Hi!

> >> (The exceptions are those people with root-filesystem disks that are
> >> smaller than 32 Mbytes. I'd advise such people to do a diskless
> >> install and then tailor a local root filesystem.)
> >> 
> >
> >And those who (try) to do a first install with a non - NetBSD machine
> >as a helper. It would be a very nice thing if there were something like
> >a miniroot or 32M-diskimage, which can simply be dd-ed on a disk,
> >enabling to boot a NetBSD system to ftp the rest.
> 
> There already is a 32Mbyte diskimage. It can be dd'ed directly onto
> the `whole disk' partition of a disk and booted.  That's the
> `diskimage' I referred to in the message you quote.
Yes, there is. But there sometimes were problems:
- it was once on ftp.freebsd.org, then it was deleted by accident, then 
it was there again. The miniroot's (the small thing) age and the story of 
the 32M - image made me anxious that similar could happen in future.

Maybe I missed an easy way to boot the first MIPS DEC or something about 
that in the web and documentation. I don't see why the diskimage.tar.gz 
would be useful for something like that in any way. OpenBSD installation
seemed a lot easier, and I installed NetBSD-pmax using the OpenBSD 
32M-diskimage.

Sorry for sending a unspecific complaint to the list.

> >And there may be people who only have 2100s or 3100s which cannot boot
> >properly from network.
> 
> There is a stripped-down kernel which is under 800K which successfully
> net-boots on 2100s and 3100s with old PROMs.  This has been part of
> snapshots for something like a year (from memory, I'd have to check
> the exact dates).  Frankly, I am confused. Where did you hear that
> NetBSD doesn't netboot on 2100s or 3100s?  Is the Web page not clear,
> or is this misinformation from elsewhere, or what?
It was just that we (some friends and I) did not manage to get a 3100
boot from network. We got boot requests, reverse ARP requests and tftp 
requests from the DEC, but after that, nothing happened. Then we didn't 
want to work on this any longer and got the OpenBSD bootimage, because 
trying to get a disk with the NetBSD miniroot labeled from the helper 
machine failed.

Maybe the reason is that the helper machine is a vax-ultrix 3.1 :-\
(no, we can't simply install netbsd on it. It is needed for the users.)

> I'm sorry, but as far as I know, the NetBSD/pmax snapshots can do all
> the things you've asked for, -- except the install script! -- and have
> done so for some time.
> 
I'm looking forward to a quick install of NetBSD 1.3 with a 32M-image.

Greetings,
Reinhold Huber