Hi. 

> It might be worth our (and other people's) trouble to ask what has 
> changed in the netbooting software between 1.2 and 1.3?
>
> This, as to prevent people digging through wads of source when the 
> answer might be readily available.
>
> So, as to make it official:
>
> Dear contributers, maintainers and generally anyone who might know,
> what could cause NetBSD 1.3 to _NOT_ netboot properly from a Linux
> machine?

here are 2 different ways in NetBSD network booting.

	1. via SunRPC/bootparams
	2. via BOOTP/DHCP

NetBSD has recently changed netbooting to 2nd option.  Netboot via
BOOTP/DHCP is very handy.  The focal point is in /etc/bootptab (only).
My /etc/bootptab entry looks like this;

pmax:\
        :ht=ethernet:ha=08002B351049:\
        :ip=10.1.1.58:sm=255.255.255.0:sa=10.1.1.59:\
        :td=/tftpboot:hd=/:bf=nfsnetbsd.ecoff:rp=/u0/pmax:

The last tag 'rp=' is substantialy important.  It's the root directory
of diskless node, and should be NFS exported to the node correctly.

Hope this help your problems.

Tohru Nishimura
Nara Institute of Science and Technology