Re: Regression in -current

[Robert Nestor <rnestor%mac.com@localhost>]

I’ve been doing some testing running NetBSD 9.x and 10.x in a VM environment and have noticed some differences in booting that might be related.   The testing I’ve done was using a fairly recent version of 10.0_BETA so similar results _might_ be present in -current as well.

#
# Install differences between 9.3 and 10.0 in a virtual machine setup
#  installing NetBSD for an amd64. The virtual environment used is KVM
#  in LinuxMint 21.1 runing on an S600 with an Intel i9-12900H
#
9.3: (using distribution CDROM image attached as SATA CDROM)
	BIOS boot - installs and runs fine
	UEFI boot - installs and runs fine
10.0: (using distribution CDROM image - NetBSD-10.0_BETA-amd64.iso)
	CD attached as SATA CDROM:
	    BIOS boot - installs and runs fine
	    UEFI boot - fails to boot - can't find root device
	CD attached as USB CDROM:
	    BIOS boot - fails to boot - no BIOS boot on CD
	    UEFI boot - fails to boot - can't find netbsd image
	CD attached as USB R/O disk:
	    BIOS boot - fails to boot - no BIOS boot on CD
	    UEFI boot - fails to boot - can't find netbsd image on CD
	CD attached as USB R/W disk:
	    BIOS boot - fails to boot - no BIOS boot on CD
	    UEFI boot - fails to boot - can't find netbsd image on CD
10.0: (using installation CDROM image - NetBSD-10.0_BETA-amd64-install.img.gz)
	CD attached as SATA CDROM:
	    BIOS boot - fails to boot - no BIOS boot on CD
	    UEFI boot - fails to boot - no UEFI boot on CD
	CD attached as USB CDROM:
	    BIOS boot - fails to boot - no BIOS boot on CD
	    UEFI boot - complains about CD not being writable for /etc/gettytab
	CD attached as USB RO disk:
	    BIOS boot - fails to boot - no BIOS boot on CD
	    UEFI boot - complains about not being writable for /etc/gettytab
	CD attached as USB RW disk:
	    BIOS boot - fails to boot - no BIOS boot on CD
	    UEFI boot - boots, installs and runs

So, if wanting to install 10.0 with a BIOS boot setup it's necessary to
use the amd64 CD.  For installing with a UEFI boot setup it's necessary
to use the amd64 install image.  I didn't test with the install image
built for BIOS, so the above observations are not entirely complete.

Notes:
There doesn't appear to be any way to get into userconf when booting the
installation images.  Would be nice to have that option during install.

In a KVM virtual environment the keyboard and mouse aren't available until
the kernel gets loaded, so even with an option in boot.cfg to boot up
with the "-c" option, there's no way to use it interactively. This may be
an issue with KVM and not NetBSD as this is the same in both 9.3 and 10.0
and this behaviour isn't present when booting on real hardware.

Because of the above it's almost impossible to get a list of the "gop"
resolutions available.  Adding a "gop" to a boot line in /boot.cfg is an
option, but there doesn't appear to be a way to delay booting the kernel
after this command is executed, so the "gop" display flashes on the screen
before being replaced with the NetBSD boot log display.
  FYI, "gop 23" yields a 1920x1200 screen in my virtual environment.