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Hello,

I am sorry to hear that you are having trouble but I would like to make t=
he
following points before I go on to answer your specific problems:

a) RiscBSD is the binary distribution of NetBSD/arm32. This means that th=
e
NetBSD release cycle does not always match up with the RiscBSD cycle. The=

release versions and alpha/beta/release status are the NetBSD ones and do=
 not
necessarily match up with the RiscBSD release cycle. Although we do every=
thing
we can to keep them in sync there is quite a bit of porting work to be do=
ne
still. This tends to affect people most who do things which have never be=
en
tried before (eg running with 256Mb of DRAM). The userbase is small enoug=
h that
any given person is likely to have several unique problems.

b) RiscBSD is non-commercial. This means that it is written by a team of =
people
in their spare time. All of the core team (roughly 3 active at any one ti=
me)
have full-time jobs and do RiscBSD development in their spare time. Two o=
f the
team are also supposed to be writing phd theses (not related to either Ri=
scBSD
or their full-time work). This does tend to cramp our style when it comes=
 to
documentation and developing the perfect install system. Of course anybod=
y who
thinks they can do better is welcome to take the load off our hands (henc=
e the
newly formed documentation project with its own mailing list - Neil: is t=
his in
the FAQ?). Of course we'd like everything to be perfect, but... The upsid=
e of
RiscBSD being non-commercial is that the level of support you get would c=
ost
you serious money for a commercial system so fire away with your question=
s :-)

On Aug 10, 11:55pm, Kjetil Bernhard Thomassen wrote:
> Subject: Unsuccessful attempt on 1.2 beta scratch-installation
> I have tried to install the 1.2-beta release from scratch and has been
> unsuccessful.
>
> I would like to start this report by asking the following question:
>
> How can I possibly contribute to making RiscBSD better when I can't get=

> it installed (in a proper way)?

By feeding back your problems and suggestions with as much diagnostic
information as possible so that we can fix them.

> I really want to contribute, but the lack of documentation and a
> clean, well thought out system for installing it keeps preventing
> me from doing that.

Well, you have just spotted two obvious areas where we could use some hel=
p....
If you do manage to get your system up and running (with help from this m=
ailing
list) please let us know what the installation documentation should have =
said.

> I have now wasted two whole days getting nowhere.
>
> I understand that the kernel team are busy fixing problems, but
> I think that they should start in the right end.

Unfortunately the right end for you is not the right end for other people=
 so we
just start with the end we're good at and hope that nice friendly volunte=
ers
will turn up to do the other bits :-).

> The most important thing is to make sure that all people who wants
> to use it can install it. Performance issues and the like are a lower
> priority when there still are people like me having problems
> installing it.

Not necessarily. If the performance impovements double the speed of disk =
access
and hence increase the speed of compiles they can quickly pay for themsel=
ves in
terms of increased core team productivity (eg X currently takes around 8 =
hours
to recompile...). Incidentally, most of the performance improvements have=
 been
coded outside the core team. They still take core team time because of co=
de
management and debugging.

> Also, it is very important that equipment can be replaced, added
> and removed without having to re-install RiscBSD. I just have to
> refer you to the problems that Kim =D8yhus has had with 1.1 after
> he removed his SCSI drive. He just can't boot RiscBSD any more.

I don't know the specifics of the case but this is typically a device
renumbering problem. This is really a NetBSD-wide issue and I have yet to=
 see a
scalable solution to it.

> My opion is that when a release reaches the beta stage, then
> there should be no more development on it other than bug-fixes.
> Also, the documentation should also be at the beta stage, i.e.
> finished and complete.

There are no changes being made to the 1.2 release kernel apart from bug =
fixes.
The binaries are being fixed to work with it. Note that the latest kernel=
 on
the ftp site is NetBSD-current, not 1.2 so any kernel modifications you s=
ee
announced have nothing to do with 1.2-beta. Unfortunately there are some =
quite
serious bugs in the 1.2-beta kernel which we have been unable to get fixe=
d and
are unlikey to get fixed before the release (NetBSD politics) so I expect=
 Mark
to wait until he finds a stable kernel which everyone likes and release t=
hat as
1.2-stable.

> I have committed myself to contribute to the RiscBSD project,
> and I hope that all the time I have spent so far has been
> worthwhile and that the core-team are listening.

