I'm having trouble booting NetBSD on an A7000+. My machine has 8M of RAM
in addition to the 8M onboard (making 16M :) ), and an i^3 EtherH NIC.
It has no VRAM, which I suspect may be what's causing the difficulties.
It is running RISCOS 3.7, with the updates to !System from TBox/zip from
http://www.iyonix.com/32bit/system.shtml, which I needed to run !FTPc.

This is a log from one of my attempts to boot the install kernel (I
created a Command file to make testing easier), wrapped for mail and
with all the spinner stuff removed. boot32 and InstKern are taken from
BtNetBSD.spk in acorn32/installation/misc on acorn32-3.1.iso.

*
*ehtest { > null: }
*
*set BtNetBSD$Dir adfs::harddisc4.$.mauzo.netbsd
*set NetBSD$MDF BootResources:Configure.Monitors.Acorn.AKF85
*set NetBSD$ScreenMode "X640 Y480 C256"
*set NetBSD$Kernel <BtNetBSD$Dir>.instkern
*unset netbsd$bootoptions
*
*loadmodefile <NetBSD$MDF>
*set Alias$SetNetBSDMode wimpmode <NetBSD$ScreenMode>
*SetNetBSDMode
*
*set Alias$RunNetBSD <BtNetBSD$Dir>.boot32 <NetBSD$Kernel> 
    <NetBSD$BootOptions>
*RunNetBSD


>> NetBSD/acorn32 RISC OS Boot, Revision 3.40
>> (builds@b4.netbsd.org, Mon Oct 30 21:24:05 UTC 2006)
>> Booting NetBSD/acorn32 on a RiscPC/A7000/NC

Booting adfs::harddisc4.$.mauzo.netbsd.instkern (howto = 0x0)
Allocated 3455 memory pages, each of 4 kilobytes.

Getting memory configuration  

Used 160 kb DRAM at 0x1c2d8000 for video memory
Found ROM  (0) at 0x00000000 for  4096 k
Found I/O  (0) at 0x03000000 for  8192 k
Found I/O  (1) at 0x08000000 for 31072 k
Found DRAM (0) at 0x10000000 for  4096 k
Found DRAM (1) at 0x14000000 for  4096 k
Found DRAM (2) at 0x18000000 for  4096 k
Found DRAM (3) at 0x1c000000 for  2912 k
Found DRAM (4) at 0x1c300000 for  1024 k

Getting actual memorymapping ; sorting .

Found physical memory blocks :
[0x100cd000-0x100fefff]  [0x10101000-0x10104fff]
    [0x10108000-0x10147fff]  [0x1014b000-0x1016cfff]
    [0x10175000-0x103fffff]  [0x1403e000-0x143fffff]
    [0x18000000-0x183fffff]  [0x1c000000-0x1c299fff]  


Loading adfs::harddisc4.$.mauzo.netbsd.instkern 
    3827964+77748 [80080+68026]=0x3dde40

Preparing for booting adfs::harddisc4.$.mauzo.netbsd.instkern 
    ... shift and check ... OK!

Starting at 0xf0000000
Will boot in a few secs due to relocation....
bye bye from RISC OS!

At this point, if I double-clicked on the Command file in Filer or ran
it from a ^F12 Task Window, the system appears to hang (the mouse just
freezes: the screen is not cleared); and if I run it from Supervisor
(i.e. after choosing Exit from the Acorn menu) the screen is covered
with 'coloured snow'.

After much poking through archives of this list, I have tried using the
BtNetBSD BASIC program, using boot32,ffa-20030603 from ftp.netbsd.org,
and using BtNetBSD from NetBSD 1.6 (with the 1.6 InstKern), with the
same results (except the 1.6 BtNetBSD always allocates 1M of fake VRAM,
rather than only what's needed). Changing the screen mode used doesn't
appear to help: I have tried both "X1024 Y768 C256" and "27", as an
attempt at finding a 'basic' mode.

I would appreciate any help anyone can offer :).

Ben

-- 
"If a book is worth reading when you are six,                * ben@morrow.me.uk
it is worth reading when you are sixty."  [C.S.Lewis]