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Date:	Mon, 25 Aug 2003 15:37:25 PDT7
From:	Sheridan George <s-geo@usa.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: setting up eCS 1.1

Content Type: text/plain

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butch@fyrelizard.com wrote:

>
>Sheridan said he has a 1.1 GB HPFS partition for memory dump space. It
>has to be as big as main RAM. Exactly what is memory dump space, when is
>it used ?
>
If an application program undergoes a program trap and it (the
application program) chooses not to handle the trap (I believe this is
called a Ring 3 trap), OS/2 will dump the contents of memory (RAM) to a
designated location. Then the dump can be examined by some "smart"
people to figure out what happened.

This option is set by putting this in your config.sys file:
TRAPDUMP=ON, where drive letter is a FAT (not hpfs as
I earlier said) partition called SADUMP that is larger than your total
RAM. (I have 1 GB on this machine.)

Big caution: Make sure you designate a drive_letter because the default
is A: an once the dump starts it cannot be aborted. Putting in a foot
tall stack of floppies would be a grind!

The system will restart once the dump is taken.

For information type: help trapdump at an OS/2 command prompt.

It is possible to trap system traps by putting TRAPDUMP=R0,

I don't know how valuable this is nor do I know if the following two
lines could be put in config.sys:
TRAPDUMP=ON, M: (for aplication dumps)
TRAPDUMP=R0, P: (for system dumps)

and have both types of traps dumped. Perhaps Steven can shed some light
on the subject.

>
>Also, how is the maintenance partition used? Sheridan said he has a
>small one of only 40 MB of HPFS type. What kind of activity or
>information is placed in the maintenance partition? Very basic question!
>
A maintenance partition is a bootable (from BootManager) partition that
can be booted up in case of corruption of your main eCS installation.
Peter gave a good explanation of how he uses a maintenance partition.

I would add one other possibility to his method. If you keep two full
installations of eCS, one of which is designated the maintenance
installation, a small (say 50 MB) partition for a minimal install might
come in handy if simply refreshing the IBM*.ini files from the full
maintenance partition does not get you back on line. You could instead
do a complete copy of the full maintenance partition to the production
partition by booting to the small maintenance partition and doing an
xcopy. That way there are no 'locked files' to worry about and it is
much faster than booting to floppies.

I understand Peter has a 'copy everything' program that is better than
xcopy. Perhaps he will elaborate.

>
>Another item I am fuzzy about is the R partition of HPFS which is RAM disk
>setup in config.sys I am in the dark here. Can you explain, please?
>
I was afraid that would be confusing. I didn't need to mention it since
it has nothing to do with partitioning a hard drive. A RAM disk is
nothing more a program that simulates a hard disk in RAM. I use it to
hold temporary files (disk cache from Mozilla, TEMP and TMP pointers in
config.sys, downloads that I don't intend to keep, floppy disk files so
it is slow only once, etc.). That way all temporary files are
automatically eliminated on shutdown. Sort of like a self cleaning
closet. You would not want to use it for all the things I do unless you
have a lot of RAM. Some of the Mozilla caches can get very big. I have
a lot of RAM (1 GB).

>
>Steven said a GB of a logical HPFS for Boot eCS maintenance.
>Is this the same as maintenance or is it specific to booting?
>
Steven uses his maintenance partition for more things.

That brings up a point I don't remember if I made or not in my earlier
post. My drive C: (applications only) is the only primary partition I
have. All others are logical. (Yes, I know Boot Manager takes a
primary but that is not important to the discussion.)

>
>Is it logical to think of putting the contents of the 3 eCS 1.1 cd's onto
>the hard drive? If there are problems, the installation information on
>the cd's are readiily available easier to install. I am just wondering
>because somewhere in the recesses of my mind I think I read something
>about this with windows.
>
I'll let someone else handle this one.

Sheridan

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