On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Mipam wrote:

> On Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 08:21:26AM -0500, Webmaster Jim wrote:
> > I'm trying to upgrade an old machine I have (AMD 486x133) that has been
> > running NetBSD 1.3.2.  Something seems to be wrong with the floppy
> > interface (2 drives have not been able to do i/o on the system).  I
> > thought perhaps I could put a netbsd-INSTALL 1.5 kernel on the root
> > filesystem and do "boot netbsd.INSTALL" but that gives a load error
> > (wrong file type, I think).
>
> Perhaps that netbsd.INSTALL is an elf bin while you netbsd
> uses a.out.

The boot blocks were already ELF-capable by 1.3.2. I think the
problem is that the INSTALL kernel doesn't have the ramdisk in it.

Jim -- You could try mounting one of the boot floppies on a vnd and
copying the kernel out. [See install/9654.] Something like...

    vnconfig vnd0 boot-big.fs
    mount /dev/vnd0d /mnt

> For example the passwords files in /etc. Aint sure whether they're
> overwritten as well, while untarring etc.tgz

Well, when you do the sysinstall upgrade, it just moves your old /etc
to /etc.old, and minimally configures the new /etc with the hostname
and ip address you gave it from the "configure network" menu.

> Then, the programs from pkgsrc installed in the 1.3 are a.out
> They wont be changed, but i guess that's no problem.

You should take care not to let your old a.out shared libraries get
overwritten by ELF ones of the same name. I would "escape to shell"
before unpacking the sets, and copy them all to the appropriate place
under /emul/aout. E.g.:

    mkdir /wd; mount /dev/wd0a /wd
    mkdir -p /wd/emul/aout/usr
    mkdir -p /wd/emul/aout/usr/X11R6
    cd /wd/usr/; pax -r -w -pe -v lib /wd/emul/aout/usr/
    cd /wd/usr/X11R6; pax -r -w -pe -v lib /wd/emul/aout/usr/X11R6/
    exit

("exit" should put you back into sysinstall). All untested!


Frederick