I think Mathias Pfaller's idea for an improved install procedure (a
compressed kernel with build in ram disk driver and burned-in contents
of the ram disk filesystem as the only file on the first install disk)
is the right way to go.

With an additional change to fdisk this would result in a very easy
way to setup NetBSD/i386.

What we need is an additional option (-I ?) to switch fdisk to
"install" mode. It could then scan all disks found in /dev, note which
are present and which have space free or already NetBSD partitions on
it. It should also note all valid other partitions.  If it could
figure which driver is used by the device, it could make good
suggestions for geometry (adaptec controllers all use the same
geometry for dos, we may find a way to record the virtual geometry of
ide disks at boot and retrieve it now). It then can guide the user
through the process of setting up NetBSD partitions that map to fdisk
partitions and create the right disklabel as well as the partition
table and may even offer to install a bootstage os selector. It would
be impossible for the naive user to create a mismatch between
partition table and disklabel partitions or overwrite existing
non-NetBSD partitions.

Imagine a CD with all needed binaries (not compressed), an image of the
first (and only) boot disk and a small dos tool to copy that image to
disk. With the dos-bootcode hidden in some -pr inside gnats this would
even be directly bootable from dos.

What do you think? 

Is it possible for fdisk to gather the needed information (it can't read
the kernel, since that will be compressed)?


Martin

-- 
"Die freie Routine setzt einen Zeiger auf den freigegebenen Storage,
verlangt aber nicht, dass die Groesse der Speicherteile freigesetzt
wird."	-- german translation of "The Design and Implementation of the
	   4.3BSD Unix Operating System", p.64; probably talking about free(3)