On Sat, 14 Feb 1998, Db wrote:

>  "I think you said 'X should work straight out of the box' on a thing
> such
>  as sun3/netbsd. That's funny....it's what I thought as well :) Well, it
>  DOESN'T, ok!? Not yet anyhow." 
> 
	In comparison to i386 X, which is a somewhat involved process,
	installing X on NetBSD/sun3 should be a matter of:
	    - extracting tarfiles in /
	    - adding /usr/X11R6/bin to your path
	    - adding /usr/X11R6/lib to /etc/ld.so.conf
	    - typing xdm :)

	What problems did you encounter?

> [ ...Updated from 1.2 to 1.3... ]
>
>  Noted changes; 
>  
>   netboot still works, it seems now to (more) reliably strap it's NFS
>  parameters (else, it's just more verbose ;), so to does the larger
>  netbsd-rd....though the appearance of device 'md0' (??) seems
>  undocumented in the install docs, however it's safe to ignore it and
>  continue as per the install doc.
>  
	That is the 'memory disk' basically a small filesystem is attached
	to the end of the kernel, allowing it to boot and run from that
	filesystem, all in memory.

>   The mount command now graciously accepts a single option of -r , so
>  it seems true this is fixed in (at least) the netbsd-1.3 port.
>  
	Its always good to hear of things getting better :)

>  
>   People must've optimized the networking code in the netbsd1.3 kernel,
>   or somewhere...tranfer speeds I note are up 80% or so.
>  
>   Hahahaha!!!!  You gotta laugh, trying to boot the 1.3 miniroot image
>   from /dev/sd0b gives this;
> 
> > error: kernel too big for Sun3/50
>  
>    ..hehehehe, last time I looked, sun3/50 was still part of the
>  compatible hardwares list...or did I miss something??  %@@%%@$@!
>  
	Unfortunately the sun3 has a 'hole' in the memory map for the
	framebuffer (IIRC). This means it cannot boot kernels larger
	than 1MB (as you've just found out).

>  Okay...no-prob, substitute the 1.2 miniroot image for the 1.3 version
>  with bloated kernel, and use that...and you guessed it, it works fine
> up
>  to the point of looking in the NFS mounted <dir> containing the install
>  sets, to tell me there's no installable sets in that <dir>. Alright,
> not
>  quite de_ja_vu here...like I say, the netbooter seems to work better,
>  and whereas previously at this point not even FTP install would work,
>  this time it *does* actually do things correctly, and I'm able to login
>  to the machine that is actually the NFS box anyways, and select ALL the
>  install .tgz sets for install....and off it goes, or so I thought...
> > 
>   I notice a few gzip whines about broken pipe...the end of every
>  x???.tgz archive actually. I've checked the archives on this linux box
>  and they gzip -d fine without complaint....but funnily enough, unpak to
>  the same content regardless. Weird.
> > 
>    Remember before I said 'install' couldn't find the sets.tgz even
>  though they were there, but after manually unpakking them, then they
>  **could** be seen by the install script...*EXCEPT* for base12.tgz?
> Would
>  you believe...the ftp install just did the same damn thing just 1metre
>  to my left. Even though I have specified base (or xbase) .tgz to be
>  installed, it just skips on by as though it doesn't exist...no errors,

	Trying to use a 1.2 miniroot to install 1.3 is liable to have
	some problems, not sure of a clean solution here...

>  no warnings....and when it gets out the other side, it goes looking for
>  /dev/MAKEDEV which it doesn't find of course, says curtly;
> > 
> >   ...something is wrong here...
> > 
>    goes on unabated and leaves you with nothing that boots. AGAIN, I'm
>  surely impressed :-)

	I think you are probably stuck until someone can build you a
	stripped down sun3/50 NetBSD 1.3 kernel. You should probably ask
	on this list! (On the likelyhood that some people would not still
	be reading this :)

	At that point you can:

	    - netboot small kernel
	    - run edlabel to confirm your disk partitions.
	      (I'll assume / - sd0a and /usr - sd0e, change as necessary)
	    - 'newfs sd0a ; newfs sd0e
	    - 'mkdir /mnt ; mount /dev/sd0a /mnt
	    - 'mkdir /mnt/usr ; mount /dev/sd0e /mnt/usr
	    - 'cd /mnt
	    - 'for file in /path_to_1.3_sets/*.tgz ; do
	    -   'echo $file
	    -   'tar xzpf $file
	    -   'done
	    - 'cd /mnt/dev ; ./MAKEDEV all
	    - 'cp /netbsd /mnt
	    - 'cp /usr/mdec/boot /mnt
	    - 'installboot -v /mnt/boot /usr/mdec/bootxx sd0a

	At which point you should be installed - I might be a little off
	on the installboot stuff - its be so long since I've done that
	on a sun3 :)

		David/absolute

	"Just because it hurts.. doesn't mean its wrong..."