Excerpts from netbsd: 12-Aug-97 Re: boot disk Martin Husemann@rumolt.t (302*)

> > The thing is, as far as I can see, boothowto never gets set, and
> > RB_SINGLE=2 (from reboot.h). I find it hard to believe that just by
> > chance boothowto contains a number with its 2nd bit set, so what am I
> > missing ?!
> 
> It's passed from the bootloader, see /sys/arch/i386/stand/lib/exec.c.

If you use the old bootblocks, it is automatically set.
The new i386/stand doesn't do this.
If you use a ramdisk root, single user mode is forced by
the mountroot_hook (i386/md_root.c) iirc.

If I see it, you have no chance to get an automatically booting
system with -current: With fd root, the floppy will prompt you
to insert the file system floppy, and with md root you are forced
to single user mode.

best regards
Matthias