All,
Hello, I recently obtained an unmodified Cobalt Qube 2 (the one with a 
250MHz CPU, 16MB RAM and a 10GB hard disk). I tried installing NetBSD 
1.6.1 using the ISO image found here:

ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/cobalt/restore-cd/

But after installation, the Qube rebooted and, and I got this out of the 
serial port:

Cobalt Microserver Diagnostics - 'We serve it, you surf it'
 > Built Tue May 25 15:58:41 PDT 1999
 >
 >   1.LCD Test................................PASS
 >   2.Controller Test.........................PASS
 >   5.Bank 0:.................................16M
 >   6.Bank 1:.................................0M
 >   7.Bank 2:.................................0M
 >   8.Bank 3:.................................0M
 >   9.Serial Test.............................PASS
 > 10.PCI Expansion Slot....................**EMPTY**
 > 12.IDE Test................................PASS
 > 13.Ethernet Test...........................PASS
 > 16.RTC Test................................PASS
 > BOOTLOADER ramcode: selected partition /dev/hda1
 > Decompressing done
 > Executing bootloader kernel...
 > Decompressing -- done.

... and then nothin else. I wanted quite a while, just in case.

I noticed that I'm having the same symptom as another user on this list: 
my primary network port's link light came on during the boot-up, but 
then went off. I also noticed that if I switched the CAT5 cable from the 
primary to the secondary port, the 2nd link light *did* come on. Weird.

I tried re-installing Cobalt Linux to make sure I hadn't broken 
anything, and that install went fine. I then re-attempted the NetBSD 
install with the same results.

Since I had decided that I wasn't going to be running 1.6.1 anytime 
soon, I figured I'd give 1.6 a go, since it only takes about 15 minutes 
with no humal interaction to install the OS.

It worked without a problem. It rebooted and I could log-in over the 
serial port no problem. I had completely forgotton that I had started 
the install until I was closing a bunch of unused windows and found my 
serial terminal full of text.

I'm wondering what might have prevented the 1.6.1 kernel from booting. I 
would be glad to work with anyone who can help debug this to get it 
fixed. My Qube is a complete toy at this point, so I don't mind 
re-installing the OS like a zillion times to help someone out and give 
them some kind of data.

I hope this helps some of the other Qube2 people out there.

-chris