Re: me too: invalid memory access early in boot

[Andy Ruhl <acruhl%gmail.com@localhost>]

On Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 9:02 PM, Jay K <jay.krell%cornell.edu@localhost> wrote:
> It seems to be a long standing problem.
> I can try another build next week. I'm away.
> I tried three machines and it happened consistently on two of them.
> Ultimately though I'm afraid the partitioning was a huge problem.
>
> You probably get a lot of similar complaining.
>
> But I've installed Solaris, Linux, HP-UX, Irix, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD,
> NT, all multiple times,
> multiple machines, multiple architectures, (ok, Irix only on MIPS, HP-UX
> only on HPPA and
> maybe only once on one machine).
> NetBSD on ppc seems to be particularly problematic.
> Granted, FreeBSD/ppc does too but they say so.
> The OpenBSD install succeeded.
>
>
> I fiddled with NetBSD/ppc for hours trying to get partioning to work
> and eventually gave up. I think I was able to make it install, but not boot.
> The best/easiest story for booting would seem to be MBR partitioning,
> similar to OpenBSD.
> I don't need to share with MacOS/X.
> (I'd also like just want / label/partition, easy enough in all my other
> installs...)

I'm not a NetBSD developer, just an enthusiast. I've also had
problems, but I feel I need to defend it a bit.

The other BSDs don't claim to support as many machines as NetBSD. If
you have a firmware lower than 3, I think you can't even install at
all on the others (correct me if I'm wrong).

I have an opinion on the direction NetBSD should take, but
unfortunately I can't do anything at this time to make it reality:

I think OF3 support/development should be split away from the rest so
the installer can make a bootable machine on most or all of them, if
possible. OF3 machines can be bought rather cheaply and it would be
great if NetBSD would work on them. OpenBSD works, but I unfortunately
don't agree with the way that OS is packaged at this time, even though
I like it better than all other OSs other than NetBSD.

Oh well, this is life in the open source world. If you want to change
that world, you have to be part of that change or you've got no room
to complain.

Andy