Sorry if this is a repeat; I had some problems sending this,
and it looks like it bounced.

Re. http://mail-index.NetBSD.org/netbsd-users/2004/01/19/0013.html

Wow.  That's a lot of questions.  (^&

Welcome to NetBSD, first.


You should be able to upgrade to -current.  The easiest upgrade
process is to backup important stuff and do a full re-install.  (Though
that is also in some ways the least efficient; your computer system
only becomes usable after you complete the (re)installation and begin
to put any important backup files into place.)

Your question about HTTP and ISOs gets a bit overlapped.  I'm not sure
if there is any standard place offering HTTP for -current binaries.
As for ISOs, I do not know that those are actually made in any consistant
manner for -current.  (There were a few port-amd64 snapshot ISOs last
year, but when I look for i386, I don't see any.)

Perhaps someone tracking -current on an i386 will offer an ISO on a
web-page, if there is no official ISO.  Or maybe the i386 maintainer
will offer up an i386 ISO.

(It *is* possible to get NetBSD via a 56K modem.  I've done it.  (^&
NetBSD is much more lean than some other systems.)


As for pkg_add, I think that it can support URLs for packages to
install.  But, I don't know...  I tried pkg_add about 5 years ago,
and used it for a while.  But binary packages are painful, and it
turns out that the source side of the NetBSD package system (from
which pkg_add gets its binary packages) is *so* much easier to use.

The one downside, if you are from behind your no-FTP firewall, is
that pkgsrc gets the source "distfiles" for packages from whatever
place the package indicates---often at an ftp:// address.

However, from your home system, I strongly recommend using pkgsrc
if you can.


Installing NetBSD concurrentsly with LINUX should be easy.  I've
done it before.  I think that it should also be okay with FreeBSD,
but I vaguely remember (years ago) hearing that there were some
problems because NetBSD and FreeBSD had overlapping notions of
how the disk should be partitioned.  (Can anyone supply any details?
Or have all such problems been solved?)

The biggest thing is that NetBSD (and I assume FreeBSD) uses its own
internal partitioning scheme.  You first need to partition the disk
so that other operating systems see the NetBSD block(s) as reserved.
Then you need to tell NetBSD to use just that part.  (You can share
files between the operating systems, though.  NetBSD can mount file-
systems that are on parts of the disk that don't really "belong" to
it.)

The second issue is that, at least with NetBSD, you may have to
supply precise information about where the partitions begin and
end.  I think that some other systems can inspect a disk and
determine that more automatically.

This also ties into your final question:

To mount the LNIUX partitions (since it looks like the Live
CD has figured out your layout automatically---which is a
bit of a surprise to me, but a welcome one):

mount -t ext2fs /dev/wd1g /mnt

...*should* (I think) mount the third LINUX partition.  I
haven't done that in a while, so I might have the "-t ..."
parameter wrong.

As for installing NetBSD onto that partition...well, if you
install NetBSD onto it, that partition will be replaced with
the NetBSD install.


X and mice: My memory is that XFree86 tended to get the mouse
configuration wrong in the 1.5.x NetBSD days.  Make *sure*
that your XF86Config file has "wsmouse" for the protocol,
*not* "ps2" or some such.  XFree86 tended to get the device
right but the wrong protocol.

(In the NetBSD 1.3, and I think 1.4, days, there was no wsmouse,
so you had to get the right driver and the right protocol.
This got a lot easier for NetBSD when wsmouse was added.  (^&)

As for whether you want /dev/wsmouse or /dev/wsmouse0, that
depends.  If you use /dev/wsmouse (no 0), then you can plug
in multiple pointer devices (e.g., a USB trackball) and the
various "mouse-like" events from /dev/wsmouse0, /dev/wsmouse1,
etc., will be merged into one event stream: /dev/wsmouse.

(At least, this is true of NetBSD 1.6 and later; I don't
remember if it worked so autmatically on 1.5.x.)

I would think that that should be the preferred default.
But, for some reason, I think that XFree86's autoconfigure
decides to use /dev/wsmouse0, so you only get support for
the first pointer device that the NetBSD kernel finds.
(This is a moot point if you only have one pointer device,
but it's nice to be able to plug in more without having to
unplug the old one or reboot.)

Another problem may be that you have the "wrong" kind of
PS/2 mouse.  There were 2 or 3 types.  NetBSD supports
them all, I believe, but in NetBSD 1.5, you had to have
a kernel that was built for your type of mouse.  One is
in by default (the more popular one?), but I seem to recall
that the other was commented out of the kernel config due
to clashes.

In 1.6 (I think) and later, I believe that Peter Seebach
undertook to merge the two drivers so that you don't have
to guess.


gpmd: I've never used it.  The name's familiar and people have
talked about it.  Not sure about it...  You might check to
see if 1.5 included a program called "wsmoused".  I don't
think that it was available then (and don't use it myself),
but I think that it provides the functionality that you want,
if you have it.


Sorry for the long, rambling answer.  I hope that it is
of some help.  (^&


-- 
  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about."  http://www.olib.org/~rkr/