Subject: New Multia firmware and netbooting revisited
To: None <port-alpha@netbsd.org>
From: Graham Allan <allan@physics.umn.edu>
List: port-alpha
Date: 02/07/2000 20:26:28
I have a bunch of VX42 Multias sitting around, retired from NT use,
which would probably make reasonable systems when running NetBSD. I'd
like to netboot them... about which there are many problems, from
reading the docs!

First though, I couldn't see this in the web documents, but the "new"
Multia firmware *is* publically available. Perhaps it's common
knowledge, but Compaq released it as part of, or at least associated
with, the OpenVMS hobbiest program. You can download it from this URL:

http://home.earthlink.net/~djesys/vms/hobbyist/multia.html

This gets you "DEC AXPpci233 MT Common Console X4.5-819", which does
netboot sucessfully; at least it does download the netboot second stage
bootstrap. I haven't got it to proceed further than this; could this be
because I am using dhcpd instead of bootpd on my server?

There is another issue with this firmware; if you attempt the
floppy-based install, no SCSI disks can be found. I tested this on more
than one system, with internal and external disks. I wonder if the new
firmware sets up the SCSI controller differently somehow?

Graham Allan
Physics, University of Minnesota