Re: Making a partition bootable (SS10)

[John Nemeth <jnemeth%cue.bc.ca@localhost>]

On Nov 4,  1:09pm, Mouse wrote:
}
} > I am performing a fresh install NetBSD 4 (*) [...] SS10 [...], I
} > thought of making a small boot partition.
} 
} Reasonable enough.  I routinely do that.
} 
} > I have thus a root partition and a small 20MB root partition which I
} > put at the beginning of the disk.
} 
} I assume at least one of those "root"s should be "boot".  That's what I
} do; for example, one of my machines has a mount table showing
} 
} Filesystem  1024-blocks     Used    Avail Capacity  Mounted on
} /dev/sd0d      33900347 29922214  2283115    92%    /
} /dev/sd0a         63471    14814    45483    24%    /kernels
} kernfs                1        1        0   100%    /kern
} procfs                4        4        0   100%    /proc
} 
} /kernels holds boot, netbsd, and a handful of old versions of netbsd;
} the old versions are of no use in routine operation, but are very
} useful when I'm booting new kernels (which I do semi-regularly) which
} don't always work right.
} 
} > What is the "boot" file?  at first, I was about to mount my boot
} > partition into /boot as used on linux, but that would have been a
} > problem.
} 
} /boot is the second-stage bootloader.
} 
} [snip information about how a sparc boots]
} 
} > I tried to copy "netbsd" and "boot" into the other partition and boot
} > from it, but it doesn't work.
} 
} This should work _provided_ the partition containing them is all within
} the first gig of the disk, and you (re)run installboot to set the
} correct block numbers in the first-stage bootstrap, and you either (a)
} build a kernel "config root on" your actual root partition, (b) boot
} with -a so you can manually supply the root device, or (c) set up an
} autoconfigured-as-root RAIDframe unit to steal root away from what it
} would otherwise default to.

     (d) adjust OFW variables to point to the correct partition by
default.

} > Fdisk writes the boot sectors on a "whole disk".
} 
} Fdisk?  fdisk?  On NetBSD/sparc, I wouldn't expect there to even _be_
} an fdisk.  (My own NetBSD/sparc machines are at 1.4T, which is what I

     I would expect it to be there for manipulating disks that came
from a PC.  However, as noted, it should never be used on a disk
intended to be bootable by a sparc based machine.

} use on anything not needing something newer for hardware support
} reasons; they have no fdisk.)  Unless it does something totally unlike
} what it does on (eg) i386, I would not expect it to be useful in any
} way here.  SPARC machines of the SS10 era - pretty much, anything
} before Sun drank the PCI koolaid - have no use for MBR-style
} partitioning.

     As far as I know, no sparc based used MBR-style partitioning
regardless of the bus in use.

}-- End of excerpt from Mouse