On Sat, 12 Sep 1998, Ole Jakob Skjelten wrote:

> As far as I've understood, it uses tftp to boot a kernel over a network,
> but how do I set up Linux to send the kernel, and how do I make it accept
> the IP-adress Linux assigns it?

I think you need to use bootp for this, though I'm not a netboot jock. :-)

> If everything else fails, it would of course be possible to rip out the
> harddrive and, using a Linux system (I don't have access to any NetBSD
> system, and installing one just to set up my DECstation seems a little
> overkill) to set up the harddisk. As far as I can recall, Linux fdisk does
> make NetBSD filesystems, but does anybody know if there is any
> documentation on how to create a basic NetBSD system from a Linux system?

I think netbooting would be by far easier. The problem w/ having Linux
create the disk is that it would use a different disk partitioning scheme
than the one used by NetBSD/pmax. Different manufacturers used different
disk partitioning schemes, and NetBSD usually tried to be compatable with
the vendor scheme for a port. So NetBSD/i386 uses DOS partitions,
NetBSD/mac68k or macppc uses Apple's scheme, and NetBSD/pmax is compatable
w. Ultrix's.

> Any help would be greatly appreciated. I hope I do not bore anybody with
> such rudimentary questions, but NetBSD and DECstations is pretty new
> material too me :)

These questions are fine for the list. ;-)

Have you checked out the install documents?

Another thing to try would be to hook the disk up to the Linux box, and
get the disk image (see install notes for more info). You then just copy
the disk image to the disk, then hook it back up to the 2100.

Take care,

Bill