On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Albert School wrote:

> This is an interesting aspect of the sparc port of NetBSD.
> 
> On Wed, 3 Mar 1999, Greg Earle wrote:
> 
> > You might not have this option if you don't have access to SunOS 4.1.3_U1
> > libraries to use for the emul, but the SunOS 4.1.3_U1 Netscape 4.5 binary
> 
> In fact I don't have acces to the SunOS 4.x OS at all.  I work with
> serveral other sysadmins in a Unix shop with ~30 or so Solaris boxes.  The
> rest FreeBSD. About half are Ultra's and half are Sparc's, mabey 3 ipx
> console servers. We have all of them [save one NetBSD workstation 8-)]
> running solaris 2.6. I have some 2.5.1 disks laying around but that is
> about it.
> 
	You should be able to use the Solaris 2.5.1 libraries and
	compat_svr4 to run the Solaris version of Netscape.

> The interesting thing about installing NetBSD/sparc is that it
> [almost] depends on a SunOS 4.x disklabel.  I had to label my disk with
> OpenBSD's install program.  
> 
	I think the principle is that you need a Sun disklabel for the
	PROM to boot. The NetBSD disklabel program should be able to
	setup the label. -current (and 1.4) should be using the machine
	independent sysinst program which makes this a lot easier.

> I can understand that given the hardware that NetBSD is ported to it would
> seem likely to have hard drives with SunOS labels on them...Not for me

	I've installed NetBSD on several sparcs with freshly formatted
	unlabelled disks. Its awkward, but possible :)

> though.  I am considering "porting" a label maker/editor similar to
> OpenBSD's to the NetBSD install...
> 
> Any comments?  
> 
	I'd try the snapshot floppy with sysinst - its where all NetBSD
	ports should be going (from ftp,netbsd.org or a mirror

/pub/NetBSD/arch/sparc/snapshot/19990103/installation/floppies/boot13I.fs

	
> On another note.  I have compiled some basic pkgsrc's into binary packages
> and I would like to contribute them to the group.  How do I do that?  I'm
> talking about ssh, pgp5, mosaic, fvwm2, tcl7.2, tk4.2, qmail, tiger,
> tripwire, xv, tkdesk, skey, zsh, tcsh, perl5...that is enough for right
> now.
	I think some of them may have licences that prohibit the binary
	distributions (I'm not certain on that)

		David/absolute

             -=-  "Promise carved in stone, deeper than the sea"  -=-