🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <ENTROPY.92Apr13200654@wookumz.gnu.ai.mit.edu> entropy@gnu.ai.mit.edu (maximum entropy) writes:
>Unfortunately, Venix (VenturCom's UNIX for the Pro) reads the Pro's
>ID-PROM and generates some numbers which you were supposed to give to
>VenturCom over the phone to get a code that would allow you to install
>Venix on your machine.  Without the code for your ID-PROM, you can't
>install it.  So, copying Venix is non-trivial.  I doubt VenturCom is
>willing to give out these passwords anymore.  So, your best bet is to
>buy a used Pro that already has Venix installed on it.  If you can
>find one, that is....

I've played with a set of Venix distribution floppies... 

When you boot the build disk (the only one which is bootable) it gives
you the choice of installing venix or popping a shell... If you tell it
you want to install, it goes through the whole password thing. However,
if you choose the shell option it will give you a root shell from the
floppy file system, which is a root filesystem containing what looks
like everything you'd need to do the installation by hand... I.e., mkfs,
mount, tar, and a /dev directory containing device files for pretty much
everything on the system (including the hard disk devices). Not having
a working hard disk or controller, I've never tried this, but I was able
to get directories of and extract some files from all the other
distribution floppies, which are just normal tar-format archives of the
/usr file system and other such stuff. Unless there's something weird
there which will prevent you from doing this, it might be possible to
install the system by hand....

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Eric Volpe                        eric@beastie.colby.edu  or  epvolpe@colby.edu
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