The idea of using an RA81 drive as it is bigger sounds like a simple solution, but does it actually give a larger /usr partition? Even though an RD54 drive is not huge, most of it is not taken up by the root partition plus the /usr partition, but is available for use as (on the video at least) /user1.
I will give it a try after the weekend and see what happens. Cheers Peter Allan On Fri, 20 Aug 2021 at 17:38, Ethan Dicks <ethan.di...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Aug 20, 2021 at 11:50 AM Peter Allan via cctalk > <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > I just installed Ultrix-11 3.1 using the ultrix31.tap file from > > https://pdp-11.org.ru/files.pl?lang=en > > which is the location from the comments in Stephen's Machine Room video > on > > YouTube that I think started this thread. > > > > It installed just fine, but just like the video, I ran out of space on > /usr. > > /usr was usually tight back in the day. > > > How can I make a larger /usr partition? Is it possible to do this at > > installation time? There did not seem to be an option for this. Can it be > > done by using an additional disk? That would seem likely, but not what a > > system manager back in the 70's or 80's would expect to need to do, > > especially as there is a relatively large amount of space left to create > > /user1. > > In the 70s and early 80s, it was not at all uncommon to have multiple > disk drives mounted to add up to enough space, especially to put user > files on their own device to keep them from competing with free space > in the system areas. Also, older, smaller disks were often cheaper > than the newest/largest disk drives, or systems would be put together > from repurposed hardware rather than purchasing new. For a single > data point, my employer bought a new RA81 in 1984. For 424MB it was > $24,000. Most machines had a _lot_ less disk in those days. Our main > UNIX machine was an old 11/750 (2MB RAM) with 2x RK07 (28MB each). It > was quite a jump when I put Ultrix 1.1 on an 11/730 w/RB80. The CPU > was 30% slower, but it had 5MB of RAM and a 121MB disk, so as a > machine that spent most of its time with a single user (me), it was > fine. > > When disks were routinely 1-30MB (RK05... RK07 or RP03), it was > totally common to have 2-3 disks on a machine. > > All that said, I looked over this install write-up and it seems to > assume you have one disk and it slices and dices with default sizes... > > > http://ftp.fibranet.cat/UnixArchive/Distributions/DEC/Fred-Ultrix3/setup-3.1.txt > > I've installed older versions of UNIX where you had to explicitly set > up disks and partitions (where you _could_ resize partitions). Prior > to restoring the contents from tape. That didn't appear to be as easy > with this installer script. > > > I noted the options for installing software using soft links to other > > locations. Was that the preferred method when installing additional > > software? > > That was done, as was mounting an entire second disk for /usr. One of > the challenges is making sure you have enough tools accessible on the > boot device to bring the machine up far enough to mount the additional > devices. This is part of why there are system tools in /bin, > /usr/bin, etc. You could depend on the contents of /bin being there > before /usr was mounted. Also, traditionally, programs in /bin were > statically linked so that you didn't have to have specific libraries > available at the time. > > The simplest solution, of course, is just get a bigger disk, but where > that wasn't possible (which was most of the time), people did use soft > links or multiple spindles to aggregate enough space to get by. > > Back in the day, I struggled to get enough disk space to install > 2.9BSD on an 11/24. Two RK07s would have been a luxury. I had an > RL02 (10MB) and I think maybe an RL01. I could get the initial > restore to work but I didn't have enough space to rebuild my kernel. > > -ethan >
