The following reply was made to PR install/37521; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Alan Barrett <apb@cequrux.com>
To: gnats-bugs@NetBSD.org, netbsd-bugs@NetBSD.org
Cc: 
Subject: Re: install/37521: qemu install from NetBSD-current install
	floppiesfails
Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2007 20:12:20 +0200

 On Thu, 13 Dec 2007, Stephen Borrill wrote:
 > > Another way would be to ensure that the boot loader on the floppy
 > > was built with -DSMALL.
 >
 > Yes. The latter would mean building a different copy of boot though,
 
 I haven't investigated how difficult it would be to use a different
 version of boot for the floppies.  I see the attraction of one /boot
 fits all media.
 
 > >  We might even want a boot.cfg file to make
 > >  "boot without ACPI support" a menu option.
 > 
 > Possibly, though at this point in time giving the option of "boot
 > without ACPI"  would require two kernels to be present in the ustarfs!
 
 I wasn't suggesting that!  I was thinking of having boot.cfg be able to
 send a "disable acpi" command to the userconf editor in the kernel
 (one day when that's possible), or ...
 
 > Or we could just add a small boot.cfg which gives a welcome banner (or
 > is even empty). Though that does seem to be increasing image size for
 > little gain and also I like the idea of one /boot fits all.
 
 An empty boot.cfg adds 512 bytes to the image (the fixed-size ustar file
 header).  I think we could afford that.
 
 > >  Issue C could presumably be fixed in ustarfs.  It could be clever and
 > >  build a table mapping file names to volume numbers, or it could be
 > >  stupid and just ensure that every open attempt searches through every
 > >  volume before reporting failure.
 > 
 > I don't see that the stupid way would solve the problem except that the
 > user would be prompted to reinsert floppy 1 prior to booting the kernel.
 
 Prompting the user to change floppies would at least allow the boot to work,
 though at the expense of some "unnecessary" floppy changes.
 
 --apb (Alan Barrett)