On Wed, 28 Feb 1996, Ken Nakata wrote:

> > Do I need a LILO disk?
> 
> I'm not sure what a LILO disk is.  I vaguely remember reading the word
> in Linux newsgroups, so I assume it's Linux related, though.  No, you
> don't need anything like that.

LILO stands for Linux Loader.  It's the small piece of code which reads 
in the kernel and decompresses it into memory.  LILO runs every time 
Linux starts up, regardless of if you're booting from floppy.  I'm 
assuming you mean "Do I need to boot from floppy", and the answer is no.  
Linux's installation puts a really small kernel on the floppy which LILO 
installs.  Amazingly enough, the floppy installer creates a RAM disk and 
creates a Linux filesystem there, since it can't really do that on the 
floppy.  Cool!  ;)

> > Would the ROMs in my box interfere with NetBSD booting?
> 
> Actually, yes.  Or more precisely, MacBSD can't boot correctly if you
> are running MacOS with virtual memory enabled, RAMDoubler enabled,
> and/or 32-bit addressing mode disabled.

Not really in the ROMs, but ROM's can interfere with the booting, that is 
if BSD can't be used with that ROM, but I can't see why the ROM would 
directly interfere...

> > Or does it actually run under MacOS?
> 
> Nope.

THe Booter runs under MacOS, because I haven't had time to, and nobody 
else has, wrote code to have BSD install directly from boot, bypassing 
MacOS completely.  I started the project, but time has become scarce!

> > Also, is NetBSD similar to other CLI programs?  Particularly Linux.
> 
> Someone told me CLI stands for Command Line Interface.

Yup.

>  MacBSD has a
> GUI; X11R6.

And a CLI...

>  Anyway, MacBSD is a lot closer to Linux than it is to
> MacOS or DOS.

That's because BSD is UN*X.  I wouldn't go around comparing it with DOS 
or MacOS, however...  ;)

> > That, btw, is why I'm looking into all this -- I wanna get as close
> > to possible to Linux with my Mac.

Then try to get the Mac-Linux group going again.  Looks like they're 
sticking with the PPC line now.  I tried to join the 68k group, but never 
got a response...

> Hm, why?  They are both a flavor of UN*X, right?  If you are so picky
> on UN*X flavors, then you might find MacBSD not as colorful as Linux.
> Some features of Linux, such as DOS-ish look&feel, graphic library
> with direct hardware access to VGA, and colored ls, are missed by some
> but considered distasteful by others.

Linux was designed for a 386.  NetBSD was designed to be cross-platform.  
That's not to say Linux doesn't cross-platform.  Logically (though not 
necessarily true) BSD should optimize more than Linux for the non-386 
platforms.

> > Anyway, I just basically have no idea what installing UNIX on a
> > machine with Mac ROMs will do; or how it will act.
> 
> Mac running NetBSD/mac68k simply becomes a UN*X box.  It's that
> simple!

A ROM chip has nothing to do with the operating system, and AFAIK 
NetBSD's (GENERIC) kernal doesn't rely or use any ROM glue.

--Rick C. Petty,  aka Snoopy
__________________________________________________________
 email: pett0019@gold.tc.umn.edu, pett0019@itlabs.umn.edu
   WWW:     http://www.itlabs.umn.edu/~pett0019/