Re: Setting the root partition for boot

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

Hi Martin,

> On 11 Sep 2026, at 17:51, Martin Husemann <martin%duskware.de@localhost> wrote:
> 
> On Thu, Sep 10, 2026 at 03:48:49PM +1000, Matt Wallis wrote:
>> Some of the documentation appears to suggest using hd:X as the root partition, i.e.:
>> boot hd:,\ofwboot.xcf netbsd hd:4
> 
> On my G4 I do: 
> 
> 	boot hd:10,ofwboot.xcf hd:11,/netbsd
> 
> and that is a HFS+ partition at index 10 with ofwboot.xcf, but the kernel
> at the root of the NetBSD root partition (index 11 in my setup).

Thanks, I just decided I should repartition my install, use the Mac disk utility to create 3 partitions and install that way, where before I was using 2 partitions, 1 HFS and 1 Free, and having the NetBSD apparently install BSD partitions into the Free partition.

It seemed to work, certainly my previous email shows partitions under apmlabel and pdisk, but it made following the mapping nearly impossible. Now they are all just Apple partitions.

boot hd:3,\ofwboot.xcf hd:5,/netbsd

Boots the kernel, but still can’t find the root file system.

> That probably will not help with the non-workging keyboard though.

That’s the next problem, maybe.

The keyboard works fine booted from the install CD. I’ve run through the entire installation process no problems. 
I can even chroot into the installed environment and install additional packages. That’s actually how I was able to get those pdisk and apmlabel results, I was chrooted into the installed environment.

Matt.