Subject: Re: Possible to build a powerpc disk (disklabel + fs) on an i386?
To: None <tad@entrisphere.com>
From: None <jkunz@unixag-kl.fh-kl.de>
List: tech-kern
Date: 11/10/2001 13:50:03
On  9 Nov, Tad Hunt wrote:
> 
> I want to install a NetBSD powerpc distribution on an IBM microdrive from
> an i386 NetBSD machine.  I can talk to the disk from both the x86 PC and
> from the powerpc machines, but I think the disklabels are different.
> 
> Is this possible?
Yes. NetBSD uses the same disklabls / partition tables like the other
OSes on a given platform. So you get a i386 MBR disklabl that your PPC
machine can not understand. The next problem is the endienes. i386 is
low endien ("sysctl hw.byteorder" gives "hw.byteorder = 1234") and AFAIK
ppc is big endien. ("sysctl hw.byteorder" gives "hw.byteorder = 4321")

You may have luck with a ppc disk image that you can dd to the
microdrive. 
-- 



tschuess,
          Jochen

Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz