Various questions about SunOS/Sparcstation.

[Jesse W. Asher]

I just recently started working with a Sparcstation 1+ running SunOS 4.1.
I must say that the experience has been a pleasurable one.  But I've
accumulated a list of questions that I was curious about - if anyone can
help me, I would appreciate it.

1) How can I find out what the different fields in EEPROM mean and are
   used for.  I've read the man page for eeprom, but the descriptions are not
   very illuminating.

2) Why would umount say a filesystem is busy when every indication says it
   is not?  I was trying to unmount a filesystem used exclusively for user
   logins and umount kept saying the filesystem was busy.  I was logged in as
   root at the console and no one else was logged in.  I ran fuser to see
   what/who was using it, but came up empty handed.  No programs are in the
   filesystem so they couldn't be running.  I finally had to shut down the
   system in order to unmount the filesystem.  What could be causing this and
   how can I get around it the next time it occurs?

3) Is the installation tape mountable?  I would like to take a look at the
   contents of the installation tape, but have been unable to do so as of
   yet.  How can I look at the contents and what is the format of the
   installation tapes?

4) I would like to execute programs for everyone that logs into the
   system.  I'm running AT+T SysV at home and I know that /etc/login and
   /etc/cshrc are run before $HOME/.login and $HOME/.cshrc.  Are their
   similiar files on SunOS?  What program looks for .hushlogin and prevents
   motd from being displayed (or what causes motd to be displayed for that
   matter)?

5) Last one.  I like to make what I call "emergency boot floppies" for all
   systems that I work on.  I really can't do that with the Sun because the
   kernal itself in 1.4MB (I don't want to use munix, but rather the actual
   kernal being used on the system).  Can I make a bootable tape that I can
   mount the hard drive onto?  If so, how can I do this?  I found the
   commands to format floppies and hard drives, but not tapes.  Any
   suggestions?

Thanx again for any help and thanx for reading this whole thing!  Whew!
Long one.

P.S.  Is there a FAQ for this newsgroup?  If there is, could someone send it
to me please?  Thanx again.

[[Ed's Note: Put that on the '91 wish list. :) -bdg]]

      Jesse W. Asher                             Phone: (901)382-1609 
               6196-1 Macon Rd., Suite 200, Memphis, TN 38134
                UUCP: {fedeva,chromc,rutgers}!dynasys!jessea