On Fri, Mar 16, 2001 at 08:55:39AM -0600, george s. wrote:
> i have a centris 660av with netbsd 1.5 installed. this box has a power
> switch on the front. when shutting down from the macos, a dialog appears
> that tells me "it is now safe to turn the computer off" etc. this is a bit
> different than most macs.

Not so much. That's partly a ROM and partly and OS thing, if memory
serves. But many (most? all?) 68k macs behave that way.

> anyway, when i type "shutdown -h now" in netbsd, the os has halts and
> desyncs the disks, etc., and finally echoes "hit any key to reboot..."

Incidentally, that echo is a lie, as far as I can recall: the only
keypress it listens to is the return/enter key (the one not on the
keypad) for some historical reason that maybe made sense on the i386
port ages ago.

So, the next time someone asks you where the ANY key is...

> so i was wondering, is it safe to switch off the machine at this point, or
> should i boot back into the macos and shutdown from there? (i tried doing so
> out of curiosity with apparent success... clean filesystem during subsequent
> booting.)

Nope, switch the machine off. As you noticed, there was no fsck'ing
on reboot, which is largely because there are no file systems
mounted at that point. In fact, sync'ing and then unmounting file
systems you care about is enough to let you flick the power switch,
though it's not exactly good operating technique.

The only reason switching off without shutting down is so taboo in
MacOS is that it doesn't check the file systems after a reboot by
default. (Well, actually, I think MacOS 9+ do, but you're pretty
obviously not running that.) This means you could power down your
computer, lose data, even damage a file system, and not find out
till the OS trod on the damaged portion of the file system and blew
up in your face.

> btw, i'm new to the list and am pretty new to *nix stuff in general. i have
> enjoyed reading through the archives and have found many useful bits of
> information. i'd like to say thanks to everyone who contributes here and to
> the mac68k port as well. netbsd is bringing new life to my old 660av, and i
> am learning a lot in the process!   :)

Incidentally, if I ever get around to shipping the 880AV I've got
here down to Allen Briggs, you might actually get decent DMA
support for your SCSI drives...

(Allen, if you're listening, I've unearthed the machine and have
packing material for it. Should only be another couple of months.
;^>)

       ~ g r @ eclipsed.net