Yes folks, it works.  It works well enough to run firefox-gtk1.

But...
- Don't expect to be able to run a GENERIC or INSTALL kernel. You need a bzip2'ed small kernel.
- You need a serial port that can talk to the RAQ serial port at 115200.
- User interaction is required to boot multi-user and to reboot.  NetBSD halt, shutdown or reboot does not cause a return to the monitor ROM at this time so you have to cycle the power to reboot.

It's close, but not ready for production. See http://webpages.charter.net/dbarnes3367/PC/RAQ/
for installation details.

Dave Barnes
djb_pizza (at) ieee.org
==================

Sun Cobalt - Smaller, Bluer, Better
Firmware version 2.10.3

Current date: Nov 01 03:08:57 UTC 2005
ROM build info: Thu Dec 11 10:36:22 MST 2003 .
System serial number: Uninitialized
System type: 3000 series system, Version 1 board
Silicon serial number: 5c0000074956fe01
Monitor: 153600 bytes
Memory: 128 MB
CPU: 1 processor(s) detected
CPU 0: AuthenticAMD 298MHz (3 x 100MHz host bus) [BSP]
Initializing flash: done
Flash Bank 0: AMD AM29F080B 1024KB (01:d5)
Flash Bank 1: not installed.
Mounting ROM fs: done
Initializing PCI: done
Host Bus: 0 (device 19:04) [33MHz]
Device: 00:00 10b9:1541 Acer Labs M1541 Aladdin V Host Bridge
Device: 01:00 10b9:5243 Acer Labs M5243 AGP Controller
Device: 02:00 10b9:5237 Acer Labs M5237 USB Controller (IRQ 6)
Device: 03:00 10b9:7101 Acer Labs M7101 PMU
Device: 07:00 10b9:1533 Acer Labs M1543 Aladdin V PCI-ISA Bridge
Device: 0f:00 10b9:5229 Acer Labs M5229 TXpro IDE Controller (IRQ 14)
Device: 10:00 8086:1209 Intel 82559ER EEPro100 Fast Ethernet (IRQ 11)
Bridged Bus: 1 (bridge: 00:01:00)
Initializing ethernet: 1 controller(s) found
Intel 82559ER Found at port 0xff80, MAC: 00:10:e0:01:bc:c3
Initializing IDE: found ALI M5229 at 00:78
scanning ide0: master
scanning ide1:
IDE: stabilizing spinup: 100%
Checking Memory: done

Press spacebar to enter ROM mode

Cobalt:Main Menu> boot

Cobalt:Boot Menu> netbsd /boot/netbsd.bz2

*** stuff overflowed out of my scrollback buffer ****

swapctl: adding /dev/wd0b as swap device at priority 0
Checking for botched superblock upgrades: done.
Starting file system checks:
/dev/rwd0a: 6705 files, 91289 used, 163262 free (382 frags, 20360 blocks, 0.2% fragmentation)
/dev/rwd0a: MARKING FILE SYSTEM CLEAN
/dev/rwd0e: 18066 files, 278125 used, 2265426 free (11410 frags, 281752 blocks, 0.4% fragmentation)
/dev/rwd0e: MARKING FILE SYSTEM CLEAN
Setting tty flags.
Setting sysctl variables:
Starting network.
Hostname: Cobalt
Configuring network interfaces: fxp0.
add net default: gateway 10.0.0.101
Adding interface aliases:
Building databases...
Starting syslogd.
Checking for core dump...
savecore: /dev/wd0a: Device busy
Oct 31 21:11:47 Cobalt savecore: /dev/wd0a: Device busy
Mounting all filesystems...
Clearing /tmp.
dmesg: can't get size of msgbuf
Creating a.out runtime link editor directory cache.
Checking quotas: done.
Setting securelevel: kern.securelevel: 0 -> 1
Starting virecover.
Starting local daemons:.
Updating motd.
Starting inetd.
Starting cron.
Mon Oct 31 21:11:59 CST 2005

NetBSD/i386 (Cobalt) (console)

login:


...... later on ...... my disk layout with an ext2fs partition so the
ROM can find the kernel.....

