Hi all,

Today, I try to install Plan9 on a Thinkpad T43 laptop.
Unforturnately, this attemp failed at last; there are some difficult,
at least for me, problems I cannot solve. So I am composing this post
to seek help.

The cd image I used is Feb 16 built version, downloaded from Plan9's
official website. It looks different from a previous version I used
to install Plan9 on an old PC. For example, after booting machine
with the cd, there are three options (install, livecd, and debug
livecd) instead.

The first problem I encountered is that DMA could not be enabled
during installation, although I have explicitly enable it when I am
asked. As a result, the copydisc task is executed so slow.
Furthermore, it claims that some files cannot be copied since they
don't exist. I try reinstall the system, but it seems that the
installation procedure prefer to continuing previous installation.
That is, it didn't try to recopy all files from cd and the missing
warnings are still there. At last, I ignored them.

Hello!
On Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:55:14 +0300, Hongzheng Wang gmail.com>
wrote:

AFAIK, Plan9 needs a first free partition for installation. I use Plan9 on
ThinkPad T40 installed in the first partition and boot it with LILO via
'chain' rule.

Hi,

But even for the same install cd and partition scheme, the
installation is success for the first time ( execpt that some files
are missing when system is in use) and could not be booted at all for
the second time. This is really strange :(

Hi John,

Many thanks. Your tip, zeroing the partition mannually first, may
answer the strange thing I encountered during installation. And, I
also prefer to native running Plan9. But an installation without
workable ethernet is quite unacceptable. So I might try the method
Eric recommended first. Alternatively, I will try to config the
previously installed Plan9 to be a CPU server.

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 1:10 AM, csplan9.rit.edu> wrote:

Hongzheng Wang wrote:

is this nic integrated into the mainboard or can it be replaced (some sort
of mini pci slot)? maybe a pcmcia network card will do?

cinap

Using another new network card shoule be ok. But extra cost is needed :P

I got a tullip clone for less than US$ 5

On Feb 20, 2008 12:26 PM, Hongzheng Wang gmail.com> wrote:

Another reason for configuring Plan9, which is installed on another
PC, as a CPU server, rather than struggling with T43, is that I still
prefer to Linux as my daily work platform. Plan9 is, on the other
hand, yet a research and experiment testbed for me.

On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 11:26 PM, Hongzheng Wang gmail.com> wrote:

Hongzheng Wang wrote:

sorry... this is just the simplest obvious thing someone can do... the
other option
would be writing/porting a driver and i guess thats a lot harder.
but maybe here is hope... ron mentiond on irc that he will try porting
ndis-wrapper
to plan9 to get more wlan-hardware supported.

but i would not wait for it... just find a temoprary solution and keep
on... if
here is a better solution in the future, you can switch to it and sell
your replacement
card to ebay or something :-)