> [ how long does it take to boot ]
> [ ... 3-5 minutes ]
> [ 2 floppy boot? ]
> [ floppy not booting on Multia ]

In 1.3.2, the floppy did take up to 5 minutes to load. I've improved that
by a lot in various increments since then, boot floppies from -current have
been steadily faster. This helps a lot if, for example, you have one of the
not-all-that-uncommon configurations where NetBSD supports your disk con-
troller but SRM does not. In that case, every boot is a floppy boot.
(Actually, at the moment, only the install disk set has all of the speed-
up mods in it, but you see where this is going. And the GENERIC kernel
used in this case easily fits on one disk.)

Anyway, if you swap disks quickly, you can now load the two-floppy set
in about one minute, whereas in 1.3.2 it might have taken five minutes
to load just the one.

The two floppy set allowed us to support all our platforms for the first
time, for example, the floppy (set) now boots on the 3000 series turbochannel
models.

More importantly, it allowed incorporating the screen-menu sysinst installer
on the floppy for the first time.

We got a question on this list last summer `when will alpha support a
menu-driven installer?'.  As was stated in the last snapshot announcement,
the answer is `right now'. (:-)

Lots of little benefits are there too...  you get a resolver now; it was
intentionally left out before. (And the old install and upgrade scripts
are still there as well.) To answer the question about what are the disks:
it's an install kernel with an internal miniroot (ramdisk) file system of
utilities, just like before but with more features, more utilities, and a
lot more support in the kernel, and this time split over two disks by using
a multi-volume-capable boot file system.

As far as the problem Multia goes, something is wrong down the line, I
think. We've tested the snapshot disk on Multias, so my guess would be
`hardware problem' or `the disk set was made wrong'. Best approach: if you
can find another alpha to try your actual install disk on. Just booting
the disks does no harm to the hard drives, so you don't really place a
borrowed host at risk.  Alternatively, get a previously-known-to-work
install disk from someone, netboot the install kernel, or write the cdhdtape
image to a cd, harddrive, or tape. (Sadly, netboot is sometimes problematic
on Multias.) How exactly did you make your floppies, anyway?

The newly revised install instructions may help; you can get a preview of
them at:

	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/alpha/misc/INSTALL.html
	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/alpha/misc/INSTALL.more
	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/alpha/misc/INSTALL.ps
	ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/alpha/misc/INSTALL.txt


  --Ross Harvey
    ross@netbsd.org


> From: Tim Rightnour <root@garbled.net>
:::
> On 16-Nov-98 shsrms spoke unto us all:
> #  Thanks for the reply Tim,
> #  I never experienced this kind of delay on the vax either.  I will try to
> #  cut a couple of new disks.
> #  
> #  the current floppy set has two disks, is there an explanation for the
> #  second disk or is it just the generic kernel?
> #  
> #  I don't see that described in the install info (the new current set of
> #  floppies).
>
> Alpha keeps getting larger and larger as we support booting from more and more
> different machine types.  Eventually, 1.44MB was just too small.
>
> Note:  I've never tried booting from a -current floppy on my alpha.. but it
> works flawlessly off the old 1.3.2 floppy on the ftp site.  (except for the 100
> or so fdc overruns, a "feature" of the hardware, not the OS)
:::