Setting the root partition for boot

[Matt Wallis <mattw%madmonks.org@localhost>]

Hi folks,

Just on the off chance I am not an idiot, I’m struggling with booting NetBSD 11.0 on my G4 PowerBook.

I have:
70GB IDE HDD showing up as hd in OFW, and wd0 in NetBSD.
pdisk /dev/wd0
#:				type	name				length	base		(size)
1: Apple_partition_map   Apple		       			63 @ 1
2: 		   Apple_Free						262133 @ 64			(128.0M)
3:		   Apple_HFS  Apple_HFS_Untitled_1 63028952 @ 262208 	( 30.1G)
4:		  Apple_Free					     93010328 @ 63291160	( 44.4G)

apmlabel /dev/wd0
5 partitions:
#		size		offset		fstype
a:	  262144		     64		unknown
b:   91134440	 63291160		4.2BSD
c: 156301488	 		0		unused
d:   63028952	     262208		HFS
e:     1875824	154425664		swap


I have ofwboot.xcf and ofwboot.elf and netbsd-GENERIC.gz as netbsd (uncompressed) on the HFS+ partition.

I can use ofwboot.xcf or ofwboot.elf to load netbsd.
0 > boot hd:,\ofwboot.xcf netbsd

loading XCOFF

tsize=…
…

>> NetBSD/macppc OpenFirmware Boot…
>> Open Firmware version 3.x
>> Open Firmware running in virtual-mode
…
[        4.2599858] wd0 at atabus1 drive 0
[        4.2599858] wd0: <ST980815A>
[        4.2599858] wd0: 76319MB, 155061 cal, 16 head, 63 sec, 512 bytes/sect  x  156301488 sectors
[        4.3499858] swwdog0: software watchdog initialized
[        4.3599916] WARNING: 3 errors while detecting hardware; check system log.
[        4.3599916] boot device: wd0
[        4.3599916] root device (default wd0a):

Unfortunately at this time it seems the keyboard is not enabled as I can’t type anything here. I do see a few lines back:

[        1.2699884] adbkbd0 at nadb0 address 2: PowerBook G3 keyboard

So something was detected.

What is frustrating is that nothing I seem to do to influence the boot process seems to be handled properly by OFW or ofwboot. 
Passing -a does nothing. Or maybe it does, but a non-functional keyboard is not helping. I plugged in a USB keyboard, it also shows up, but no joy.

Some of the documentation appears to suggest using hd:X as the root partition, i.e.:
boot hd:,\ofwboot.xcf netbsd hd:4 
This however drops me into the kernel debugger.

If I get ofwboot to load with no kernel attached, it gives me the opportunity to type a kernel name, but that is the only parameter it will accept, I can’t pass flags or paths, it just aborts.

Suggestions?

Matt.