On Sun, 3 Nov 2002, Jens Liebau wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I tried to install NetBSD 1.6 on PowerMac 4400 (aka PM7220), but I
> failed for several weeks:
>
> Booting from an Install Floppy when quite fine and even installing the
> basic packages was no problem. My real problem was after installing
> everything to harddisk it doesn't boot from the internal ide-disc. At
> first I believed there would be a problem with the partition 0 boot loader.
>
> So I tried to install NetBSD 1.5.3 to see if this might work. It didn't.
> Finally I realized the boot loader should be o.k, because the fist
> NetBSD Boot Messages appear on my screen. Just after a few seconds it
> stalls at the "spinning bare"  before it executes the kernel.

What version of ofwboot were you using? The one in 1.5.3 should have been
fine, but the one in 1.6 won't work. You need either the one in 1.5.3
(forgot version) or version 1.7.

Also, you had real-base set to f00000?

> My last idea was to try an other NetBSD kernel than GENERIC. I copied a
> stripped down version i use on an other machine to the PM 4400. And
> surprise it worked!  So in my point of view there is an enabled option
> in the GENERIC kernel which prevent booting up an PM4400. I still
> haven't figured out what exactly causes the problem, but in the meantime
> it might be a good idea to include a special kernel for this machines in
> the distribution. (The problem exists in NetBSD 1.6 and 1.5.3 and maybe
> even in older distributions)

Sounds like real-base isn't set to f00000. I ran into the same problem; a
too-large kernel won't load with real-base set to ffffffff (which prints
as -1).

Note to boot MacOS X you have to set real-base back.

Take care,

Bill