Sun Minix Fix Package 1

From: Paul Ashton <paul@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz>
Subject: Fix package 1 for Solaris Minix 2.0.0
Date: Wed, 10 Sep 1997 11:24:44 +1200

I have put together a small package of fixes for Solaris Minix 2.0.0
(the version on the CD-ROM distributed with Tanenbaum and
Woodhull, and the version currently available via FTP).
The fix package is available from the web.  Start at my main Solaris 
Minix page (http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~paul/smx.html),
then follow the link to the "smx blurb".  The smx blurb page
contains links to a compressed tar file containing the fixes, and
to the README file that is part of the compressed tar file, and is
also a good place to start if you don't know what Solaris MINIX is
and would like to know more about it.

The start of that README file is included below to indicate the
problems addressed in the fix1 package:

Manifest

./README (this file!)
./doc/smx.tex
./doc/smx_ps
./src/Solaris/combine
./src/Solaris/make_map_file
./src/Solaris/mcc
./src/lib/sun4/sndrec.s
./src/kernel/sunprotect.c


The following fixes are included:

1. smx relies on using the standard ld (/usr/ccs/bin/ld).  Some people
have had problems installing smx because some other version of ld was
being picked up from the search path.  Errors of the following type were
commonly observed:

ld: fatal: library -lresolv: not found

doc/smx{.tex,_ps} contain a version of the smx documentation that
documents the fact that smx requires /usr/ccs/bin/ld.


2. In smx 2.0.0, three of the smx Solaris programs are csh scripts
(combine, make_map_file and mcc).  This created various difficulties
for some installers who did not have appropriate csh dot files setup.
A common symptom of this problem is the following message from the
minix Solaris command:

minix: Unable to load program 1
        Run make in src/tools to ensure that all ld map files are
correct

Consequently, I decided to rewrite the three scripts as Bourne shell
scripts.
The three new scripts are included as
src/Solaris/{combine,make_map_file,mcc}.


3. A bug in sndrec.s meant that when minix was launched from the
Bourne shell the whole session was aborted.  A new version
of sndrec.s is supplied in the file src/lib/sun4/sndrec.s.


4. Cache consistency problems on some sparcstation models (1s, 2s,
SLCs, ELCs and similar) caused smx to crash or behave strangely on
such machines during the boot sequence or shortly thereafter.  
A fix is provided in the form of a new version of
src/kernel/sunprotect.c.


-- 
----- Paul Ashton ---- 
-- Computer Science, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
--
Email: paul@cosc.canterbury.ac.nz
URL: http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~paul