Matthew Schnierle <pyld@grove.iup.edu> writes:
  [[ netbsd boot /netbsd -a weirdness snipped ]]

Manuel Bouyer replies:

>You need to remplace the line 
>config         gennetbsd       swap generic
>with something like (change the devices name to match your config)
>config          netbsd root on rz2a swap on rz2b dumps on rz2b

(guilty sideways looks)

Yes, that's correct.  Most, if not all, NetBSD ports have had smarter
code since the 1.2 release. Most non-pmax kernels can notice that they
actually have a boot device with a labelled swap partition, and use it
rather than prompting, even for GENERIC kernels.

The pmax kernel code that chooses a root and swap device has never
been upgraded from the 4.4bsd-derived code: setroot(), setconf() and
swapconf(), and so you need to tell the GENERIC kernel where to find
its root filesystem. (This is exactly how 4.3 worked, at least -Reno.)

For those using -current, this will be fixed next-week-ish when Jason
Thorpe's shiny new machine-independent setroot() gets folded into
the tree.  (which is a poor excuse for not having gotten it done
already.)

--Jonathan