On Sun, 8 Sep 2002, Jochen Kunz wrote:

> On 2002.09.08 17:42 Patrick Finnegan wrote:
>
> > I've just tried the newest sysinst image:
> > ftp://releng.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/200209060000/prep/installation/floppy/sysinst_com0.fs.gz
> > It has the same problem of panicing that the May 'official' snapshot
> > does:
> >
> > panic: intr_establish: can't share level-triggered with edge-triggered
> > irq 7
> Seams like you have the chance to help one of the NetBSD developers to
> improve the PREP port. ;-)

But, there is a working kernel... the one in '7043boot.fs'.  All that
needs to be done is make an install image with that kernel on it.  If I
knew how to do that myself, I would.

> > In fact, it seems that the file '7043boot.fs' is the only thing I can
> > make boot on here besides my set of IBM diagnostics, which isn't
> > useful as an OS.
> Bad. When it asks for a root-fs, you can enter the name of a network
> interface. The kernel will try bootp and then NFS to mount a NFS
> root-fs... At least the kernel should do that. ;-)

OK, what do I need on that rootfs in order to make it do an installation?
Or, can I just explode the tarballs into the nfsroot for it and just use
fdisk/mkfs/cp to move everything over?  I'm about to just try hooking the
drive up to my PC and partitioning/mkfsing/exploding the tarballs using
it.

> > I think you mean 41 -- 'PPC Prep Boot'.
> 0x41 == 65

Ohh yeah, hex, right.  I'm used to linux's fdisk which just uses hex
numbers, not decimal.  Well, at least that's my excuse :).

> > All I've had to do on linux is dd a new zImage.prep into the 'boot
> > partition'.  I'm sure there's something similar for netBSD.
> I know. We have some 43P-100 and 43P-133 at the Unix-AG runing Debian
> Linux. The problem is that I don't know what file format this kernel
> image has to be (plain ELF?) and that I am to stupid to get correct
> access to the boot partition. This MBR / fdisk / mbrlabel / DOS-PeeCee
> partitioning sh** bares any logic.

It's got some 'x86 boot sector' tacked on the front... so it's not quite
plain ELF.  Also, what follows it (after stripping off the first 512
bytes) isn't 'plain ELF' either.

Looking at the program 'mkprep.c' that is a part of the linux kernel
source reveals approximately what needs to be done:

/*
 * Makes a prep bootable image which can be dd'd onto
 * a disk device to make a bootdisk.  Will take
 * as input a elf executable, strip off the header
 * and write out a boot image as:
 * 1) default - strips elf header
 *      suitable as a network boot image
 * 2) -pbp - strips elf header and writes out prep boot partition image
 *      cat or dd onto disk for booting
 * 3) -asm - strips elf header and writes out as asm data
 *      useful for generating data for a compressed image
 *                  -- Cort
 *
 * Modified for x86 hosted builds by Matt Porter <porter@neta.com>
 */


> > Yes, a 7043 vs a 7248.  What file exactly is the kernel that I need to
> > be able to net-boot it?  Should I be able to just use a plain kernel -
> > like netbsd.INSTALL.gz, or do I need one of the sysinst.fs files?
> I don't know. I used generic.fs and sysinst.fs from
> ftp://releng.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/200208110000/prep/installation/floppy/
> and it simply worked. generic.fs is what I dd-ed to the disk to make it
> bootable.

OK, so probably my '7043boot.fs' should work then...  Time to find a
10BaseT transciever and some network cables if I can't just dump things to
disk using another machine.

-- Pat