re: ofwboot versions and upgrading

[matthew green <mrg%eterna.com.au@localhost>]

   ofwboot      kernel  status
   3    3       works (my machine to be upgraded is fine)
   4       4       works (another of my machines)
   3       4       fails, kernel complains about bootinfo
   4       3       ???
   
   What I would like to know is:
   
     If I put the netbsd-4 ofwboot in place on my netbsd-3 system, can I
     still boot the netbsd-3 kernel (netbsd.ok) if I need to?


this should work.  you can put ofwboot in as a different name as
boot that instead of the default.  something like this:

ok> boot ofwboot.new netbsd.new

works iirc.

if new ofwboot can't boot old netbsd, that seems like a bug to
fix.
   
   I have installed bootblk from the head of the netbsd-3 branch.  Can
   this load the netbsd-4 ofwboot?  Answer: the files /usr/mdec/bootblk
   are byte-for-byte identical on netbsd-3 and netbsd-4, so sure.

"bootblk" and "ofwboot" are separate.  the former is a forth
bytecode program to load the latter, which is a normal ELF
file (32 or 64 bit.)


.mrg.