Plan 9 4th Edition Installation Notes

			   Network Install


PRELIMINARIES:

  o Plan9 uses a FAT partition for booting.  Before you boot the
    system for the first time you will have to remove any boot loader
    from the MBR and replace it with a proper MSDOS MBR.  Actually,
    any boot loader that can chain-load DOS will work but save
    yourself a headache on your initial install and go with the
    standard MBR.

  o To replace the MBR on the HD:

      fdisk /mbr (if using MSDOS fdisk)


PLAN 9 INSTALLATION:

  o Go to http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/download.html and
    download a floppy for starting installation.

  o Boot machine using floppy disk.

  o Resolve problems and make adjustments by editing the floppy's
    plan9.ini file.

    Video - Information is probed and written to vgainfo.txt on the
      installation floppy. If your video is not recognized you may be
      able to use this information to add your card to vgadb (vga
      database file) on the floppy.

    Ethernet cards - If your ether-net card is recognized a message
      noting its port, interrupt, and MAC address will be printed to
      the screen when booting.  Some cards are probed OK; others will
      have to be added to the plan9.ini file.  Refer to man pages for
      "plan9.ini".

  o Follow the prompts when rio (the Plan 9 gui) has started.

    partdisk - If the HD is clean and will be 100% dedicated to Plan9
      accept the default partitioning which will be one partition.

    prepdisk - The partition will be subdivided into 3 parts by
      default.

    mountfs - 

    configdist - 

    mountdist - 

    copydist - At this point you will have to give information about
      where to install from--either a local CDROM drive or from the
      internet.

    bootsetup - Always make a floppy boot disk.  HD boots don't always
      work.

    finish - 

    stop - 

  o Now try to boot your system using your floppy. At this point, the
    system will probably not boot from the HD because the loader
    (9load) on the HD doesn't work. After you update the system there
    will be a loader that will work on the HD. Fixing the system to
    boot from the HD is covered in the my Configuration notes.

    At "root is from . . .:" prompt, just accept the default.

    At "user[. . .];" prompt login as glenda with no password. At this
    point you probably have no authentication server set up, so no
    password is appropriate.

  o Now see the Configuration notes.

  o Check the Plan9 Wiki for more info:

    http://plan9.bell-labs.com/wiki/plan9/plan_9_wiki/index.html