Re: The smallest multi-user system

[Derek God3 <derek0godfrey%netscape.net@localhost>]

Speaking of which, I'm somewhat of a NetBSD newbie, but
firstly: is there a better way to "release" smaller distributions. For 
my embedded
box, I only have 30MB of Compact flash, so can't sysinst anything
without modification. The distrib/set is too course for embedded. I
notice the lists have package names in them but I can't tell if these
can be used or not. As a quick hack I added:
if [ -f dist/${setname}_obsolete ]; then
>               cp dist/${setname}_obsolete $SDIR/olist.$setname
>            
>               # we want file only in ilist
>               comm -23 $SDIR/ilist.$setname $SDIR/olist.$setname 
>$SDIR/flist.$setname
>       else
>               mv $SDIR/ilist.$setname  $SDIR/flist.$setname
>       fi
to distrib/sets/maketars and extended the obsolete lists for my platform 
to exclude
stuff I don't want in the sets (but nfs mount back to the distribution 
for debug)
Secondly, MACHINE/MACHINE_ARCH is insufficient for the setups
such as "evbarm" and "evbppc". evbarm can use "machine_cpu" as a 'dimension'
since its one architecture with two different cpus but evbpcc is many 
architectures
with the same cpu. perhaps a MACHINE_BOARD or being able to specify
say evbpcc.walnut as MACHINE or tie in "conf" more formally.

lists%brianrose.net@localhost wrote:

> I am experimenting with creating tiny systems and I have created a 
> system which boots the kernel and starts in single user mode. This 
> system has /dev populated, along with /sbin/init and /bin/sh.
>
> I would like to take the next step and produce a minimal NetBSD system 
> with a login prompt. I did some searching and found a post that was 
> trying to accomplish this very task. However, when I tried it it did 
> not work.
>
> I followed this advice from the following email
> http://mail-index.netbsd.org/netbsd-help/1999/10/30/0004.html
>
> >  Hmm... I think you could get by with (see the man pages for each):
> > 1) a kernel
> > 2) /sbin/init
> > 3) /etc/ttys
> > 4) /usr/libexec/getty
> > 5) /usr/bin/login
> > 6) /etc/master.passwd, /etc/pwd.db, /etc/spwd.db, /etc/passwd
> > 7) /usr/sbin/pwd_mkdb && /usr/bin/passwd (only to change passwords)
> > 8) whatever you want to happen when they login :)
>
>
> When the system boots it still goes straight to the prompt with no 
> login. Also, when calling passwd from the prompt, I get the following 
> error message...
>
> passwd: The file is still busy, try again later.
>
> I'm currently guessing that I need some of the /etc/rc structure to do 
> this. But this is just a guess. I would appreciate any light that you 
> have to offer.
>
> --
> Brian Rose