[Info-vax] SET DEF and Other Questions Regarding DIR on a Different Hard Disk?

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2013-01-25 16:21:49 +0000, haziz said:

> I am comfortable with Unix but am a complete newbie when it comes to 
> VMS. I am trying to install OpenBSD on DKA300 on a VaxStation 4000 
> Model 90.

Knowledge of Unix will be of little assistance in general, and I don't 
mean that to be rude.  Please do not attempt to use knowledge of Unix 
systems, when starting with VMS.   You will get frustrated.  Please 
take the time to skim the User's Guide — yeah, I know, nobody ever 
bothers to read the documentation — it'll answer questions like you 
have here, and it'll also supply you with the terms and concepts used 
by VMS — and then go read the User's Guide and then either the 
Programming Concepts or the System Manager's manuals — depending on 
what you're looking to do, after you get an introduction.  The VMS docs 
are pretty good, they're free, and you can probably skim through them 
in fairly short order.  VMS is not Unix, and VMS is very different from 
Unix.

The HP OpenVMS documentation: <http://www.hp.com/go/openvms/doc>

A direct link to the User's Manual PDF: 
<http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/731FINAL/DOCUMENTATION/PDF/OVMS_731_USERS.PDF> 


> I am logged in as SYSTEM on an OpenVMS 6.2 install on DKA0 and would 
> like to figure out what is installed or present on DKA300, before 
> formatting it to accomodate OpenBSD. DKA100 and DKA200 seem to have 
> separate installs of OpenVMS 7.2 and 7.3 respectively. I would like to 
> maintain the OpenVMS installs on the other drives since I may wish to 
> eventually explore VMS.
> 
> SET DEF DKA300: followed by DIR gives an error message or does nothing 
> (sorry I am not in front of the machine).

SET DEFAULT DKA300:[000000]

000000.DIR is the root directory.

VMS is not Unix.

Alternatively, you can specify a whole pile of directories with most 
any of the common DCL commands.  For instance:

DIRECTORY DKA300:[*...]*.*.*

Again, VMS is not Unix.

> 
> How do I explore the root directory on DKA300 and any subdirectories it has?

The User's Guide gets you going, and VMS is NOT Unix.  (Noticing a 
pattern here?)

DIRECTORY DKA300:[*...]*.*.*
DIRECTORY DKA300:[directory-name-here...]*.*.*
DIRECTORY DKA300:[000000...]*.*.*
DIRECTORY /PAGE DKA300:[*...]*.*.*

> How do I figure out the free space on a drive?

SHOW DEVICE D/FULL

> 
> I am using a VT520 terminal.

Please use a terminal emulator here.  The old fossil-grade terminal 
interfaces might be pure 1980s-vintage tech, but they're a pain in the 
rump by current standards.

A VMS workstation configuration or a terminal emulator on the serial 
line will have cut-and-paste and scroll buffers and any number of other 
useful ("modern") features.

> How do I examine output that has scrolled by? Is there a pager program 
> for VMS like less or more on Unix?

There's not a generic one.  Not the way Unix implements this stuff.  
Better to use a terminal emulator via serial line.  Many commands have 
/OUTPUT to write to a file, and /PAGE to page output.  If you can't 
access those qualifiers, then V7.1 and later can use the PIPE command 
for some stuff.  Here's an example using DIRECTORY:

PIPE DIRECTORY | TYPE /PAGE SYS$PIPE

Though DIRECTORY has /PAGE and /OUTPUT and other qualifiers.

Again, VMS is not Unix.

> Is DKA300 definitely sd3 on OpenBSD, I would hate to format the wrong drive.

Donno.  Could be, but that depends on how BSD identifies the SCSI 
stuff.  You can xxd the disks and look for the VMS disk and volume 
headers; you'll usually see ASCII strings with something like 
DECFILES11 in the first few blocks, as shown below...  To be absolutely 
certain, you can disconnect the disks.

xxd
.....
00003c0: 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 2020 2020  ............
00003d0: 2020 2020 2020 2020 5641 5856 4d53 3037          VAXVMS07
00003e0: 3220 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020  2
00003f0: 4445 4346 494c 4531 3142 2020 0000 970d  DECFILE11B  ....
....

If you're lucky, then some variant of the file command might work.  The 
following is from a local Unix box, checking a disk image containing a 
VMS disk volume structure:

$ file vaxvms72cd.iso
vaxvms72cd.iso: Files-11 On-Disk Structure Level 2 (ODS-2 OpenVMS file 
system), volume label is 'VAXVMS072   '
$


> After briefly looking at the websites for NetBSD and OpenBSD on the 
> Vax, OpenBSD looks more promising (easier install of more packages in 
> what will be initially a non-networked machine). I am using a CDROM 
> drive to perform the install.  Any reasons why to prefer NetBSD over 
> OpenBSD on this system. I suspect that I will ultimately install both 
> if I can figure out how to accomodate both on this machine without 
> wiping the three OpenVMS installs already present. Each hard drive is 
> 2.1 gigs.

In general, you're better served by using VMS on that VAX box (or on an 
emulator,as those can be vastly faster than a real VAX), and using BSD 
or Unix on a more mainstream hardware platform.

This is an OpenVMS newsgroup and not a newsgroup frequented by BSD 
users.  Put another way, this question is roughly equivalent to asking 
Microsoft Windows users about their opinions on Linux distros.  You 
might get an answer, or you might not.  Best to ask BSD questions of 
folks that use BSD distros; on one or two of the BSD-related irc 
channel, for instance.


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