Hello,

I just installed NetBSD/Sparc 1.0 on my machine for the first time.  Some
comments about the installation procedure etc.:

 -- NetBSD mounts `/dev/sd0a' on `/', regardless of what drive it was booted
    from.  I expected, and would have preferred, the SunOS behavior of
    mounting the root file system from the `a' partition on the boot device.

 -- I have to say that I don't at all understand the purpose of numbering the
    SCSI disks the way NetBSD does.  The prospect of either changing the
    jumpers on my other drives, or globally editing /etc/fstab, whenever I add
    or remove a disk other than the one with the highest SCSI ID doesn't
    appeal to me.  I know, I can turn it off if I want, but what I'm getting
    at is that I think it should be off in the distributed installation
    kernel, which should have, hardwired, either the standard SunOS mappings
    (0->3, 1->1, 2->2, 3->0) or direct mappings.  As it was, I used the
    `id3_scsi' kernel and wound up with 0->3, 1->0, 2->1, 3->2 which was
    unexpected to say the least.

 -- I guess I ran into some of the `fsck' bugs that are fixed by patch 02.
    The installation instructions for 1.0 should be edited, I think, to
    suggest to people that they turn off `fsck' (by setting the two numbers on
    the end of each line in `fstab' to 0) until they get the patch installed.
    (Obviously, this won't be a problem in the next release.)  Also, it sure
    would be nice if `fsck' had at least one of the two relatively recent
    features of the SunOS version: (1) it knows when a filesystem has been
    synced since its last write, so that `fsck'ing isn't necessary, and (2) it
    works on all disks simultaneously, checking one filesystem from each disk
    at a time.

 -- The installation instructions say nothing about `pwd_mkdb'!  I had to do
    some sleuthing to find this sucker.  The instructions should really say
    specifically how to install one's SunOS `passwd' file:

      To install the `/etc/passwd' you were using under SunOS, copy it to
      `/etc/passwd.tmp'.  Edit it, adding three fields to each line after the
      GID field; the first new field is empty, and the other two contain `0'.
      E.g.:

         jb::28:10:Joe Blow:/home/jb:/bin/csh

      becomes

         jb::28:10::0:0:Joe Blow:/home/jb:/bin/csh

      [Perhaps a `sed' script or something could be supplied to do this?]
      When done editing, do

         # cd /etc
         # pwd_mkdb passwd.tmp
         # pwd_mkdb -p master.passwd

      The first execution of `pwd_mkdb' updates `/etc/spwd.db'; the second
      regenerates the SunOS-style password file (minus the encrypted
      passwords) into `/etc/passwd', where SunOS executables may expect to
      find it.

 -- It would be nice if NetBSD came with a precompiled version of `tcsh',
    since the SunOS executable doesn't work (yet?).

 -- To run many SunOS executables, it is necessary to

      # ld -s /usr/libexec/ld.so /usr/lib

    At least, I guess this is the right thing to do -- it seems to work.

 -- Q: What is the command, corresponding to `pstat -s', to see how much swap
    space is available?

After I got the system running, it became evident that the SunOS binary
compatibility is not quite where I need it to be to permanently change over to
NetBSD.  I tried to start my SunOS X11R5, but `xinit' got a bad system call
error.  Okay, I *can* rebuild X11R5, though I don't relish the thought, but I
also have some executables I can't rebuild, notably Franz Allegro Common Lisp
(which says "Can't allocate memory" when I try to run it).  And so I have some
questions.  What is the degree of commitment to the SunOS compatibility?  Is
100% compatibility a goal, or even possible?  When I try an executable and it
doesn't work, how can I get more information about what went wrong?  Do I have
any hope of fixing the problem or will that take a wizard?  Are any of these
problems likely to have been fixed already in the latest version?

-- Scott

[Oh -- I just discovered the X11R6 binary on Gatekeeper, which by the way is
where I got everything.  Okay, I'll use that.]