(Cobalt:root) /root $mbrlabel wd0
Found Linux Ext2 partition; size 48321 (23 MB), offset 63
adding Linux Ext2 partition to slot f.
Found 4.2BSD partition; size 6297984 (3075 MB), offset 48384
skipping existing unused partition at slot c.

16 partitions:
# size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs]
a: 525168 48384 4.2BSD 1024 8192 43768 # (Cyl. 48 - 568)
b: 525168 573552 swap # (Cyl. 569 - 1089)
c: 6297984 48384 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 48 - 6295)
d: 6346368 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 6295)
e: 5247648 1098720 4.2BSD 1024 8192 46032 # (Cyl. 1090 - 6295)
f: 48321 63 Linux Ext2 0 0 # (Cyl. 0*- 47)

Not updating disk label.
(Cobalt:root) /root $disklabel wd0
# /dev/rwd0d:
type: unknown
disk: Cobalt
label:
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 63
tracks/cylinder: 16
sectors/cylinder: 1008
cylinders: 6296
total sectors: 6346368
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0 # microseconds
track-to-track seek: 0 # microseconds
drivedata: 0

16 partitions:
# size offset fstype [fsize bsize cpg/sgs]
a: 525168 48384 4.2BSD 1024 8192 43768 # (Cyl. 48 - 568)
b: 525168 573552 swap # (Cyl. 569 - 1089)
c: 6297984 48384 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 48 - 6295)
d: 6346368 0 unused 0 0 # (Cyl. 0 - 6295)
e: 5247648 1098720 4.2BSD 1024 8192 46032 # (Cyl. 1090 - 6295)

(Cobalt:root) /root $df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/wd0a 254551 91289 150534 37% /
/dev/wd0e 2543551 278125 2138248 11% /usr

**** here's how to get to the ext2fs partition that is outside the netbsd disklabel

(Cobalt:root) /root $sleep 5 </dev/wd0d && mbrlabel -w wd0 && mount -t ext2fs /dev/wd0f /cobalt

(Cobalt:root) /root $df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/wd0a 254551 91289 150534 37% /
/dev/wd0e 2543551 278125 2138248 11% /usr
/dev/wd0f 23393 3062 19123 13% /cobalt
(Cobalt:root) /root $cd /cobalt
(Cobalt:root) /cobalt $cd boot
(Cobalt:root) /cobalt/boot $ls
netbsd.bz2 netbsd2-cobalt netbsd2.bz2
(Cobalt:root) /cobalt/boot $ls -al
total 3050
drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 1024 Oct 31 13:10 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 root wheel 1024 Mar 6 1976 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 755550 Mar 6 1976 netbsd.bz2
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 1624087 Oct 31 13:10 netbsd2-cobalt
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 723466 Oct 31 13:10 netbsd2.bz2
(Cobalt:root) /cobalt/boot $top

load averages:  0.57,  0.19,  0.07                                     14:03:00
9 processes:   8 sleeping, 1 on processor
CPU states:  1.0% user,  0.0% nice,  0.2% system,  0.0% interrupt, 98.8% idle
Memory: 37M Act, 372K Wired, 19M Exec, 7276K File, 80M Free
Swap: 256M Total, 256M Free

  PID USERNAME PRI NICE   SIZE   RES STATE      TIME   WCPU    CPU COMMAND
  372 root       2    0    11M   25M poll       0:16 13.51% 10.50% firefox-bin
  351 root       2    0   540K 2600K select     0:00  0.92%  0.39% xterm
    1 root      10    0    60K  716K wait       0:01  0.00%  0.00% init
  375 root      28    0   168K  896K CPU        0:00  0.00%  0.00% top
  336 root      10    0   224K  704K nanoslee   0:00  0.00%  0.00% cron
  346 root       3    0   240K  760K ttyin      0:00  0.00%  0.00% ksh
  332 root       3    0    44K  644K ttyopn     0:00  0.00%  0.00% getty
  348 root       2    0    80K  748K kqread     0:00  0.00%  0.00% inetd
  147 root       2    0   172K  740K poll       0:00  0.00%  0.00% syslogd