> > > > When you were fighting with the ethernet cards, you were able to use
> > > > your keyboard to get ifconfig results, correct?
> > >
> > > The keyboard works, up until the point NetBSD initialises it in the full
> > > installation.
> >
> > Hm.  Am I to understand that you never actually completed the NetBSD
> > installation until after you spent a couple of days finding a compatible
> > ethernet card?  I assumed that you had installed NetBSD and THEN worried
> > about finding a compatible ethernet card.
>
> I had had NetBSD before but due to a major rebuild and some problems with
> the hardware and disk, had to start from scratch.

...okay.  But am I correct in still guessing that you are able to use the
keyboard when booting with the INSTALL kernel, but lose it when booting
off of the _installed_ GENERIC kernel?

If yes, then it sounds like a good chance that you can get things rolling
with a kernel built using pccons (pc0 in the kernel config).

If no, then things may not be any better now than they were before.


> > One place to get such a kernel is off of your install disk.  I _think_
> > that you should be able to boot the install disk, manually mount your hard
> > disk, copy over the install disk's ``/netbsd'' kernel, unmount the hard
> > disk, and reboot.  (Well, copy it to something like ``/netbsd.new'' on
> > your hard disk, and make sure that it's what you want to use.  (^&)
>
> I will try this...

I assumed that you know how to boot off of a differently-named kernel.  At
the risk of insulting your intelligence:

Interrupt the 5-second countdown prior to booting the kernel.  (You should
be able to do this by pressing the space key, say, while the countdown is
running.)

At the prompt, ype ``boot netbsd.new'', and hit the return key.  (This
assumes that the kernel that you want to use has been copied to
/netbsd.new in your bootable hard disk's root partition.)


> > I don't know what gets removed from INSTALL kernels, offhand, but I would
> > assume that you have everything needed to boot, configure a custom kernel,
> > and build a custom kernel.  (Though if you're on a 486, especially if you
> > don't have a lot of RAM, the later/more-bloated GCC compilers may take
> > forever to build a kernel...then there's disk space issues.  (^&)
>
> Building a custom kernel is something I will do anyway.

Have fun at it, then.  Perhaps someone can recommend a good lower bound on
the amount of RAM that you'll need to avoid thrashing when building
kernels.  (I don't know how much RAM you have, but assume that a 486
machine doesn't have all that much...)


> I hope I can shortly have some success with this.

Good luck.  Let me know if the pccons driver turns out to be the key.


  ``I probably don't know what I'm talking about.'' --rauch@math.rice.edu