Subject: Re: Experimental olume header utility and boot loader
To: Havard Eidnes <he@netbsd.org>
From: Michael L. Hitch <mhitch@lightning.msu.montana.edu>
List: port-sgimips
Date: 11/14/2001 15:45:57
On Wed, 14 Nov 2001, Havard Eidnes wrote:

> First off, a big Thank You!

  You're welcome.

> I think there's a typo in the URL; the correct URL appears to be
> 
>   ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/sgmips/sgiboot.tgz

  If I can't even type the subject right, why would you expect me to
get the URL right? :-) :-)  [It was late a night. which explains part
of the problem.]

> I'm having problems getting the machine to boot from my disk, though.
> Apparently I get a wedge, the [BREAK] is from the console program I
> use in a failed attempt at eliciting a response.

  This is due to bad code when the kernel starts.  That bad code was
never exercised because the ELF header never appeared at the end of
the kernel until the disk booter.  The bad code was adding two kernel
addresses together, which overflows into a user address space.

  I've commited a work-around to not do that.  You won't have DDB
symbols, but at least it should boot.  The proper fix is probably to
use a bootinfo structure to pass information from the booter to the
kernel, but I had ignored that portion to get things working and haven't
gotten back to working on the booter.

--
Michael L. Hitch			mhitch@montana.edu
Computer Consultant
Information Technology Center
Montana State University	Bozeman, MT	USA