On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Ben Collver wrote:

> On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 12:01:16PM -0500, Perry E. Metzger wrote:
>> One tip -- I've found that floppies work a lot better when you
>> re-format them yourself on the floppy drive that you are going to be
>> booting them on. I typically get much lower error rates on those.
>
> I can confirm that tip.  Another thing that saves grief is to do
> something like "cmp /dev/rfd0a /path/floppy-image" to verify they are
> indeed the same.  This is usually how I catch that a floppy has gone
> bad.
>
> I prefer CD or net boot.

I originally just responded to Perry, but I did just that. fdformat
until I found a floppy with no errors, then dd onto that floppy. I think
of the 11 floppies I used, 5 gave errors (resolved with repeated
fdformat) and 6 gave none "out of the box". After having trouble with
the floppies with possible errors, of course I went to "fresh" floppies.

The install guide is not very clear about how to make cds, netboot, etc.
In fact, I know that I can give the cds a block size (for speed? for
data integrity? I don't know) but I had to use google to find that out.

I have a hard time navigating the documents to find out simple things
like "how to install NetBSD". (Yes, I checked the install docs first.)
That's why I ask here. That, coupled with broken install sets in
current, is a large pain in the tuckus. Once I get things installed, I'm
fine, but holy crap do I have a hard time doing the initial install.

-- 
Hisashi T Fujinaka - htodd@twofifty.com
BSEE(6/86) + BSChem(3/95) + BAEnglish(8/95) + MSCS(8/03) + $2.50 = latte