Re (2): [Oberon] Installing Native Oberon

[easlab at absamail.co.za]

......
> > You're done and you haven't touched a CD.

Marius Amado Alves wrote:-
> I'm not sure I understand. Why should I not touch CDs? 

Because you should use 'successive refinement'.
Start with essentials first to lessen you mental load.
Learn to walk before you fly.

Apparently you're installing from inet initially; therefore you are 
starting with a small sized runnable-system.
This you can expand/refine later by adding unzipped extras.

>  I have the files on CD, previously downloaded and burned 
> on another machine, and was planning to install the extras from there, 
> once the core system was in place and booting from the hard disk.
> 
> Last thing I tried was creating a DOS partition (with Linux fdisk), 
> because I see so many references to DOS in connection to Oberon. 
> 
OK, DOS/FAT is the 'bridge' to get Windows and linux files into
n-o [native oberon].  I guess you're using a pc [86x box] ?

> Should I give up on booting from the hard disk altogether?
> 
I've used n-o  aprox. 50*25*8=10'000 hours, and I still don't/can't 
boot except from fd0.    But then I sometimes don't re-boot
until a power outage after weeks.  Depends if you want to *USE* it,
or just show someone how many OS's your HD can boot.

For serious work, you want to have projects open for days or weeks.
When they build an aircraft etc. that takes weeks to complete, they
don't  pack all the parts away every night ?

> /* I'm getting nowhere fast. Later I'll give more detailed descriptions 
> of my attempts to install Bluebottle and Native Oberon, just in case. 
> But I'm this close to give up on Oberon, as I have before on many more 
> or less experimental systems, which seem promising, but fail on this 
> starting process of boot from somewhere, install core on HD, boot from 
> HD. I'm a programmer. Programming is no black art. Why installing 
> systems seems to be one? How hard can it be to make an install program 
> that boots, partitions the disk (and formats or whatever), copies the 
> files, writes a loader on the boot sector or whatever, and be done with 
> it? Sorry, couldn't help it letting some steam off, no reply expected 
> of course. */

You shouldn't [and don't need to] commit you hardware setup to n-o.
I would suggest:
  1st partition for DOS/FAT/Micro$loth because it wants to be in "front" !
   followed by several linux partitions - since you seem to use linux.
   and a dozen partitions for n-o   -  but start with one - at the end/back.
Then when/if you abort your n-o effort, you've lost nothing.

I've got 30 - 40 partitions on some IDEs.
I've always used linux to make the partitions, but I guess n-o will do it.
n-o has a damned good Partitions.Tool which has better functionality
  than various linux: fdisk, sfdisk, cfdisk.   
And I'm still using n-o ver. 2001

n-o doesn't have a directory structure, so to eg. reduce your search
space, you would want to have eg. all you 'medical files' separated
from your 'agriculture files', when you are searching for that article
which you saved last week about potatoe cultivation.

Initially I had one partition for 'Technology' [computer hardware mostly]
then I split 'Telecommunications' off.   Allow yourself flexibility to evolve.
If you start a new project, you can/should put it in its own partition.
Then you'll want a spare set[s] of partitons to cycle-backups into.

For textFiles a 10Mb partiton is BIG. Just think how long it takes to 
read 1Mb.

I see no good reason to imitate the linux structure of URS:, SRC:
although I have partitions: 
  NoDocm: = for n-o documentation
  SrcModls: = for *.Mod, which you only want occasionally.
And I even have an n-o partition for linux-notes, because n-o
is the best [in the world IMO] system to anotate/learn any textual
information.
----------

But this is all irrelevant until you can do the basics:
 read/write/edit files,
 fetch and use some of the *.Tools
 move files to/from other machines via Backup.Tool
     -- perhaps fd0 will be soon obsolete/unavailable ?

Try to do the following:
 open the textFile Install.Tool
 open your own suitably named log file and cutNpaste the relevant
   instuctions from Install.Tool into <yourLogFile> as you do/test them.
And pay attention to the reference to Introduction.Text .
Store <yourLogFile> with your notes as you are learning.

NB. "select" has a special meaning for n-o.
----------

> > An hour or two reading the documentation will
> > save you many hours of grief.
> 
> It seems I did the impossible: I've read the introduction to the 
> interface, the Oberon papers by Wirth, the Bluebottle papers on Active 
> Objects, the install.txt documents--and was able to miss this 
> information.

Because you're unfocused.
Think: 'less is more' - reduce to the minimum essentials.

==  Chris Glur.


PS. you apparently are making good progress if you are emailing
 by n-o ?