guys, I've got this little problem - no! not that one!

Here's the situation.

I've got a dual-processor 125Mhz Hypersparc SS10 I want to install
NetBSD onto.

On the SS10, I only have ethernet access, a 1GB hard drive, and the
floppy drive.  So I tried to install it using the floppy disks, and
installing off the 'net.   I can get things to work great when loading
the first floppy, but it goes downhill big time when I try to use the
second floppy.  The system gives me a continuous stream of floppy disk
errors 10 and 13, and finally gives up.  Once that occurs, it won't even
eject the disks until I reset the machine.  I know the diskettes are
good, and have made them with all the NetBSD images from 1.6.1 down to
1.5.6, but they all give me exactly the same error (even the same number
of errors).  This system had (has?) Debian (ug!) installed on it, which
seems to run OK, and is able to work with the floppy without errors or
anything, so I assumed it was just a problem with the boot disk images.

No problem, you say - Try doing an install from the miniroot.  I
started Debian in single user, ftp'd the miniroot down and copied it
onto the start of the swap partition.  It loads fine, runs through all
its initial stuff, but then says it can't mount the root fs.  No amount
of work seems to allow it to mount, even if I try to mount a floppy, or
the Linux partition.

So I decided to do a Net boot.  This actually looks the most promising.
 I have rarpd setup, it works great.  Have tftpd setup, which works
fine, and downloads the boot image to the SS10, every time, no problem. 
Have our DHCP server setup to handle this workstation, it works fine,
assigns and allocates all the right info to the SS10, no problem.

Heres where the problem begins.  Our network does not use the same
server for DHCP as it does for NFS.  I have the rarpd, and the tftpd
servers both running on a Linux machine (the same one that handles NFS),
however, our DHCP server is on a DIFFERENT machine (in fact, its not a
machine at all, but is built into our network hub).  Diagnostics from
the hub show that the SS10 is trying to do a NFS mount from that
machine, and as far as I can tell, from that machine only.  The info I
have on the DHCP setup shows that I can list the machine to load the
image from in the boot filename string, but it doesn't seem to evaluate
it.  How do I tell the SS10 to do the NFS mount from the NFS machine,
instead?

Or, is there another way to boot this thing?

David Dudley
david.dudley@starblade.com