Iain Dooley wrote:
> Hi, i'm trying to boot netbsd 3.0 from a CD created on a FreeBSD 6.0 
> machine using cdrecord from the file macppccd-3.0.iso that i obtained 
> from the netbsd ftp site.

That ISO image is probably an ISO/HFS hybrid which will not boot on 
OpenFirmware before 3.x. You need to copy all the files off of the CD 
and make a "pure" ISO9660 image following directions here:

http://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-macppc/2005/11/18/0001.html

> i'm installing on a power macintosh 7300/200 running open firmware 
> 1.0.5. I have also tried installing from floppies, but kept getting READ 
> TIMEOUT errors even when i had used suntar to create the floppies on the 
> machine on which i am trying to install.

The floppy interface in OF is incredibly finicky, combined with the 
already finicky floppy drives it's far from reliable. A machine this old 
probably has so much dust in the floppy, it can't even detect that a 
disk is inserted.

> from following instructions on the install page, i have managed to boot 
> into open firmware, and ascertained that scsi-int/sd@3:0 should be 
> bootable (using the 'words' command), but when i type:
> 
> boot scsi-int/sd@3:0 NETBSD.MACPPC

Assuming the CD-ROM is at SCSI ID 3, you are close, except for you are 
missing a comma, and you can't boot the kernel directly from the CD. You 
need to load ofwboot.xcf which in turn loads the kernel.

boot device/address@ID:partition,file

boot scsi-int/sd@3:0,OFWBOOT.XCF is probably what you want.


> it says that it cannot open it. also, if i do:
> 
> dev scsi-int/sd@3 ok
> dir

You aren't specifying a partition number, and because it's a hybrid cd, 
which OF won't understand. At least not with the method we're currently 
generating CDs with.