Subject: Sun3 install moving ahead slowly, comments.
To: David Gilbert <dgilbert@jaywon.pci.on.ca>
From: Brett Glass <Brett_Glass@ccgate.infoworld.com>
List: port-sun3
Date: 04/15/1996 15:53:32
> Next, I wanted to read miniroot off the tape.  I don't know
> exactly what is wrong, but although netbsd boots fine from the tape
> (stock 60 meg drive on an emulex), it seems unable to read from it
> once booted.

This, plus frequent coredumps, were the reasons I had to give up on NetBSD
for Sun3.  The tape driver does not work properly with the standard tape
drive that came with Sun's own systems! I could not do backups, could not
read or write tapes, could not write the miniroot except by booting SunOS's
RAM disk kernel (munix) and using THAT to put it on the hard disk.
(SunOS's tape drivers *do* work.) There was some talk on the list, but I
never saw a fix.

I also had to use SunOS's RAM disk kernel format drives, as NetBSD's
miniroot did not have a low-level format utility.

--Brett