On Thu, 23 May 2002, Bernd Sieker wrote:

> why do the install docs for 1.5.2 and 1.5.3_RC1 still refer to the Mac
> OS based installer only, although there is a sysinst-based ramdisk
> installation kernel available, which is probably easier to use, more
> consistent with other ports, and definitely a lot faster than the Mac
> OS based installer.

It is a lot faster, but the partition editor is broken and dangerous.
I just found that if you use "part of the disk", it doesn't even show
you HFS partitions (for "safety"), but then it goes ahead and
overwrites them anyway! It would be safe for upgrades (no partition
changes), except that the a.out to ELF transition goop is missing for
mac68k. Also, no DHCP on mac68k.

> shouldn't at least be the alternative installation method be
> mentioned?
>
> Is there a PR about this or should I file one? Will it be in time for
> 1.5.3?

Yes, there are PR's on the installer for mac68k. Look for yourself

    http://www.netbsd.org/Gnats/

I turned up three in category "mac68k", and in "install", that mention
mac68k,

    http://www.NetBSD.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-single.pl?number=15528
    http://www.NetBSD.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-single.pl?number=10811
    http://www.NetBSD.org/cgi-bin/query-pr-single.pl?number=14085

but there may be more. NetBSD 1.5.3 is supposed to be nearly finished.
I don't honestly think there's time to get it fixed for *1.6*.

I feel it would be cruel to new users to mention it in INSTALL*, as
they're the only one who read the docs anyway, though it is certainly
useful to folks who know what they're doing and are prepared to work
around it's limitations. It's basicly self-documenting, anyway.

Frederick