941 3678 437263 1% /user2
/dev/ra27 440941 2 440939 0% /user3
/dev/ra37 440941 6 440935 0% /user4
I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the
ultrix31.tap file from
https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en
which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video on
YouTube that I think started this thread.
It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on /usr.
/usr was usually tight back in the day.
How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it
possible to do this at
installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be
done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a
system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do,
especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create
/user1.
In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple
disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user
files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space
in the system areas. Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper
than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together
from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new. For a single
data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984. For 424MB it was
$24,000. Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days. Our main
UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each). It
was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80. The CPU
was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a
machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was
fine.
When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was
totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine.
All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to
assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes...
http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.…
I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set
up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions). Prior
to restoring the contents from tape. That didn't appear to be as easy
with this installer script.
I think the intent of the Ultrix-11 3,x install is to make it as
simple as possible to get a system up and running on the hardware
available in the day and then with time and experience one could
create more advanced systems. I hope, eventually, to make a system
with four RA81 disks with root and usr occupying entire RA81's and
two more for User files.
I noted the options for installing software using
soft links to other
locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional
software?
That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr. One of
the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the
boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional
devices. This is part of why there are system tools in /bin,
/usr/bin, etc. You could depend on the contents of /bin being there
before /usr was mounted. Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were
statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries
available at the time.
The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where
that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft
links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by.
Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install
2.9BSD on an 11/24. Two RK07s would have been a luxury. I had an
RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01. I could get the initial
restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel.
Those were the days. Sadly, most people in the business today know
nothing about them.
bill
3:46 p.m.
On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 1:14 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
Yes. I was around in this era and learning to do a from-scratch
install was an ordeal. DEC did package things up with a set of
questions (vs knowing which lines of which files had to be
hand-edited) and incorporated all the supported disks and tapes and
serial muxes, etc. All DEC, of course, so if you had 3rd-party
hardware you were out in the wilderness (we provide such a 3rd-party
intelligent serial device into this environment so I know how hard it
could be). If you had a standard DEC box, it was fairly push-button.
That was part of their magic. It mostly worked.
http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.…
I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set
up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions). Prior
to restoring the contents from tape. That didn't appear to be as easy
with this installer script.
I think the intent of the Ultrix-11 3,x install is to make it as
simple as possible to get a system up and running on the hardware
available in the day and then with time and experience one could
create more advanced systems. I hope, eventually, to make a system
with four RA81 disks with root and usr occupying entire RA81's and
two more for User files.
Wow! That's way bigger than our biggest machine at work in 1993. We
had that 11/750 (that I upgraded to 8MB including adding the extra
memory address line on the backplane) and it pinged back and forth
between VMS 4.5 most of the time and Ultrix-32 3.something as needed
for customers. It had a dedicated Fuji 160MB drive that mapped as two
RM03s and a Fuji Eagle that used the RM05 device entry but patched for
full capacity (400MB) plus that $26,000 RA81 - Total of just under 1GB
on 3 spindles and two controllers (Unibus and CMI bus). When this box
was running UNIX, I was the only user so I usually did that off-hours
so everyone else could use VMS for workday tasks.
sadly, using an RA81 still only gives you:
/dev/ra01 9598 2849 6749 30% /usr
Tiny!
Those were the days. Sadly, most people in the
business today know
nothing about them.
The forgetting of this environment is why recently there's a push to
collapse all UNIX system binaries into one place because "kids today"
have never been on a system where the operating system is spread
across multiple spindles for space/cost/performance reasons. Everyone
is used to massive drives where the OS takes up 1% or less of the
entire disk and you only really worry about space for logfiles or
/var/tmp so that userland programs that leave big messes don't crush
the boot volume with endless spewage.
With variable-zone disks (1990s tech) people stopped bothering to try
to tweak performance on cylinder boundaries because you used to have
14 heads and track-to-track switching was 10X faster than stepping.
Some parts of the old UNIX dance I do not miss. ;-)
-ethan
21 Aug
21 Aug
6:48 a.m.
