Okay, I've got further along, but still not completely booted up and 
running.
First off, NFS doesn't work, not even a little bit.  Seems nfs version 
in Linux is incompatible with BSD.  BSD wants version 3, which Linux 
doesn't understand.
I booted from Leigh Brown's disk again, then debian "woody" to get to a 
shell.  I wget'd generic.fs from my Linux box, then dd if=generic.fs 
of=/dev/sda (I assumed, I guess correctly, that /dev/sd0c is the same as 
/dev/sda in Linux)
I rebooted from the sysinst.fs floppy, and continued with your 
instructions.  Everything ran beautifully.  I honestly expected it to be 
harder than it was.
With NetBSD 2.0 burned to cd, I mounted the cd, then installed from 
there.  I answered the questions, then rebooted.

My system is unable to boot from disk.  For some reason, it can't find 
the boot partition and load from it.  I was, however, able to boot from 
the generic.fs which I wrote to floppy.  I guessed correctly that the 
root fs was /dev/sd0a, and that the dump device was sd0b.  I seemed to 
remember old SunOS boxen dumping it's memory image to swap in the event 
of a system panic.
I now have a working NetBSD box.  I still can't boot from disk, but I 
couldn't boot from disk under Linux, either.
Now, I have to figure out how this BSD thing works :-)  Struggling with 
system startup routines (so used to SysVinit), like how to start sshd, 
and how to get X configured (that'll be a doozy).


Many thanks, Jochen


timbo
mailto:tim.gallagher@earthlink.net

Jochen Kunz wrote:

