9 Aug
2019
9 Aug
'19
12:59 a.m.
On Thu, Aug 8, 2019 at 7:43 AM Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
On Wed, Aug 7, 2019 at 12:40 PM Warner Losh <imp(a)bsdimp.com> wrote:
Just checked the archives. V7 had a stand alone program to restore a
filesystem image form the tape to the disk that you ran after running the
stand alone program to partition and newfs the disk... I think you are
right on your timeline. I installed a dozen Sun3 boxes from tape and hated
mistyping the file number and having to start over...
This obviated the need to copy a filesystem to a
new disk's swap space
and then use that to really install the system.
Thanks for the reminder. I don't remember if V7 on the PDP-11 used the
swap space (but I don't think so). That said, I fairly sure that by BSD 4.1
the boot loader did, which I think is when that trick was first added to
boot phase.
Again, it was all about trying to get rid of the
special /stand version of
things. Funny, history would move on and we come back to that idea with
busybox 🤔
Well, busybox is special in many ways, so there's that in common with
/stand, but it runs under a full otherwise standard kernel, not as some
special mini-exec that provides just enough of the unix APIs to keep the
standalone programs happy.
Warner