Subject: Re: Update: NetBSD 1.2 slays Connectix VirtualPC emulator, film at 11
To: None <port-i386@NetBSD.ORG, port-mac68k@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Greg Earle <earle@isolar.Tujunga.CA.US>
List: port-i386
Date: 06/14/1997 17:48:15
Jason the all-seeing, all-knowing wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 14 Jun 1997 15:17:18 -0700 
>  Greg Earle <earle@isolar.Tujunga.CA.US> wrote:
> 
>> Also, generic NetBSD/i386 1.2D snapshot question: Where on the boot floppy
>> is the "netbsd.gz" kernel stored?  When the floppy boots, if you quit out
> 
> ... netbsd.gz is in the root of the file system on the floppy...

That's what I gathered ...

>> of the install, "mount" shows "root_device on /", but there's no "netbsd.gz"
>> there.  I assume it's in another partition (arggh, I *hate* "root_device",
> 
> ...right... that's because the root file system in that kernel is a ramdisk
> that is statically written into the belly of the kernel :-)

Doh!  That's right ... I'd forgotten that ...

>> can't we please use good ol' "/dev/fd0a" or whatnot?!?), but where?  I can't
> 
> ... err, because the file system code, at mount time, doesn't know that
> the path to the root device will be ... it is updated later.

Ah, OK.  It would be cool if at some point there was an easy way to tell
that at the time I was looking, "root_device" mapped to "/dev/rd0a" ... :)

> A while ago, I fixed a timing bug in the isa floppy driver.  The bug
> still exists in 1.2{,.1}, so this might be part of the problem.

In my particular case, given that I was using a NetBSD 1.2D snapshot floppy,
I'm more inclined to blame the emulator's translation of the floppy accesses
into the real Mac floppy driver ...

Now I have a bit of a chicken and the egg problem, though.  Based on what
Jason said and the INSTALL doc, I have to somehow get a kern12D distribution
set onto the virtual disk (as well as etc12, etc.) to get this thing to
self-boot.  I noticed in my boot-up messages from the floppy that it didn't
seem to recognize the Ethernet emulation, however.  The emulator preferences
say that it emulates a "DEC 21041 Ethernet controller, using IRQ 11".  Given
that (and the fact that it says "Enabled"), I would have thought that it
would have shown up as a "de0" device ... since that is included in the
"SSTO" config file ... and according to Bob Nestor's followup message, his
emulator apparently did recognize it as a de0 ... oh well.

Anyway, I'll take this off-line to e-mail ... as Bob said, it appears that
Connectix is about to release the final version Real Soon Now, so in case
any of you fellow Mac-heads wanna wade in on this, come join us  :-)

	- Greg