Hi,

thanks for your reply -- some of it quite useful input as raw
material for the install notes.  I'll just comment the parts
where I have something to say:

> >     - how to boot from the floppy
>
> ?
> What floppy? :)

Well, the one in my 7600, of course. ;-)  Since some models have
floppies and since it is probably in many ways less demanding of
the "infrastructure" to boot that way, I think we should document
and support the option.

> Anyone know what the commands are to get a list of the devices
> installed on your system?  There are commands to enumerate PCI
> cards, obio devices, disks, partitions, yes?  I see others
> doing it and wish I knew how.

Heh, found it in the aforementioned Apple docs:

  dev / ls

> Again, we may need to provide some worst-case documentation and
> get people to report what works and what doesn't for various
> models.

Yep.

> ofwboot.elf is an ELF object, and ofwboot.xcf is COFF.
> ofwboot.xcf is not part of the distribution set, but it is
> buildable by hand in src/sys/arch/macppc/stand and will
> hopefully be included in the distribution soon.

Do we have a web document which tells the user which model
supports which object format for net-booting?

> My feeling is this:
>  1) if you are netbooting for the purpose of installing on a
>     disk, _don't_ install base.tgz and etc.tgz in your root
>     filesystem.  install netbsd-GENERIC_MD, or whatever the
>     miniroot-laden install kernel is called in the future, and
>     use sysinst.  Your root filesystem will contain _one_ file.
>     If you have an ELF-aware Mac, you might even be able to get
>     away with pointing 'filename' in dhcpd.conf straight to a
>     TFTP-able gunzip'ed install kernel and skipping ofwboot
>     altogether.  This is more like 3MB, not 30MB.

Right, that was what I had in mind.

>  3) Also note that until 'options BUFPAGES=3D800' gets added to
>     the GENERIC config file, or UBC gets integrated, the kernel
>     in kern.tgz is broken on Macs with lots of memory.  You
>     need to rebuild one yourself with 'options BUFPAGES=3Dxxx' by
>     temporarily booting netbsd-GENERIC_MD with the -a option
>     and pointing it at your NFSroot.  This will effect both
>     sysinst and manual installs on Macs with lots of memory.

OK, this sounds like an item for the "caveats" section unless
someone requests a pull-up before we cut the release.  (It really
sounds like the change should be pulled up, though, something I
can take care of.)

> I'm interested in working on documentation, but unfortunately
> i'm lazy and it's difficult to motivate to continue testing
> things once I've got _my_ Macintosh working and would rather
> move on to getting X working or obtaining and building LiViD so
> I can watch those annoying Chris Rock DVD's that apparently the
> DVDCCA has not market-licensed to work with the Apple DVD
> Player.

;-)

Well, in my case I'm currently a bit motivated since I've not
installed mine yet.

Regards,

- H=E5vard