>On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 05:56:26 -0500
>Rongsheng Fang <rfang@cs.gmu.edu> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Just want to make this a little louder: I tried installing the snopshot 
>>(announced by Jochen yesterday) on my 43p-140 last night and experienced 
>>the _exact_ problem Tim had.
>>    
>>
>Yes. Getting a disklabel on the disk is tricky. I mounted a scratch disk
>in my 43P-140 to provide you with an installation log.
>
>I did it this way:
>boot sysinst_com0.fs
>Exit to shell.
>ifconfig pcn0
>mount NFS volume containing distribution sets by hand, then:
>
>You must use sysinst.fs and generic.fs when you want to use VGA console.
>
># dd if=generic_com0.fs of=/dev/sd0c
># fdisk sd0
>[...]
>Partition table:
>0: Linux/MINIX (sharing disk with DRDOS) or Personal RISC boot (sysid 65)
>    start 0, size 2879 (1 MB, Cyls 0-0/45/45), Active
>1: <UNUSED>
>2: <UNUSED>
>3: <UNUSED>
># fdisk -u -1 sd0
>sd0: no disk label
>Disk: /dev/rsd0c
>NetBSD disklabel disk geometry:
>cylinders: 3708, heads: 20, sectors/track: 113 (2260 sectors/cylinder)
>total sectors: 8380080
>
>BIOS disk geometry:
>cylinders: 521, heads: 255, sectors/track: 63 (16065 sectors/cylinder)
>total sectors: 8380080
>
>Do you want to change our idea of what BIOS thinks? [n] 
>
>Partition 1:
><UNUSED>
>The data for partition 1 is:
><UNUSED>
>sysid: [0..255 default: 169] 
>start: [0..522cyl default: 2879, 0cyl, 1MB] 1cyl
>size: [0..521cyl default: 8364015, 521cyl, 4084MB] 
>
>We haven't written the MBR back to disk yet.  This is your last chance.
>Partition table:
>0: Linux/MINIX (sharing disk with DRDOS) or Personal RISC boot (sysid 65)
>    start 0, size 2879 (1 MB, Cyls 0-0/45/45), Active
>1: NetBSD (sysid 169)
>    start 16065, size 8364015 (4084 MB, Cyls 1-521/162/10)
>2: <UNUSED>
>3: <UNUSED>
>Should we write new partition table? [n] y
>
>As you can see there are different fdisk(8) and disklabel(8) geometrys.
>I choose the NetBSD partition to start on a fdisk(8) cylinder boundary.
>IIRC this makes the fdisk(8) stuff more happy.
>
>Now comes the tricky part. We have to write an initial disklabel(5) to
>the disk with default values. Otherwise disklabel(8) will refuse to
>write a disklabel(5) to the disk later.
>
>I changed slice c: to cover the entire disk because I got problems
>writing a new kernel to the disk later. Seems port-prep has some problems
>with MBR partitions as it doesn't reserve partition d: for the entire disk
>as port-i386 dos.
>
># disklabel -i -I sd0
>sd0: no disk label
>partition> P
>7 partitions:
>#        size    offset     fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs]
> c:   8364015     16065     unused      0     0        # (Cyl.      7*-   3707)
> d:      2879         0     unused      0     0        # (Cyl.      0 -      1*)
> e:   8364015     16065     unused      0     0        # (Cyl.      7*-   3707)
>partition> W
>Label disk [n]? y
>Label written
>partition> c
>Filesystem type [?] [unused]: 
>Start offset ('x' to start after partition 'x') [7.10841c, 16065s, 7.84424M]: 0
>Partition size ('$' for all remaining) [3700.89c, 8364015s, 4083.99M]: $
> c:   8380080         0     unused      0     0        # (Cyl.      0 -   3707)
>partition> W
>Label disk [n]? y
>NetBSD slice at 16065, partition C at 0
>Write outside MBR partition? [n]: y
>Label written
>partition> R
>Rounding [sectors]: c
>partition> a
>Filesystem type [?] [unused]: 4.2BSD
>Start offset ('x' to start after partition 'x') [0c, 0s, 0M]: 8c
>Partition size ('$' for all remaining) [0c, 0s, 0M]: 128M
> a:    262160     18080     4.2BSD      0     0     0  # (Cyl.      8 -    123)
>partition> b
>Filesystem type [?] [unused]: swap
>Start offset ('x' to start after partition 'x') [0c, 0s, 0M]: a
>Partition size ('$' for all remaining) [0c, 0s, 0M]: 256M
> b:    524320    280240       swap                     # (Cyl.    124 -    355)
>partition> f
>Filesystem type [?] [unused]: 4.2BSD
>Start offset ('x' to start after partition 'x') [0c, 0s, 0M]: b
>Partition size ('$' for all remaining) [0c, 0s, 0M]: $
> f:   7575520    804560     4.2BSD      0     0     0  # (Cyl.    356 -   3707)
>partition> P
>7 partitions:
>#        size    offset     fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs]
> a:    262160     18080     4.2BSD      0     0     0  # (Cyl.      8 -    123)
> b:    524320    280240       swap                     # (Cyl.    124 -    355)
> c:   8380080         0     unused      0     0        # (Cyl.      0 -   3707)
> d:      2879         0     unused      0     0        # (Cyl.      0 -      1*
>)
> e:   8364015     16065     unused      0     0        # (Cyl.      7*-   3707)
> f:   7575520    804560     4.2BSD      0     0     0  # (Cyl.    356 -   3707)
>partition> W
>Label disk [n]? y
>NetBSD slice at 16065, partition C at 0
>Write outside MBR partition? [n]: y
>Label written
>partition> Q
>
>
>Now start /sysinst.
>
>Choose "Edit the MBR partition table" (do not choose "Use the entire disk")
>but accept the already existing partitions without changing them.
>
>Choose "Use existing partition sizes". Edit the options for the a: and f: 
>slices. Set "newfs" to "Yes", set "block size:" to "8192" (or what ever
>default value the menue presents to you.), set " mount options:" to 
>"softdep" and "mount point:" to "/" resp. "/usr".
>
>E.g.:
> The current values for partition `a' are, 
> Select the field you wish to change:
> 
>                           MB cylinders   sectors
>                      ------- --------- ---------
> a:         FStype:     FFSv1
> b:          start:         8        8      18080
> c:           size:       128      116     262160
> d:            end:       136      124     280240
> e:          newfs:       Yes
> f:  avg file size:         4 fragments
> g:     block size:      8192 bytes
> h:  fragment size:      1024 bytes
> i:          mount:       Yes
> j:  mount options: softdep 
>  
>
>>k:    mount point:         /
>>    
>>
> l: Change input units (sectors/cylinders/MB)
> m: Restore original values
> x: Partition sizes ok
>
>When done with editing the disklabel(5) will be rewitten. Answer "y" when
>disklabel(8) asks to write outside MBR partition. 
>>From here on everything should work without further cheating.
>  
>