Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 09:32:18 -0400 From: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> To: "Richard E. Hawkins" <dochawk@psu.edu> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: burn-in floppy for system builders? Message-ID: <3CDBCBE2.5020108@potentialtech.com> References: <200205101306.g4AD6pX1056708@fac13.ds.psu.edu>
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Richard E. Hawkins wrote: > We're in the middle of a *wretched* experience having a system built by > a local company. In short, after their unapproved substitutions and > unbelievably bad job of internal arrangement, the system can't run more > than a few minutes with the case on, or a couple of hours with it off. > Fortunately, the purchase order was pulled before they got paid, and > now we have to deal with the aftermath. > > Anyway, the system was sold without an operating system, which would > have prevented a burnin of the system. I'm wondering if anyone has > gotten around to making a simple disk with an SMP kernel for this > purpose. I've created a CD that does this, but it's not SMP. > As I see it, the kernel would boot and run a single program (or short > sequence) which would: whoa ... > 1) detect memory and the number of processors. Nope, mine doesn't do that. > 2) try to detect hard drives Yes, thanks to the Brazil user's group's LiveCD scripts. > 3) let user insure all drives ID'd and add/subtract if necessary, and > determine how long to run. Err ... well, you can check this manually. > 4) warn if any existing partitions exist on any disks, and allow > avoiding these Again, manually. > 5) partition the disks to use all space Again ... manually. > 6) dispatch test programs: > a) memory tests > b) CPU-sucking processes drawing from random memory locations > c) simultaneous disk tests on all drives, of both random locations > and near-far seeks. > d) keep load on each processor above 4 at all times The CD has memtest, bonnie, and cpuburn installed. These do a nice job of testing memory, HDD and the CPU. But it doesn't do any sort of automatic anything really (except as noted above) It's been a while since I've worked on this "diagnostic CD" project, but if you're interested I could dig up what I had finished and make an .iso image available for d/l. > Output could either be to a disk not to be tested or to a simple line > printer on the parallell port. Output was to console, redirect as you like. > This would create a standard disk that could simply be handed to, or > downloaded by, any old shop building a system, whether they understand > *nix or not. I just don't think you could get all that on a floppy. It fit nicely on a CD, however, and most newer systems will boot from CD. > It doesn't sound to hard to write (though low level scripting is harly > my area! :) If you want a hand at it, grab the LiveCD scripts (search the archive for LiveCD to find the URL). Actually, I have a version I've sort of translated to English (with the help of babelfish) that I could post on the company web site if there's interest, and with the permission of the users group who wrote them. > Would it be practical to modify root.flp to do this as a single disk? > Or can any of the small-system versions (picobsd?) run an SMP kernel > off floppy? Don't know about that. I'm especially unsure about the SMP part ... what happens if you try to boot an SMP kernel on a SP machine? I also wonder if you could fit everything you're asking for on a floppy. -- Bill Moran Potential Technology http://www.potentialtech.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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