After finding out that the Jensen can't boot from the floppy drive (it
would be nice if that were in the FAQ somewhere!), I tried netbooting. It
got through the initial phases and the TFTP download of the bootstrap OK,
but then choked. Based on the error message, it doesn't look like an NFS
problem:

>>> boot ez0
INIT-S-CPU...
AUDIT_BOOT_REQ
AUDIT_BSERVER_FOUND IP 192.168.69.1
AUDIT_BSERVER_FOUND ENENT 00-60-08-9B-F6-BD
AUDIT_LOAD_BEGINS

AUDIT_LOAD_DONE


NetBSD/alpha 2.0.2 Network Bootstrap, Revision 1.9
(builds@works.netbsd.org, Tue Mar 22 03:54:50 UTC 2005)

Boot device (BOOTP 1 2 0 0 0 2 JENS-IO) open failed.
Boot failed! Halting...

?05 HLT INSTR
  PC= 00000000.2000003C PSL= 00000000.00001F00

>>>

With that down, my last chance was the CD-ROM. Following the FAQ at
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/alpha/faq.html#bootablecd, I used my copy of
Nero 5.5.9.17 to burn cdhdtape to a CD. I popped the CD into the Jensen
and issued "boot dka400":

>>>boot dka400
INIT-S-CPU...
AUDIT_BOOT_STARTS ...
AUDIT_CHECKSUM_GOOD
AUDIT_LOAD_BEGINS
AUDIT_LOAD_DONE


NetBSD/alpha 2.0.2 ustar Bootstrap, Revision 1.3
(builds@works.netbsd.org, Tue Mar 22 03:21:50 UTC 2005)

VMS PAL rev: 0x100010530
OSF PAL rev: 0x20123
Switch to OSF PAL code succeeded.

Boot flags: A
8376704@@@@@@@@@read text: Input/output error
@@@@@@@@@open netbsd.gz: Input/output error
@@@@@@@@@open netbsd.bak: Input/output error
@@@@@@@@@open netbsd.bak.gz: Input/output error
@@@@@@@@@open netbsd.old: Input/output error
@@@@@@@@@open netbsd.old.gz: Input/output error
@@@@@@@@@open onetbsd: Input/output error
@@@@@@@@@open onetbsd.gz: Input/output error
@@@@@@@@@open netbsd.alpha: Input/output error
@@@@@@@@@open netbsd.alpha.gz: Input/output error

Boot failed! Halting...

?05 HLT INSTR
  PC= 00000000.2000003C PSL= 00000000.00000007

>>>

I also tried 'boot -fl "" dka000', in case the "A" flag was causing the
problem, and got exactly the same results.

Looking at the archives, it appears that it's running out of data on the
CD before it expects to, or something like that. Unfortunately, I have no
other way of getting cdhdtape onto media that the Jensen understands. I
have even tried silly things like tftp'ing the cdhdtape file, to no avail.

Does anybody have any insight into how I can get the install process to
even start? Should I give up on 2.0.2 and drop back to 1.6.*, which
various people have reported actually running?

Thanks!

--James B.