Matt Nichols <kgb@primenet.com> writes:

> My only problem/question is 'where to find a
>DECstation 5000/120 bootable kernel' I tried a 'netbsd.ecoff' image i
>found on a NetBSD mirror but it failed to boot.


Hi Matt,

what you really want is an `nfsnetbsd.ecoff' kernel. 

The 'nfsnetbsd.ecoff' kernel is ECOFF format so the DECstation boot
PROMs can boot it; it's set up for root on NFS, so you can boot it;
and it's configured with SCSI and disk drivers so you can label and
install to disk once you get booted.

Jason Thorpe found an NFS-related bug in the setroot() kernel code
just before the latest snapshot.  I fixed that a week agao; I don't
remember if it's in the snapshot or not.  If your nfsnetbsd.ecoff
kernel hangs right after printing something like:

	mainbus0 (root)
	cpu0 at mainbus0: MIPS R3000 CPU Rev. 3.0 with MIPS R3010 FPC Rev. 4.0
	tc0 at mainbus0: 25 MHz clock
	asic0 at tc0 slot 3 offset 0x0
	le0 at asic0 offset 0xc0000 priority 4: address 08:00:2b:2b:06:43
	le0: 32 receive buffers, 8 transmit buffers
	scc0 at asic0 offset 0x100000 priority 6
	scc1 at asic0 offset 0x180000 priority 5 
	clock0 at asic0 offset 0x200000 priority 0
	asc0 at asic0 offset 0x300000 priority 3: target 7
	cfb0 at tc0 slot 0 offset 0x0 (1024x864x8) (console)
	autconfiguration done, spl back to 0x0
	Beginning old-style SCSI device autoconfiguration
	rz0 at asc0 drive 0 slave 0 FUJITSU M2624F-512 rev 0303, 1015812 512 byte blocks
	rconsattach: 1 raster consoles

then you have a kenrel with the bug.

(the above is from a 5000/240, the details will be slightly different
on a 500/120, and of course for whatever disks you have.)


I'm building a new nfsnetbsd.ecoff kernel right now; it should be done
Monday morning.  I'll also repackage a copy of diskimage.gz as a
tarfile, so you can extract it into a root area on your NFS server.

If your 5000/120 has an external disk drive the easiest installatoin
path right now is probably just to uncompress diskimage.gz, and dd the
`diskimage; file onto the beginning of the decstation disk.  
On Linux, I think that would be 
	dd if=diskimage of=/dev/sda     (or /dev/sdb, /dev/sdc, etc.)

hope that helps

--Jonathan