Re: Why does dbootstrap not make a core file?
On Thu, 2002-02-14 at 04:06, Mark Zimmerman wrote:
> One of my tests of dbootstrap (in trying to get past the white screen
> of death) resulted in a register dump to the screen. I was wondering
> why it didn't dump core instead? Is this something related to how
> dbootstrap is built or is it caused somehow by the installation
> environment? I was hoping for a core file in case the builder could
> make use of it.
Well, it would be easy enough to add an option to enable core dumps.
I'm not convinced it would be useful, though:
Dbootstrap doesn't always have a filesystem available that it can
reasonably dump core onto. The only place where there is likely to be
enough space is the target install disk - this isn't accessible at all
during the early stages of installation, and the user might well find it
difficult to retrieve the core dump from there even if one was created -
the machine may not have a floppy drive, and the core may be too big to
fit on a disk anyway. I don't think the root disk includes enough tools
to copy the core away over the network either.
The builder should be able to use the information in the register dump
to get a handle on the problem in most cases. Admittedly the user may
find transcribing it into an email a bit tedious, but at least it's
straightforward to do.
p.
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