NetBSD 1.5.3 installation in Macintosh SE/30

Background:  I wanted to install one of the free OSs
in a Macintosh SE/30.  I considered Debian Linux,
NetBSD and OpenBSD.  I chose NetBSD 1.6 after finding
the install document for the Macintosh port -- it looked
helpful and reasonbly complete.  I have not installed
nor used NetBSD before; I have Linux and other OS
experience.

After I had prepared the system for installation, I began
to look at the 1.6 install document to figure out what I
would need.  The document describes the binary distribution
sets -- a list of the files, their contents, and aproximate
sizes.  When I viewed the the mac68k/binary/sets directory
at one of the mirrors using Internet Explorer 5.5, I
observed that some of the file sizes were very wrong;
they were 10s of bytes instead of MBs.  I found this
very puzzling, and began looking at the port-mac68k
mailing list archive for clues, figuring that a major
problem like this was likely to be noticed.  I found
no mention of a problem with the distribution files.
However, there were some messages suggesting that 1.6
was unlikely to work correctly 'out-of-the-box' on my
SE/30.  This caused me to investigate the possibility
of using 1.5.3 instead.  I noticed that the file sizes
for some of the 1.5.3 files were also wrong.  Finally,
I used an ftp client and "ls -l", which revealed that
these files were links to common directories.  Ah.

I downloaded the files to a WNT 4.0 Server system which
was set up as an Appletalk file server.  I also downloaded
the .tgz files for bash and joe (a text editor), thinking 
I would install those at the same time as the binary 
distribution.  I needed to download a current version
of Unstuffit from Aladdin Systems; the older version I
had would not uppack the mkfs, install, and boot
utilities.  I then followed the 1.5.3 install 
instructions, accessing the .tgz files
via Appletalk over Ethernet.  The installation procedure
completed in more than 6 but less than 12 hours.
I used the 1.6 install directions to help me through
post-installation steps.

Commands to the shell like ls, ping, and tcpdump work.

There are still some things for me to fix.  Neither
bash nor joe function correctly.  I can start X-windows,
but twm and the X-windows server seem to have an exagerated 
idea about the size of the display on the SE30.  Xterms 
don't handle the del key in the upper right corner of 
the main keyboard block they way I want, which is to 
delete the last character typed.

In general, I'm pretty pleased with how this went.
My compliments and thanks to the mac68k port team.



Ken Johnson                          (johnson@meridian.com)