> I've been trying to construct a kernel+ramdisk image for my CATS box --
> anyone been able to do that?

Not me, at least not yet anyway. I will be looking into it later on though,
after I am done getting a stable static -current userland to build.

> I commented out MFS and MEMORY_DISK_SIZE since they don't appear to be
> involved in the in-kernel boot images (am I right?). Also Todd gave some
> helpful hints there. Where I'm getting stuck is getting the kernel to use my
> ramdisk after running mdsetimage. After boot, it says it is unable to mount
> a valid filesystem off of the image and stops there. However, doing the
> normal vnconfig ; mount ; etc. stuff on the ramdisk file shows that I am
> able to mount it fine by myself. Is there another step that I need to go
> through before I can boot using my image? I think I followed all the steps I
> could find in the src/distrib/arm32/* Makefiles, but evidently I'm missing
> something.

It's quite possible that the src/distrib/arm32 stuff isn't fully functional,
or is only functional for certain machines like RiscPC's. In general it is
best to assume that the code only really works on things that people are
actively using it for, otherwise it's probably got stray incompatibilities,
bugs, and design limitations in it. GNU code is definitely always like that.

If you have a PC you can spare, I strongly recommend you install NetBSD/i386
on it and use it to build a few i386 bootfloppies (I have an uber-Makefile
with all the relevant top-level make commands in it if you want pointers to
get you started). At some point in the bootfloppy creation it creates a netbsd
file that contains both the kernel and a memory disk image for the root "disk".

Careful examination of the i386 process (which is known to work in -current)
should tell you what you need to know to repair/replace the arm32 makefiles
so that they will do what you want.

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ best.com