Unix v6 Install Scripts
This directory contains tools that install Unix v6 from images of the original distribution tapes. All operations are normally controlled by the top-level Makefile.
Requirements
In order to build this repository, you will need:
- Bob Supnik's excellent SIMH simulator for the PDP-11 (and many other interesting architectures). Your distribution probably has appropriate binaries, but you can find it at http://simh.trailing-edge.com/ as well.
- curl
- expect
Notes and Lessons Learned
The doc/ subdirectory of this repository contains some notes on the
porting process and lessons that I have learned during porting. Some
of this is well-documented elsewhere, but some of it appears to be
lore that perhaps remains only in the minds of Unix hackers from a
bygone era or digital archaeologists like myself.
Pristine-RK
To install a "pristine" v6 image from the original distribution tape
onto virtual RK05 disks, run make pristine-rk. This will create three
RK05 images in images/, containing the root, source, and documentation
images. The only difference between these images and the data taken
directly from the tape image is the creation of some necessary device
nodes in /dev, creation of the directory /usr/doc, and a
modification to /etc/rc to automatically mount rk1 on /usr/source
and rk2 on /usr/doc.
To boot the pristine install after its creation, run pdp11 configs/pristine-rk.ini. At the sim> prompt, type boot rk0 to load
the Unix boot loader. It will prompt you with @, which is waiting for
the name of a kernel. Type rkunix to boot the distribution kernel.
From there, you can log in as root with no password. A sample
interaction follows.
$ pdp11 configs/pristine-rk.ini
PDP-11 simulator V3.8-1
Disabling XQ
sim> boot rk0
@rkunix
login: root
#
RL/RK
To create an RK05 image from the pristine distribution install that is
capable of booting on an 11/40-family machine and can mount an RL disk,
run make rlrk. This will create a new RK05 image in images/ called
rlrk_root.rk05 that has a kernel rlrkunix with RL01 support (RL02
is currently broken). To boot this kernel after its creation, run
pdp11, then set cpu 11/34 256k (or 11/40, if you prefer),
attach rk0 images/rlrk_root.rk05 and then attach an RL01 image of
your choice on rl0. After booting, you can use /etc/mount /dev/rl0 /mnt to mount the image on /mnt.
This image is otherwise the same as the pristine images. The only
difference is the new kernel (and related artifacts) and RL device nodes
for rl0 in /dev.
The RL driver in this image is taken from the "Tim Shoppa" 11/23 RL02
images from the TUHS archive. Because it will not compile on the base
v6 distribution, the file scripts/rl.ed modifies the driver for the
older C syntax. The file scripts/mkconf.ed augments the mkconf
kernel configuration program to understand RL configuration options.
Pristine-RL
To create an RL01 image from a pristine distribution install that is
capable for booting on an 11/40-family machine with an RL01 drive on
RL0 as its boot and root volume, run make pristine-rl. This will
create a new RL01 image in images/ called pristine_root.rl01 that
has a kernel rlunix with RL01 support.
Like the Pristine-RK and RL/RK images, this image is as close to a
pristine image as possible. It contains the sources for the RL
driver, the newly compiled RL-capable kernel, the appropriate device
nodes in /dev, and very little else.
This uses the same RL driver as RL/RK.