Hi Allan,

sorry to hear your Acorn wouldn't install NetBSD ... i've taken up the
portmastership of NetBSD/acorn32 on me for some time now and i recognize
your problem :( ... you prolly tried to install 1.4.x or 1.5.2 ?

The bootloader problems you've seen are due to a version mismatch 
between the bootloader and the installation kernel.

The old WIMP based bootloader !RiscBSD can't boot new kernels; the new
bootloader !BtNetBSD can boot old as new kernels ... you can find the new
bootloader in ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/acorn32 (or arm32?) ... 
and the newer bootkernels from the 1.5.x release.

On Thu, Jan 25, 2001 at 09:19:31PM +0000, Alan Milford wrote:
> I have a RiscPC 700 (Arm710), with 13Mb of RAM, and I've recently taken
> it upon myself to install NetBSD (mainly because I wasn't happy with the
> firewalling capabilities of linux/arm32 *g*)

Just for sanity... allways put the bigger DRAM in slot 0 ... this avoids 
problems.... 

> After eventaully figuring out how to even start the installation kernel 
> booting
> (by increasing the wimpslot allowed) I find the first message I get is:

looks like the old bootloader yes... or is the new one set too small ?

> I have the latest bootloader (according to ftp.netbsd.org) - is there any
> way I can fix this?

!BtNetBSD (new) ? or !BtRiscBSD (old)

> After the point the bootloader appears to carry on starting up, until it
> reaches:
> 
> "initarm: Primary Bootstrap ..."
> 
> at which point it hangs....

Ouch !! thats a thing i also encountered ... you must be booting a pretty 
old kernel to experience this ! it was a bug that cought me a long time 
ago; it ought to be solved now ....

Please let me know what you tried and what versions you took ... that might 
shed light on the case :)

We are currently trying to get 1.5.3 out and also 1.6 ... these will have
significant performance and utility enhancements and will be totally ELF
based ... would you like to test a snaphot? The difficulty is there will be
a chance you'll need to update it when 1.6 comes out or you'll be out of
sync and in a lot of trouble.... for the kernel API might change in this 
big transition.

Cheers,
Reinoud