Yay, I got the installer running, at last, and was able to install  
netbsd and boot from HD.

So far so good. Though I can neither use the graphics card nor the  
keyboard (graphics card ignored by OF, keyboard hangs netbsd), it  
seems like netbsd is running alright. And this is how it went:
- unplugged mobo battery and mains, let it sit it out
- tried booting from unofficial iso, no go
- tried booting from official iso, no go, of course, but it might  
have done something to OF
- tried booting from unofficial iso again, just for kicks, and  
voi'la, it magically works.

I can live with the fact that the computer runs headless once its  
configured, though having to use vi for the first steps makes things  
a lot harder. Also, having to use zTerm under Classic over a USB  
serial adapter is making things a lot harder. Flaky as hell.

Alright, back to work...thanks for the help so far, you'll hear from  
me :)

Cheers,
  - DoG


On 20.11.2005, at 21:03, Michael wrote:

> Hello,
>
>> Alright, I got a little further this time, then went back :/
>>
>> Using the commands suggested, namely
>> boot scsi-int/sd@3:,\OFWBOOT.XCF NETBSD.MACPPC
>> got the whole thing running. Not at the first try, but I tried
>> mocking around, and hell if I know what I did, but after several
>> repetions and mucking with the real-base and load-base settings, it
>> worked.
>
> That happens to everyone. Welcome to weird Apple OF.
>
>> I got into the installer several times, but it gave me timeouts on  
>> the
>> MESH controller, and locked up while trying to format the HD. So I
>> went and changed the SCSI chain, plugged things into the external  
>> SCSI
>> port, and I was stuck again. Unfortunately, I didn't write down the
>> exact output when things worked, and also failed to put down the OF
>> variables.
>
> Hmm, what kind of harddisk do you use? Some IBM by any chance?
> If so - does it have a jumber labeled 'target initiated sync
> negotiation' or something like that? If it does - disable this feature
> since it confuses the mesh controller. Do you have a ZIP drive? It may
> mess up things too, if you have one disconnect it and see if things
> change.
>
>> In the meantime I managed to mess up the real-base var and had to
>> take out the mobo battery several times. Now, it seems like more ore
>> less independent of the real-base value, I get to one of the
>> following messages:
>>
>>> 0 > boot scsi-int/sd@3:,\OFWBOOT.XCF NETBSD.MACPPC loading XCOFF
>>> tsize=C860 dsize=28C bsize=25C0 entry=E00000
>>> SECTIONS:
>>> .text    00E00000 00E00000 0000C860 000000E0
>>> .data    00E0D000 00E0D000 0000028C 0000C940
>>> .bss     00E0D290 00E0D290 000025C0 00000000
>>> loading .text, done..
>>> loading .data, done..
>>> clearing .bss, done..
>>>
>>>>> NetBSD/macppc OpenFirmware Boot, Revision 1.10
>>>>> (builds@works.netbsd.org, Mon Oct 24 22:31:34 UTC 2005)
>>> no active package4125672-
>
> Check your SCSI chain, especially termination. Try different cables,
> different connectors, remove all unnecessary devices and so on.  
> Mesh is
> PICKY. OF is PICKY. Our driver isn't as fault tolerant as it probably
> should be either, but this looks a lot like imperfect cabling.
> You may also want to check your memory modules - MacOS is a lot more
> tolerant here ( probably because of their weird memory manager )
>
> have fun
> Michael