Subject: Creating bootable USB disks
To: None <current-users@NetBSD.org>
From: Alan Barrett <apb@cequrux.com>
List: current-users
Date: 04/30/2007 10:16:52
On Sun, 29 Apr 2007, Blair Sadewitz wrote:
> I think it would be convenient for a lot of people if there were
> images available for booting from USB keys.  [...] mount the ISO image
> as a vnd [...] grub [...] FAT partition [...]

You don't need grub; the NetBSD/i386 /usr/mdec/mbr_bootsel works just
fine on a USB flash drive.  You can also partition the drive with an FFS
partition, so you don't need a FAT partition.  You don't even need to
mount the ISO image as a vnd, but it might be convenient to do so.

I have a strong preference for doing it using tools that are in the base
system (and that are already part of the cross-build tools, or that can
easily be added to the tools).  So no grub.  Apart from that, there are
many ways to do it, and I think it would be useful if you put something
together.

--apb (Alan Barrett)