On Tue, Feb 17, 2004 at 02:06:45PM -0500, der Mouse wrote:
> > Windows can't access beyond 8 GB; NetBSD can.  So NetBSD will have to
> > go and sit on the end of the disk.  However, the root filesystem
> > needs to be contained under the 1024 cylinder limit.
> 
> This almost certainly is not true; only the _boot_ filesystem needs to
> be thus contained.  Using your root filesystem as your boot filesystem
> is a convention and a convenience, but nothing more.  My laptop boots
> from wd0a but has root on wd0e, for example, for reasons similar to
> what you describe.


It is definitely not true, only the netbsd kernel and the boot program
need to be below the 1024 cylinder limit.

The (bootable) netbsd mbr partition must contain /boot and /netbsd (and
have had installboot run on it).  The kernel can be built to always take
the root filesystem from a different partition (you have to do this as
part of the kernel build) - and can be anywhere on the disk.

As also pointed out earlier, the netbsd disklabel uses absolute sector
numbers so can reference any part of the disk.

	David

-- 
David Laight: david@l8s.co.uk