Yup, we always appreciate comments.

> ------------ Report from second attempt at RiscBSD -------------
>
> This is a report that comments on my second attempt to install RiscBSD.=

> This time I installed the RiscBSD 1.2-beta from scratch using the
> files in the 1.2-beta directory on the ftp server.
>
> I tried to use my Acorn SCSI card with my HP C3325A SCSI drive.
> This drive was formatted 400 MB to RISC OS.
>
> I am very persistant, and I this refuse to install it to an IDE drive
> first as I did the first time I installed RiscBSD. As a matter of
> fact, I do not even have a suitable IDE drive for RiscBSD. The
> 210 MB I have is my boot disc, and too small for RiscBSD anyway.
>
> When I tried to boot RiscBSD the first time, I had unsaved files
> and StrongED asked me if I wanted to quit. That I did, and RISC OS
> booted up normally, but RiscBSD did not boot.

Hmm, this is probably because the bootloader plays Russian roulette with =
the
RiscOS memory map so very occasionally it comes unstuck. This will get fi=
xed
when we get time to rewrite the bootstrap process (maybe this weekend if =
you're
really lucky...).

> When RISC OS had been restarted, I booted RiscBSD with my saved setting=
=2E
>
> I got the following error messages:
> kbd0 at mainbus0 bas 0xf6000000: Cannot enable keyboard
> kbd:resend enable keyboard
>
> This appeared twice.

Ouch. Not seen that before, maybe Mark knows...

> Further down I got the following error message:
> swap dev 1801 sd0: no disk label
> -> device not configured for swap
>
> This should be quite normal, as this filesystem does not yet exist.

Yup.

> Then I got:
> rd0: allocated 1440K (2880 blocks)
> panic: Failed to load ramdisc
>
> f0110b58 : ???g : e7ffffff : Undefined instruction
> Stopped at      _Debugger+0x10: ldmdb r11, {r11, r13, r16}
> db>
>
> I then typed continue and the discs were sync'ed and I ended up
> in the monitor (kshell> prompt). I then typed reboot to return to
> RISC OS
>
> This panic happens every time I try to boot.

Have you tried different kernels? What kernel number are you using?

> So, then I switched too booting from floppy (/dev/fd0a), and
> that boots ok.
>
> But, now another problem turned out. It seems that the filecore
> partition has been formatted with 64 sectors/track and
> 8 tracks/cylinder, but the disc is physically 127/9.
>
> Unfortunately, bb_riscbsd is using the logical data that filecore
> reports, and RiscBSD itself is using the physical.
>
> How can I possibly find a number of cylinders that gives the
> same number of blocks for these two different ways of splitting
> the cylinders in the area between 400 and 500 MB?

Hmm, this requires knowledge of what filecore is actually up to (ie is it=

ignoring some of the space?).

> In my opion there is only one way of fixing this problem.
> That is to drop the use of filecore and go directly on the
> disk.

I need to think about this one. This must be a solved problem because the=
 i386
port has exactly the same problem with the BIOS geometry.

> I tried to boot from floppy and install anyway, but that does
> not work due to the lack of a writeable filesystem.
>
>
>
> So, this second attempt was completely unsuccessful as I do not have
> an IDE drive that I want to use for RiscBSD.
>
> During this process, I have seen a lot of things that could be
> improved upon in the documentation.

[ comments snipped and noted ]

> Other questions that have sprang to my mind:
> 1) How can I boot directly from RiscBSD to RiscBSD without going
> through RiscBSD? Can this be done?

I take it you mean RiscOS. The answer is no currently. This is not as tri=
vial
to sort out as it might seem at first glance. eg you have to reload the k=
ernel
and it is quite possible that there is no kernel accessible from the Risc=
BSD
side without a filecore partition reader.

> 2) My HP drive is larger than 2GB, how will that work with RiscBSD
> on a RISC OS 3.6 computer? What about 4GB drives?

This should be no problem. You will not be able to boot a native kernel f=
rom a
partition which ends above the 2Gb limit (similar to the 512Mb limit on 3=
=2E5
machines).

I hope this helps. I think Mark will probably have to get in touch with y=
ou to
sort out solving your specific booting problems (I haven't a clue when it=
 comes
to the foibles of the bootloader). I will try to find out about the disk
geometry stuff.

Cheers

Rob Black

-- =


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