As I mentioned before, creating another restore cd is not my goal. 
Restore cd is too inflexible due to it being a cd. It is not easily 
modifiable.
My goal is to create easy reproduceable and rw environment which one can 
use to recover or install netbsd on Qube/Raq. This includes i386 boxes, 
which I do not have. Another goal is to create such environment hosted 
on windows.

If you are running some sort of unix-like os at home, be this linux or 
bsd, creating nfs boot environment for qube is a piece of cake. Windows 
on the other hand is a problem. So I am trying as an experiment to use 
virtual machine to run unix.

Virtual machine would not be large. To create it you only need base and 
etc sets from i386. You will need all sets from cube but that you need 
anyway every time you upgrade.

You only need to create machine once, later just replace the cobalt sets 
and you have a new install environment. Saves future downloads.

The instructions also can be used to create recovery environment based 
on unix, if you ignore VmWare part. I think that current FAQ, while 
useful, is not detailed enough for average person to create a server for 
booting qube. I would like to improve on that.

Regards,
Alex

Christopher Schultz wrote:
> Alex,
> 
> 
>>So far I could successfuly create VmWare virtual machine, populate it
>>with NetBSD i386 and serve nfs root and dhcp out of it. Qube boots
>>nicely and it could serve as a recovery and install environment. Now I
>>just need to work out the details and package it nicely.
> 
> 
> I know this is kind of late itn the game, and I don't want to side-track
> you, but isn't a full-blown i386 NetBSD a little heavy for a
> recovery/restore CD? How big does the VM and up being (uncompressed?)
> 
> Would you consider using something more akin to Linux's Busybox (or even
> busybox itself, since it doesn't matter what OS the restore host runs)?
> 
> -chris