At 3:09 PM -0400 5/7/03, Joseph Sarkes wrote:
>On Wednesday, May 7, 2003, at 06:45 AM, Siegmund Fuhringer wrote:
>
>>hi!
>>
>>i've installed netbsd on my powerbook :)
>>but i'm unable to boot it :(
>>
>>
>>after entering "boot hd:13,\ofwboot.xcf hd:12/netbsd" the kernel boots,
>>but is apparently using the wrong partition as root filesystem:
>
>Basically, I build myself a kernel with the desired boot device 
>specified in the config file and it works fine. The work around is 
>to boot in a multistep fashion to be able to use the -a flag to the 
>kernel, which allows you to specify the root filesystem.

His problem isn't pointing at the right filesystem partition, but 
having the kernel understand the filesystem type of that partition. 
As you suggest building a custom kernel would solve the problem 
because you can force the filesystem type on the config line along 
with the partition.  Not sure that booting with -a would help though. 
It might because it might use different code to guess the filesystem 
type, but I wouldn't depend on it without testing or code inspection.
-- 
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