At 10:10 AM -0800 12/3/01, Bill Studenmund wrote:
>On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Henry B. Hotz wrote:
>
>>  I've not been able to boot the 1.5.2 release CD on a 7500 directly.
>>  Is that just me?  (Also not on a PowerBook (PDQ), but that was iffy
>  > anyway.)

At 9:00 PM -0800 12/2/01, Michael Wolfson wrote:
>That must be just you -- I got the 1.5.2 beta CD images to boot on my 7300.

Not just me:

At 9:45 AM -0800 12/1/01, S Lafredo wrote:
>I made a 1.5.2 CD from the *.iso image and it created a HFS/ISO disc
>which is not bootable by certain versions of OF.
>
>Instead I had to create an ISO disc copying the installation files I
>want onto it.

The release CDs are supposed to have some special magic so they work 
even with the old OF versions that don't normally work with hybrid 
CD's.  That magic is mainly a special type/creator for ofwboot.xcf in 
the Mac partition I think.

At 9:00 PM -0800 12/2/01, Michael Wolfson wrote:
>What syntax are you using?

Something like "boot scsi-int/sd@3:1,ofwboot.xcf -a" though it 
varies.  I'm not always good about setting load-base and real-base 
before trying, but I try the dir command too.  Sometimes I try 
partition 0 or 2 as well.  I've never gotten a boot or a dir out of 
the 1.5.2 CD-ROM.  For all the times I've tried I'm sure I would have 
done it right once.

>  > I have been able to boot an MS-DOS floppy created by copying
>>  ofwboot.xcf and the install kernel to the floppy on a 7500 and a
>>  PowerBook (PDQ), but only by setting load-base to 500000 instead of
>>  the recommended 600000 in both cases.  I find this preferable to
>>  hunting up a way to create the official boot floppy under MacOS.
>
>Did it matter that the address was 500000, or was it just that it was not
>600000? I've found with netbooting, that 640000 works. Basically ANY
>address other than the load address works. :-)
>
>I think what happens is that the loader uses load-base as a scratch area,
>and then copies the loaded file (ofwboot.xcf) to where it's supposed to
>be.

At 9:00 PM -0800 12/2/01, Michael Wolfson wrote:
>500000, you say?  What about the default of 4000?  Strange, but if it's
>true, that'd be very useful.  I haven't checked, but does the install
>kernel come with msdosfs?  Very useful.

I thought the load address was 6C0000.  I forget the command to check 
that in 1.5.2 release.  I didn't try 4000.  I just tried a random 
other number to see if it made a difference.

Note that 600000 works fine with the boot floppy image.  I thought 
the netbsd install kernel and the ofwboot.xcf were supposed to be the 
same with the same load addresses.

I agree that it isn't really hard, given a web browser and an 
internet connection to go get suntar and write the boot floppy image. 
But when I'm setting up a green machine for NetBSD I'd like the 
minimum required tools to get started.  If the floppy image were 
packaged so it would work with DiskCopy directly that would be nice 
since that tool is usually on the Mac OS CD-ROMs.  (At best, and at 
worst it's no harder to get than SunTar.)

Just to be clear the MS-DOS boot floppy I made using the ofwboot.xcf 
and netbsd.ram.gz files from the iso CD-ROM image.  (The iso didn't 
work so I booted into MacOS and made the floppy on the same machine.) 
The netbsd.ram.gz file was copied to floppy and renamed just netbsd. 
There were around 8 files on the floppy after MacOS put all the 
invisible info on window positions and such.  I can do a dir on the 
floppy from OF.

>Any chance you could try an msdosfs ZIP disk as well?

Not really.  I do have one G4 machine with a zip on it, but I never 
use it because none of my other machines have zip disks.  I tend to 
use the PDQ as a whole for my sneakernet applications.
-- 
The opinions expressed in this message are mine,
not those of Caltech, JPL, NASA, or the US Government.
Henry.B.Hotz@jpl.nasa.gov, or hbhotz@oxy.edu