In reply to your message of Thu, 18 Nov 2004 13:42:45 EST:
 
| >> 2. installation troubles. It was really hard to boot that thing! I
| >> admit that the fact that old 1.0 OF defaults to serial console is a
| >> drawback...
| 
| There's only so much that can be done on that front. I think the best 
| situation would be to boot a microkernel from floppy that scours the 
| device tree and looks for input and output devices and sets up 
| everything for you and reboots back to openfirmware. This could be done 
| with MacOS 7.5 disk utility floppies for instance.

Drawing on some of the prior feedback in this thread, I thought I'd go
ahead and offer some thoughts on improving the install experience for
those new to Unix/NetBSD, particularly from the MacOS world, who might
find the current installation process-- particularly booting--  a bit, shall 
we say, intimidating.

With the clear stipulation that I Am Not A Developer (though I have played
one on TV), Apple seems able to use their behind-the-scenes magic to get
a clean OS X CD boot on nearly all the new world and many old world machines.
It strikes me that if it were technically possible to leverage or replicate
what they are doing and construct a very clean, CD-bootable install
process that this would be a very worthwhile endeavor.

Consider that with the importance of first impressions, the first thing
most users desirous of installing NetBSD on a Mac are confronted with
is not the installer (which, while quirky, is a very smooth-flowing,
wizard-like installation UI), but rather the arcane world of OpenFirmware
booting.  If there was a way to obviate the tedious mucking about in OFW
with a widely-viable auto-bootable CD, IMO this would be a huge positive
uplift in the initial NetBSD experience. Insert CD, double-click to
launch nvram setup app which then reboots to the NetBSD installer.

Of course, such an undertaking is non-trivial even if it is technically
possible. And I'd be shocked if this ocean hasn't been boiled before by
the development teams when the installer code was just a flowchart on 
a napkin.  Nonetheless, since the topic of improving the NetBSD experience was 
broached, I thought I'd risk (re)visiting this suggestion.
FWIW,
	Paul

Paul Frommeyer         Senior Networking Consultant           corwin@palas.com