Re: Upgrading a 90s laptop from 5.1 to 10 -- no FD or CDROM

[Greg Troxel <gdt%lexort.com@localhost>]

"Jeremy C. Reed" <reed%reedmedia.net@localhost> writes:

> On Wed, 20 Dec 2023, Greg Troxel wrote:
>
>>   - beware that 5->10 is almost certainly not going to work.   I have
>>     generally been doing N->N+1 on most machines, but had occasion to do
>>     5->9.  I found that the 9 kernel would not boot.   I then tried 7,
>
> Does this mean the /netbsd 9 kernel itself wouldn't boot (never got to 
> attempting /sbin/init)? 
> Or that that /netbsd 9 kernel couldn't run NetBSD 7 /sbin/init and 
> /etc/rc, etc?
> Or that the /netbsd 9 kernel couldn't run the NetBSD 9 /sbin/init etc, 
> maybe due to some left over NetBSD 5 configs or executables? If so, how 
> did you recover?

It means exactly that I tested doing a 5->9 upgrade on duplicate
hardware, leaving it in the basement and pretending I couldn't walk
down, meaning both not being able to touch the keyboard, power button,
reset button and not being able to see the monitor.  I got into a wedged
state where I couldn't reach the machine enough that I concluded it
would not work.  I then did 5->7 and 7->9 successfully locally, and
remotely.

Fuzzy memory that came back to me is that netbsd-5's ifconfig fails to
run properly with a netbsd-9.  If that fuzzy memory is correct, then one
should be able to unpack the user sets and then be ok.  But I don't like
these sitations of being broken and hoping step 2 will fix it.   I
prefer to see the system usable with the new kernel.

Hence my recommendation to upgrade to 7 and then 9 or 10.  If 10 boots
to multiuser with remote ssh with 7 userland, then sure, install the 10
userland sets.