Subject: Re: installer/filesystem incompatibility?
To: Armen Babikyan <armenb@moof.ai.mit.edu>
From: Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@zembu.com>
List: port-mac68k
Date: 04/26/2000 09:52:29
On Wed, 26 Apr 2000, Armen Babikyan wrote:

> At 8:22 PM -0700 4/25/00, Bill Studenmund wrote:
>
> >Oops. You can't use newfs to make file systems the installer will use. You
> >have to use "newfs -O".
> >
> >>From man newfs:
> >
> >     -O          Creates a 4.3BSD format filesystem.  This options is primari-
> >                 ly used to build root filesystems that can be understood by
> >                 older boot ROMs.
> >
> >The installer (and booter) both only understand the older format.
> >
> 
> Hm,
> 
> I used newfs without the -O argument and according to disklabel, the
> filesystem is 4.2BSD.  So I suppose I did do the right thing by using
> "newfs", instead of "newfs -O". The latest booter works fine with my
> filesystem too. Its just the installer that breaks.
> 
> So apparently the numerically higher version (4.3BSD) is used for machines
> with old boot roms, whereas 4.2BSD is what is normally used by
> NetBSD/mac68k? Interesting.

Unfortunatly you're putting too much stock in disklabel. disklabel just
says what the partition is labeled as, it doesn't go out and look at the
filesystem.

Doing newfs -O vs. newfs would not change what disklabel shows.

You have a 4.4BSD FFS on there, and the installer/booter only understand
4.3BSD FFS.

The reason the booter still works is that enough of the file system is the
same that it can find /netbsd. When you have a newer filesystem, there are
some times when the booter won't be able to find /netbsd and others that
it will. (specifically sometimes when you copy a new kernel to /netbsd the
booter will find it, and sometimes not).

If you really want to check out the file system, use dumpfs. This is what
an i386 at work shows:

endian  little-endian
magic   11954   time    Wed Apr  5 17:09:48 2000
cylgrp  dynamic inodes  4.4BSD  fslevel 3       softdep disabled
nbfree  287846  ndir    1       nifree  584637  nffree  17

The important bits here are fslevel, and inodes. This is a 4.4BSD
filesystem. Check yours, and I bet it will be too. :-)

Take care,

Bill