Re: Boot partition sizes (Was: installing NetBSD on a Sparcstation 2.)

[David Brownlee <abs%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On 17 August 2010 10:12, Julian Coleman <jdc%coris.org.uk@localhost> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>> Â Â Â Even with last PROM on SS20, I've never seen a bootable system with
>> Â Â Â a kernel above 2GB.
>
> Hmm, I added the following to the sparc/boot(8) manual page a while back:
>
> Â Â On sun4 machines, the NetBSD sparc boot loader can only boot from RAID
> Â Â partitions that start at the beginning of the disk.
>
> Â Â On sun4 and early PROM version sun4c machines, the PROM can only boot
> Â Â from the first 1Gb of the disk.
>
> Â Â On later PROM version sun4c and early PROM version sun4m machines, the
> Â Â PROM can only boot from the first 2Gb of the disk.
>
> Â Â On later PROM version sun4m machines, the PROM can only boot from the
> Â Â first 4Gb of the disk.
>
> Maybe I was wrong about the last paragraph. ÂHowever, I did do some testing
> before I added it. ÂThe PROM versions that I had for testing on the sun4m's
> were 2.25 (SS20), 2.25R (SS20) and 2.14 (600MP).
>

Would it make sense to note some known PROM versions in each case,
just to save people having to experiment each time? :)
Presumably the definitive test case is to partition a disk with boot
partitions starting at 0, 1GB, 2GB and 4GB and to try them in
descending order? :)