On 2021-08-20 13:14, Bill Gunshannon via cctalk wrote:
On 8/20/21 12:38 PM, Ethan Dicks via cctalk wrote:
Yeah, tell those kids, which have now 1/2 TB on their phones ;-)
I was musing about it, when I noticed few days ago, that a picture file
of a decent camera this days is larger, than my RL02 was back then :(
Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk
space to install
2.9BSD on an 11/24.? Two RK07s would have been a luxury.? I had an
RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01.? I could get the initial
restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel.
Those were the days.? Sadly, most people in the business today know
nothing about them.
20 Aug
20 Aug
4:25 p.m.
The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger sounds like a simple
solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition? Even though an
RD54 drive is not huge, most of it is not taken up by the root partition
plus the /usr partition, but is available for use as (on the video at
least) /user1.
I will give it a try after the weekend and see what happens.
Cheers
Peter Allan
On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 17:38, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via
cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the
ultrix31.tap file from
https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en
which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video
on
YouTube that I think started this thread.
It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on
/usr.
/usr was usually tight back in the day.
How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it
possible to do this at
installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be
done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a
system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do,
especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create
/user1.
In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple
disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user
files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space
in the system areas. Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper
than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together
from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new. For a single
data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984. For 424MB it was
$24,000. Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days. Our main
UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each). It
was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80. The CPU
was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a
machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was
fine.
When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was
totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine.
All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to
assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes...
http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.…
I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set
up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions). Prior
to restoring the contents from tape. That didn't appear to be as easy
with this installer script.
I noted the options for installing software using
soft links to other
locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional
software?
That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr. One of
the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the
boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional
devices. This is part of why there are system tools in /bin,
/usr/bin, etc. You could depend on the contents of /bin being there
before /usr was mounted. Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were
statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries
available at the time.
The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where
that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft
links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by.
Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install
2.9BSD on an 11/24. Two RK07s would have been a luxury. I had an
RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01. I could get the initial
restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel.
-ethan
5:02 p.m.
On Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 2:26 PM Peter Allan via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
wrote:
The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger sounds
like a simple
solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition? Even though an
RD54 drive is not huge, most of it is not taken up by the root partition
plus the /usr partition, but is available for use as (on the video at
least) /user1.
I will give it a try after the weekend and see what happens.
I was going to try tonight. The dksizes.c table suggests that it is 10MB
instead of 8.5MB on the RD54. Yet someone else said it was smaller, so I
wanted to check....
Warner
Cheers
Peter Allan
On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 17:38, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.…
On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via
cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
be
I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the
ultrix31.tap file from
https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en
which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video
on
YouTube that I think started this thread.
It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on
/usr.
/usr was usually tight back in the day.
> How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at
> installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it > done by using an additional disk? That would
seem likely, but not what
a
> system manager back in the 70's or
80's would expect to need to do,
> especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to
create
/user1.
In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple
disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user
files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space
in the system areas. Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper
than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together
from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new. For a single
data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984. For 424MB it was
$24,000. Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days. Our main
UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each). It
was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80. The CPU
was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a
machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was
fine.
When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was
totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine.
All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to
assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes...
I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set
up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions). Prior
to restoring the contents from tape. That didn't appear to be as easy
with this installer script.
I noted the options for installing software using
soft links to other
locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional
software?
That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr. One of
the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the
boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional
devices. This is part of why there are system tools in /bin,
/usr/bin, etc. You could depend on the contents of /bin being there
before /usr was mounted. Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were
statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries
available at the time.
The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where
that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft
links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by.
Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install
2.9BSD on an 11/24. Two RK07s would have been a luxury. I had an
RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01. I could get the initial
restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel.
-ethan
23 Aug
23 Aug
5:11 a.m.
Thanks Warner and Ethan. That is very helpful.
I had not realised that the partition sizes were REALLY hard wired - as in
set in the code. That explains why there is no option to set the size at
installation time.
I will redo the installation with that in mind.
Cheers
Peter
On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 22:03, Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:
On Fri, Aug 20, 2021, 2:26 PM Peter Allan via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger
sounds like a simple
solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition? Even though
an
RD54 drive is not huge, most of it is not taken up by the root partition
plus the /usr partition, but is available for use as (on the video at
least) /user1.
