Re: booting the Gdium

[Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>]

On Mon, Oct 17, 2011 at 09:24:36PM +0200, ??? wrote:
> > No (in fact, if it doesn't find its root device, it's probably because
> > it can't get anything from the pmon variables. It does find its root
> > device on the fuulong). But you can build a kernel where the root device is
> > hardcoded: in the config file, change:
> > config          netbsd  root on ? type ?
> > to match your root device, e.g.
> > config          netbsd  root on sd0 type ?
> >
> > That is neat! So, in fact NetBSD scans available media for BSD-style
> partitions upon boot? That is sweet!

Yes it does, but it doesn't use this to select automatically a boot device,
only to (eventually) find a boot partition once the boot device is
known.

> 
> It is however trivial to configure new variables in PMON, so if you could
> quote some that Fuloong uses, that could also prove useful.

The problem is that, from what I understood, gdium's pmon is so brocken
it's impossible to read pmon variables or command line from the os.

> 
> Am I correct in concluding that NetBSD will not find its rootfs when that is
> placed on an ext2-formatted partition? Since the kernel seems so flexible
> in locating its rootfs, I am betting that was what I observed this weekend.

if you use 'type ?' the root filesystem can be on any filesystem type that
the kernel knwos about. So ext2 should work.

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer%antioche.eu.org@localhost>
     NetBSD: 26 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--