You'll need to have two drives to do this, 'cause NetBSD can't share a drive
with MacOS yet. It's tested for OF 3 (G4) only. I have NetBSD on ultra0:
(aka hd:) (master) and MacOS on ultra1: (slave). Ofwboot.elf is on the top
layer of the (MacOS) slave drive, I'm going to make it invisible so the kids
won't mess with it.


Get into OF. Type:
setenv boot-device <return>
setenv boot-file <return>
setenv boot-command key? key dup ascii b = if " boot ultra1:,ofwboot.elf
hd:0,"  else " mac-boot" then evaluate <return>
shut-down <return>

You should put your bsd boot command in quotes instead of " boot
ultra1:,ofwboot.elf hd:0,". Note the space after the first "  and the space
before mac-boot, they're important. You can type printenv from OF to check
spelling etc. If you see an extra "mac-boot" at the end ignore it, it's not
really there.

The next time you start up OF waits for a key to be pressed. If you press
"b" it boots bsd, anything else boots MacOS. This is easy for the kids. And
me :)

 
The first two lines set the boot-device and boot-file to nothing. The next
line sets the OF boot-command to wait for a key to be pressed, and if the
key is "b" it does the boot command in quotes. If it's not "b" then it does
a mac-boot - which will find a bootable MacOS if there is one to be found.
Takes about 2 seconds on my G4. "shut-down" writes the nvram to whatever you
have entered (and shuts down).

To return the box to MacOS normal get into OF, type: setenv boot-command
mac-boot <return> shut-down <return>, and select a startup disk from MacOS
after restarting.

Thanks to Ron Hochsprung, Andi Payn and Bill Connell for help, inspiration
and pointing me in the right direction. I just did the perspiring!

Peter Fairbrother
-- 
peter@m-o-o-t.org
www.m-o-o-t.org