On Thu, 5 Feb 1998, Paul Apprich wrote:
> 	After downloading the 1.3 vax sets (56k modems are a must now!),
> extracting them in /usr/netboot/netbsd-vax (my root for the VS3100, wd0a
> was too small for everything), copied the latest gennetbsd kernel to
> /dev/sd0a,renamed it to netbsd rebooted and after doing B /1 DKA0, this is
> what happened: 
> 
> -DKA0
> 
> howto 0x1, bdev 0x2a, booting...done (31448+22260)
> >> NetBSD/vax boot [980110 22:29] <<
> : rom()netbsd
>  83 BOOT SYS
> ?4D DEVOFFLINE
>  84 FAIL

It looks like you copied the boot file into the root partition, otherwise
you wouldn't have gotten that far.  Apparently there are at least two
problems with Vax & NetBSD.  One of them is the graphic console isn't
supported, I assume you are using a serial console?  The other problem is
(I've heard) that you need to use a PIO kernel, because the DMA scsi code
doesn't always work, although I've had some success, I can't really
tell because when I attempt to boot from the internal scsi disk, it
doesn't get as far as initialising the network.  I don't know why because
I havn't yet plugged in a serial console to find out. :)

However, I can successfully netboot from a linux box, and read/write to
the hard disks fine. (With the DMA kernel)

I would REALLY like to be able to use the graphic console though, the only
information I can gather is that the code to handle the text, is stored on
a ROM chip of which the address is lost when NetBSD boots.  Could anyone
knowledgable of the source and vax hardware vouch for the complexity of
adding such support?  Unfortunately I am knowledgable of neither.. :(

Regards,

Dave.