I have one of these beasties, too.  I have yet to make it boot without
HW modification. (swapping out the ROMs)  I have spent quite a few hours
in failed attempts, all pre-1.5.1 NetBSD.

I have been assured that it can be done, and believe that it is
a question of setting the OF variables "boot-command" and "boot-file"
(I think I have the names right...) correctly.  If you read the
old threads carefully, it sounds like just typing in the commands for
booting in OF is not enough, you have to set the vars, and then
just type boot.

I have not actually made this work myself, but am hopeful, and still
waiting for someone to post to the list with a first person confirmation.

__please__ report on your findings...

-dgl-

>Hi!
>
>I inherited my boss old mac and cannot get it to boot netbsd!
>
>  Open Firmware always ends up with:
> 
>  Open Firmware, 2.4
>  To continue booting the MacOS type:
>  BYE<return>
>  To continue booting from the default boot device type:
>  BOOT<return>
>  For Open Firmware serial I/O type:
>  TTYA IO<return>
>   ok
>  0 > setenv load-base 800000  ok
>  0 > reset-all
> 
>  loader: loading XCOFF
>  tsize=cbb0 dsize=14a8 bsize=2670 entry=640000
>  SECTIONS:
>  .text    00640000 00640000 0000cbb0 000000e0
>  .data    0064d000 0064d000 000014a8 0000cc90
>  .bss     0064e4a8 0064e4a8 00002670 00000000
>  loading .text, done..
>  loading .data, done..
>  clearing .bss, done..
>  CLAIM failed
>
>I applied SystemDisk 2.3.1 OF patches already, played with load-base,
>tried netbooting and booting from cdrom: Always the same error! :-(
>
>I can remember larger threads about this problem in this list, but
>couldn't find the 'solution'. Was there any?
>
>Anything else I can try?
>
>Tanks in advance,
>
>Markus.