I will give it a try after the weekend and see what happens.
I was going to try tonight. The dksizes.c table suggests that it is 10MB
instead of 8.5MB on the RD54. Yet someone else said it was smaller, so I
wanted to check....
Warner
Cheers
Peter Allan
On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 17:38, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.…
On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via
cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from
> https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en
> which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room
video
on
it be
YouTube that I think started this thread.
It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on
/usr.
/usr was usually tight back in the day.
> How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at
> installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can > done by using an additional disk? That would
seem likely, but not
what a
> system manager back in the 70's or
80's would expect to need to do,
> especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to
create
/user1.
In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple
disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user
files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space
in the system areas. Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper
than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together
from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new. For a single
data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984. For 424MB it was
$24,000. Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days. Our main
UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each). It
was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80. The CPU
was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a
machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was
fine.
When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was
totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine.
All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to
assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes...
I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set
up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions). Prior
to restoring the contents from tape. That didn't appear to be as easy
with this installer script.
I noted the options for installing software using
soft links to other
locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional
software?
That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr. One of
the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the
boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional
devices. This is part of why there are system tools in /bin,
/usr/bin, etc. You could depend on the contents of /bin being there
before /usr was mounted. Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were
statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries
available at the time.
The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where
that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft
links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by.
Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install
2.9BSD on an 11/24. Two RK07s would have been a luxury. I had an
RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01. I could get the initial
restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel.
-ethan
20 Aug
20 Aug
6:30 p.m.
On 8/20/21 4:25 PM, Peter Allan via cctalk wrote:
The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger sounds
like a simple
solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition?
By default, no.
/dev/ra00 4606 3080 1526 67% /
/dev/ra01 9598 2849 6749 30% /usr
/dev/ra03 423041 8773 414268 2% /user1
I used partition 3 which is the rest of the disk not used by Ultrix-11
and then did the symbolic link thing in the installs.
Even though an
RD54 drive is not huge, most of it is not taken up by the root partition
plus the /usr partition, but is available for use as (on the video at
least) /user1.
That is true, but I seem to remember that even then it is not enough
space for a full install. And I plan to put the sources on as well.
I will give it a try after the weekend and see what happens.
It's all good fun. But, as I said, the real fun doesn't begin until
you go to build a new kernel with more features in it.
bill
6:45 p.m.
On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 4:30 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk <
cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 8/20/21 4:25 PM, Peter Allan via cctalk wrote:
Which controller did you use for the ra81?
Warner
The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger
sounds like a simple
solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition?
By default, no.
/dev/ra00 4606 3080 1526 67% /
/dev/ra01 9598 2849 6749 30% /usr
/dev/ra03 423041 8773 414268 2% /user1
7:17 p.m.
On 8/20/21 6:45 PM, Warner Losh wrote:
On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 4:30 PM Bill Gunshannon via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org <mailto:cctalk at classiccmp.org>> wrote:
On 8/20/21 4:25 PM, Peter Allan via cctalk wrote:
Because it's an 11/44 it defaults to UDA50. I could not figure out
how to make it a KDA50 on a Qbus machine.
test1# newfs
ULTRIX-11 New File System Program
For help, type ? or help, then press <RETURN>.
Command < exit help newfs table >: table
ULTRIX-11 System's Disk Configuration:
X = disk not configured, NED = disk configured but not present.
Disk Cntlr Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit Unit
Cntlr # 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
----- ----- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
UDA50A 0 RA81 RA81 RA81 RA81 X X X X
Command < exit help newfs table >: exit
test1#
bill
The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger
sounds like a simple
solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition?
By default, no.
/dev/ra00? ? ? ?4606? ? 3080? ? 1526? ? 67%? ? /
/dev/ra01? ? ? ?9598? ? 2849? ? 6749? ? 30%? ? /usr
/dev/ra03? ? ?423041? ? 8773? 414268? ? ?2%? ? /user1
Which controller did you use for the ra81?
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