Re: sysupgrade - has anybody tried it

[Andrew Smallshaw <andrews%sdf.lonestar.org@localhost>]

On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 12:23:38PM -0500, Greg Troxel wrote:
> 
> The only unexpected twist (compared to from others experience) is if you
> have ancient boot blocks.  For example, I once had a sparc running (I
> think, fuzzy memory) NetBSD 3 but with 1.6 bootblocks, and those
> couldn't load the NetBSD 4 kernel.  But 2 or 3 bootblocks would have
> been ok.  Certainly 5.1.2 bootblocks will be fine for a 6 kernel (I've
> done that).

I actually had a related problem when upgrading a few systems to
6.0 here even with the bootblocks on the install disc, in that it
seems console selection has been shifted from the boot blocks to
the bootloader.  I was tearing my hair out for a few hours until
I figured out what was going on - it seemed that the serial bootblocks
were effectively being ignored.  In fact, to all intents and purposes
they were - you need a line consdev=com0 in /boot.cfg to get a
serial console back.

Fortunately the first system in question came back up on the network,
so I could at least still get into them that way, otherwise I'd
have found myself locked out until I could cart a monitor up to
it.  Since the most easily available head was a 70lb CRT behemoth
that was something I wasn't particularly looking forward to.

-- 
Andrew Smallshaw
andrews%sdf.lonestar.org@localhost