> Ted Lemon writes:
>  > 
>  > For this reason, the alternate choice of bootstrapping and installing
>  > over the net seems more desirable and supportable, particularly since
>  > I think it's about the same level of hassle for the installer.
> 
> Booting off the net sounds like a wonderful idea.  It would certainly
> make installation & testing much easier.  Is it possible to make DEC
> stations speak something other than mop?  Or, does anybody understand
> enough about how mop works to make a netbsd kernel boot diskless?

actually, i find that a reasonable way to do this, at least while
you're bootstrapping, is to copy a kernel that can be booted with the
native bootblocks to the native disk, then boot it.

if that kernel is set up to have root & swap on NFS, then it all work.


of course, you still have the following problems:
	(1) rebooting with a different kernel is a pain
		(you have to halt, boot ultrix, copy it over,
		reboot into NetBSD.)
	(2) you still need to make kernels that the native boot loader
		understands.

this is a technique that's been used successfully in getting ports to
be self-hosting...


chris