Subject: one nit about the i386 installation stuff ....
To: None <tech-install@netbsd.org>
From: Ken Hornstein <kenh@entropic.com>
List: tech-install
Date: 10/04/1994 03:50:51
The new i386 install stuff looks really great!  (Just supped it tonight)
However, I have one _minor_ nit to pick (well, ok, not so minor)....

When I first installed NetBSD, way back in the 0.8 days, I had a heck of a time
getting it on a hard drive with MS-DOS.  Unfortunately, this hasn't been made
any easier for the novice.  The install documentation says "partition your
disk, and note the starting offset and length (preferably in units of disk
sectors or cylinders)".  But as it turns out there really isn't a good way
to get this information out of the DOS fdisk (it only shows units in % or
Mb).  Also, the documents say to change the partition ID to 165 ... again,
no way to do this with the standard DOS utilities.

Two low-cost solutions to the above problems:

Include a pointer to "pfdisk" in the documentation.  Maybe even put it on the
ftp site, along with rawrite.exe.  It lets you change the partition ID to an
arbitrary number, and also will display the partition info in disk blocks.
The interface is a little uncomfortable for the first-time user, but it works.

Include the NetBSD "fdisk" on the install floppy.  I just did this, and it
seems to fit just fine.  I think this a better solution, as the NetBSD fdisk
has a nicer interface in terms of leading a user through a series of questions.
One could put something in the install script that says "Do you wish to run
fdisk on the selected disk?" right after you prompt for all the disk name
and type.  Or even just a small pointer in the install document that says you
can hit "n" at the "Do you wish to continue?" prompt at the beginning of the
install and run fdisk from there.

The reason I think this is important is because I've seen a lot of people just
give up on NetBSD because it was too hard to make it co-exist with DOS, and
that's a shame because it's something that a lot of people want to do.  Even a
few steps in this direction will help out greatly, IMHO.

--Ken