Hi Anthony,

On Sat, 3 Feb 2001, Anthony Hilton wrote:
> Can the new bootloader boot old versions of RiscBSD? I have 1.3 alpha
> installed but rarely booted on an ARM6 RiscPC with 1Mb VRAM.

Well I am sorry to say the new bootloader can't boot old compiled kernels,
but i cant see why it wouldn't boot a 1.3 alpha kernel with the new
rpc_machdep.c ;-)

More serious.... the old bootloader placed the VIDC/IOMD/IOC etc. on
different places and had the kernel relocate itself. In the new bootloader
the kernel is loaded on the correct place and all the memory is mapped 1:1
(except the kernel ofcource). This is regretfully not compatible with
eachother, but was choosen for the old method of booting gave rise to
pretty `hairy' code in the kernel itself and a pretty strong link between
the bootloader and the RiscOS version used (not called RISC OS BTW).

> If the new bootloader cannot boot what I have got, can someone
> (Chris?) sell me a CD with 1.5 and idiot proof installation
> instructions - e.g. do I trash my current installation and start from
> scratch or use UnixFS to copy everything into the BSD partition
> replacing what is already there?

Euhm, you won't be able to use UnixFS to copy everything into the BSD
partition, but you sure can use it to get the patches in and build
yourself a new kernel based on your kernel sources -depending on if you
still have those still- ....

My recomendation is to get a CD/ISO image and reinstall it from scratch
... so much has changed since 1.3 Alpha that i think that really would be
the way to go.

About reinstalling on the RiscOS side, its only nessisary to change the
reference from !BtRiscBSD to the new !BtNetBSD for the rest of the
bootsystem like selecting NetBSD/RISC OS booting etc has remained the
same.

If you want a test-kernel to expriment with, i can send you my development
kernel since that kernel should run on an ARM610 too... then we can also
check if it is confirmed to run on the ARM610 with 1 Mb VRAM.

Cheers,
Reinoud