>>>>> "Greg" == - Greg Earle <earle@isolar.Tujunga.CA.US> writes:


    Greg> As for the bootable floppy stuff, it's pretty trivial.  The
    Greg> 4.1.x instructions are essentially:

   - fdformat
   - newfs -v -i 4096 /dev/rfd0a
   - mount /dev/fd0a /mnt
   - cp -p /boot /mnt/boot
   - /usr/mdec/installboot -vl /mnt/boot /usr/mdec/bootfd /dev/rfd0a
   - cp -p [file to boot] /mnt
   - cp -p netbsd.sparc /mnt
   - chmod +x netbsd.sparc
   - ln /mnt/netbsd.sparc /mnt/vmunix
   - mkdir /mnt/sbin
   - chown root.wheel /mnt/netbsd.sparc
   - chown bin.staff /mnt/sbin
   - cp -p /sbin/sh /mnt/sbin/sh
   - cp -p /sbin/init /mnt/sbin/init
   - umount /mnt
   - eject floppy

    Greg> The problem at this point is that you run out of space on
    Greg> the floppy filesystem )-:

    Greg> The other weird problem is that "mkfs" seems to ignore "-i"
    Greg> arguments that are larger than 4k (default is 2k).  When I
    Greg> did a default newfs it created a FS with 640 inodes; so I
    Greg> thought "Well I'll save a few Kb by making it 32k and
    Greg> shrinking the # of inodes down to around 40 or so instead".
    Greg> So I tried it and "newfs" dutifully said "I'm passing -i
    Greg> 32768 to `mkfs'", but the net result was ~320 inodes - half
    Greg> of the default instead of 1/16th.  So I didn't have enough
    Greg> room to get /sbin/mount onto it.

Try compiling the NetBSD newfs - I think it should work.

    Greg> The other problem is that even booting with "-asb" and
    Greg> specifying "/fd" for the root filesystem, at the end of the
    Greg> kernel boot it asks for the root device and it absolutely
    Greg> refuses to take an answer other than "sd<something>".  Sigh.
    Greg> Of course you can't say "sd0a" because then it can't find
    Greg> /sbin/mount (presumably) to mount it ...

I don't understand. Mount_root() is done inside the kernel. No need
for /sbin/mount.

    Greg> (On the other hand, VERY impressed to see the kernel boot up
    Greg> on a SPARCstation 2/GX as far as it did ... )

What sources did you use? The -current tree? How did you build
libkern.a? Any hints?

    Greg> 	- Greg

Dirk

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dirk W. Steinberg - RWTH Aachen - Internet email: steinber@ert.rwth-aachen.de
Aachen University of Technology / IS2-Integrated Systems in Signal Processing
Rhein.Westf.Tech.Hochsch. Aachen / Integrierte Systeme der Signalverarbeitung
Templergraben 55 / D-52056 Aachen / phone:+49 241 807879 / fax:+49 241 807631
Home address: Kleikstr. 63, D-52134 Herzogenrath,Germany/phone: +49 2406 7225

------------------------------------------------------------------------------