On 11/15/05, Michael L. Hitch <mhitch@lightning.msu.montana.edu> wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Nov 2005, Debee Norling wrote:
>
> > The VAX-specific ISO images I download from
> > ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/iso/ do not appear to be bootable, even
> > though the readme states:
> >
> > >The following architectures will boot directly from CD-ROM:
> >
> > Vax is included in this list. I also tried the i-386 ISO just to check =
and
> > it also has no kernel image in its root directory. I tried both the 2.1=
, the
> > 2.02 and the 1.62ISOS. Vaxes in my house which boot the VMS CD fine won=
't
> > boot any ISO I build from the official NetBsd site. I've tried several
> > Vaxstations, 3100s and 4000s. All have working SCSI CD-ROM drives.

Perhaps the key word here is "build".  You don't build ISO CDs from
your download.  You just copy the image because it has already been
built.

>   I just downloaded the 2.1 vaxcd.iso and mounted it on my laptop:
>
> dhcp101$ sudo vnconfig -c vnd0d vaxcd.iso
> dhcp101$ sudo mount -t cd9660 /dev/vnd0d /mnt
> dhcp101$ ls -l /mnt
> total 1969
> -r--r--r--  1 root  wheel    34840 Oct 25 09:18 CHANGES
> -r--r--r--  1 root  wheel   252043 Oct 25 09:18 CHANGES-2.0
> -r--r--r--  1 root  wheel   126337 Oct 25 09:18 CHANGES-2.1
> -r--r--r--  1 root  wheel   374432 Oct 25 09:18 CHANGES.prev
> -r--r--r--  1 root  wheel      274 Oct 25 09:18 LAST_MINUTE
> -r--r--r--  1 root  wheel     1471 Oct 27 10:04 README.files
> -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel    62648 Oct 25 13:59 boot.vax
> -r--r--r--  1 root  wheel  1161319 Oct 25 13:59 netbsd.vax
> dr-xr-xr-x  3 root  wheel     2048 Oct 27 10:21 shared
> dr-xr-xr-x  4 root  wheel     2048 Oct 27 10:21 vax
>
>   So the root directory does have the kernel image [netbsd.vax] and the
> boot program [boot.vax], and the first 512 bytes of the image appear to
> contain the VAX boot information
>
> > I do know that I have to be able to write 512K sectors (blocks), and am=
 not
> > absolutely sure my CD writers are doing that. But I'd think that the ro=
ot
>
>   Uh, no - you do not write 512 byte blocks.  The CD is still written wit=
h
> 2K byte blocks.  It's the CDROM drive that translates to 512 byte blocks
> (which is any random CDROM drive will not work on the VAX).

Yes.  Somewhere even in Windows-based CD burning programs there will
be the option to just copy an already-built image to the CD writer.=20
It may be hard to find, and is not the default action.

    carl
--
    carl lowenstein         marine physical lab     u.c. san diego
                                                 clowenst@ucsd.edu