On Wed, 04 Oct 1995 01:22:23 -0400 
 Ken Hornstein <kenh@cmf.nrl.navy.mil> wrote:

 > >Log Message:
 > >First-cut of hp300 miniroot-based installation tools.  Currently understands
 > >installing from FTP or NFS server, tape, or CD-ROM, although tape and
 > >CD-ROM are currently untested.  Hooks for placing disklabels on additional
 > >disks are there, but meat is yet to be implemented.
 > 
 > I'm just curious .... will this new installation procedure you're working on
 > be in any way applicable to other ports?  I know that of all things,
 > the installation process is probably one of the most machine-specific around,
 > but if other ports could leverage this work, it would be most cool.

It could be easily adapted to other ports, yes.  I made an effort to keep 
machine-dependent goo to a minimum.  Probably the most machine-dependent 
part in the installation script is the regexp's applied to dmesg output 
to determine which devices are there (not much else you can do in a shell 
script :-).

I personally like the miniroot approach, and don't see any reason why it 
couldn't be used on the i386, even.  The hp300's 5mb miniroot might take 
a while to dump to disk over the network (there's a standalone program, 
SYS_INST, that labels the boot disk, copies miniroot from NFS server, 
boots miniroot), but it has lots of regular tools that make getting the 
installation task done a lot easier (like vi(1), for example).

You might find it interesting to just take a look at that stuff ... 
adaptability was in mind when I wrote it, and I know of at least one 
person who is considering using it for another port...I'll let him speak 
up if he wants...

I must say, out of all of the above installation options, FTP is by far 
my favorite ... For people who have access to a network, all you need is 
to d/l the miniroot media, and connect to ftp.NetBSD.ORG or a mirror for 
the actual distribution :-)  (Ok, well I haven't tested _that_ part yet, 
but it's sure nifty on my little network at home! :-)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
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