Re: Rename netbsd-INSTALL_FLOPPY to netbsd-INSTALL

[Jean-Yves Migeon <jeanyves.migeon%free.fr@localhost>]

On 09.02.2011 07:53, Thomas Mueller wrote:
> I actually installed NetBSD 5.99.44 i386 on a USB stick, using
> boot-big.fs (the 3.6-MiB floppy image) and installing from
> 
> ftp://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/...
> 
> I had intended to post the question about what was the intended way
> to boot this big floppy, assuming that using grub4dos from FreeDOS
> was not their idea.

Given the comments, it was used to generate El Torito bootable cdroms,
by creating the virtual floppy to boot from.

> But that's how I did it, booting FreeDOS with no high-memory manager
> and running grub4dos, which can boot floppy images including images
> that don't match physical-floppy capacities.  Installation took 2 1/2
> hours, slow part being unpacking the .tgz files on a USB stick, with
> a motherboard that dates to before USB 2.0 was widely available on
> motherboards.
> 
> I could also use the mini-iso image as long as there is an
> emebedded/included ramdisk.

Not for the boot{-com}.iso. It will start as a "standard" CD install:
- kernel is first loaded
- then / is mounted according to where the kernel was found (it will be
a cd9660 mount),
- then, certain directories are mounted using tmpfs, so they can be
writable.

For ramdisk, use $ARCH/binary/kernel/netbsd-INSTALL.gz

> GENERIC + ramdisk kernel seems like an improvement.  It might be a
> good idea to allow for disabling certain drivers where they might
> render the kernel nonbootable on certain hardware.

"boot -c" at boot prompt (see boot(8) and userconf(4))

> It would also be nice to be able to install from a CD image; I
> noticed there was no vnconfig in the installation system.

That's the purpose of the "release" ISOs. boot ISO are ISO files that do
not contain release sets, whereas release ISOs do (be warned: they are
way bigger).

You obtain them under iso/. Pick your $ARCH after.

-- 
Jean-Yves Migeon
jeanyves.migeon%free.fr@localhost