The sysinst.fs does work, and I can indeed boot from floppy.  For 
reference, hit 8 on serial console of F8 on graphics console during 
initial boot screen (check out 
http://www.solinno.co.uk/7043-140/walkthrough/firstboot/).  The 
sysinst.fs may be too big for a floppy, but the sysinst_com0.fs will 
fit, and as I'm using a null-modem cable hooked to my IBM Netfinity, it 
suits me just fine.
Warning!  Partitioning from the sysinst.fs floppy proved to be very 
nasty!  The partition table it wrote extended beyond the physical disk.  
I had to fix it using Leigh Brown's Linux boot disk 
(ttp://www.solinno.co.uk/7043-140/files/) and the debian "woody" root fs 
disk.  I created a 5MB partition for PPC Prep boot (0x41 or 65) and the 
rest as a NetBSD partition.
I rebooted with sysinst_com0.fs disk, and took the default sizes for fs 
slices.  706+ (works out to 17,366 of total 17,500) for root fs, 131MB 
for swap.  Partition c is whole disk (is this a SunOS holdover?).
This is where things took a turn for the worse.  disklabel -w -r -f 
/tmp/disktab sd0 'mydisk' <- Command failed; returned:  disklabel: 
partition b: partition extends past end of unit
I shrunk down root fs to 17,000, swap at 256MB to give some wiggle 
room.  disklabel popped up with question: Write outside MBR partition 
[n]: to which i just hit enter to take default (assuming no).  Disklabel 
seemed to run okay, status was finished at top, so i hit enter to continue.
Next command: failed.  /sbin/newfs -O 1 -b 8192 -f 1024 /dev/rsd0a.  
returned:
newfs: /dev/rsd0a: open for read: Device not configured

I hit enter, and it goes back to the beginning menu.

At this point I'm stuck, any help would be greatly appreciated.


timbo
mailto:tim.gallagher@earthlink.net

Jochen Kunz wrote:

>On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 16:02:20 -0500
>Tim Gallagher <tim.gallagher@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I do indeed have a 43p-140, maybe that's why it can't boot either the 
>>1.6 or 2.0 sysinst.fs image. 
>>    
>>
>Yes. It's broken. See my mail to the port-prep mailing list.
>
>  
>
>>Maybe you could help me, as I am making some assumptions from loading
>>Linux.  I downloaded the sysinst_com0.fs and generic_com0.fs from the
>>installation/floppy directory.  I booted from open firmware using boot
>>floppy: command, is that correct? 
>>    
>>
>Maybe. I always boot the machines from the network to install them.
>I don't know how to boot them from floppy. Given the very unreliable
>nature of floppies I will not even think about useing a boot floppy.
>
>  
>
>>I have 2.0 burned to cd, I am hoping at some point it will ask where
>>to download it's files.  What is generic.fs for?  If you could point
>>me to some prep install docs, I'd greatly appreciate it.
>>    
>>
>
>Unfortunately installing NetBSD/prep is a bit cumbersome. There are not
>many users so the installation tools are not widely tested. There are
>some workarounds needed.
>
>The *.fs files are disk / floppy and netboot images. You can dd(1) them
>to a disk / floppy and just boot from it. To netboot you have to setup
>dhcp / bootp and tftp. See
>http://www.de.netbsd.org/Documentation/network/netboot/
>for instructions. 
>
>generic.fs is a generic kernel useing VGA console.
>
>generic_com0.fs is a generic kernel useing serial console on com0.
>
>sysinst.fs is an installation kernel with installation programm build in
>useing VGA console.
>
>sysinst_com0.fs is an installation kernel with installation programm
>build in useing serial console on com0.
>
>Unfortunately the sysinst images are just a few bytes to big to fit on a
>1.4 MB floppy. So you have to dd(1) it to the raw partition (/dev/sda on
>Linux, /dev/sd0c on *BSD) of a SCSI disk with a helper machine or
>netboot your machine. 
>
>Once the installation system has booted exit to a shell. Best is to
>ifconfig the network and mount a NFS volume containing the NetBSD/prep
>files by hand. Then do somthing like 
>"dd if=/.../prep/installation/floppy/generic_com0.fs of=/dev/sd0c"
>This will make your disk bootable and initialize the fdisk / MBR
>partition table.
>
>Execute "/sysinst" to start the instalation programm and follow the on
>screen instructions... Edit the MBR partition table. You should see one
>partition of type "Unknown (65)", size appr. 1.5 MB at the beginning of
>the disk. This is the boot partition. Don't touch it. Create an
>additional partition of type "NetBSD". This Partition should start at
>about 5 to 10 MB from the beginning of the disk and it should occupy the
>entire remainding disk space. NetBSD will place its own partitions,
>called slices, into this MBR partition. Then you have to edit the
>disklabel(5). This is the NetBSD partition table that resides inside the
>MBR NetBSD partition. Slice it up as you like and continue the
>instalation as usual. 
>
>When the instalation is done your machine should be able to boot from
>its own disk. It will ask for its root device. Enter "sd0" for root and
>dump device and "ffs" for file system type. (You can use "pcn0" and
>"nfs" to continue booting via NFS instead of disk.) You will have to
>enter this every time the machine boots. This is because NetBSD has no
>way to ask the firmware where the kernel was booted from. AIX as some
>undocumented ways to retrive this information, but NetBSD has not
>unfortunately.
>
>To get the machine to boot without interaction you have to recompile the
>kernel and hard code the root file system location. To do this change
>the line:
>config          netbsd  root on ? type ?
>to
>config          netbsd  root on sd0a type ffs
>in the kernel configuration file.
>
>Once you have the "netbsd" binary do
>gzip -c netbsd > netbsd.gz
>/usr/mdec/mkbootimage /usr/mdec/boot_com0 netbsd.fs netbsd.gz
>fdisk sd0 > /root/fdisk.sd0
>disklabel sd0
>Ensure that slice "c" starts at the first sector and coveres the entire
>disk. Use "disklabel -i sd0" to edit the disklabel(5) when needed. (Type
>"?" inside disklabel(8) to get help.)
>
>disklabel sd0 > /root/disklabel.sd0
>dd if=netbsd.fs of=/dev/sd0c
>cat /root/fdisk.sd0
>fdisk -u sd0
>reboot
>Note that the dd(1) overwrites your MBR partition table. Therefore make
>a backup of it and then use "fdisk -u" to restore it to the old values.
>Do not reboot before you restored the MBR partition table! If you do
>without restoration your disk will be unbootable! It is wise to copy
>/root/fdisk.sd0 and /root/disklabel.sd0 to an other machine before
>rebooting. If the partitions get messed up you can restore them with
>this information.
>
>You may use "boot" instaed "boot_com0" if you wane use VGA console.
>
>Note that you need to patch the kernel source to get it running on the
>-140.
>  
>