Subject: heads up: installation changes
To: None <port-sparc@netbsd.org>
From: Paul Kranenburg <pk@cs.few.eur.nl>
List: port-sparc
Date: 10/19/2000 21:57:23
Since it has rapidly become impossible to cram the former self-contained
`bootfs' filesystem into the space available on a floppy disk, I've
decided to make the sparc floppy-boot method a two stage affair.

The new bootable image `bootfs' now contains only the tools necessary
to bootstrap into existence a memory-based filesystem distributed on
a second floppy image as a plain tar file. This tar file is
constructed from the miniroot image and contains everything from
the miniroot except the kernel & boot programs.

This means that there's now only one installation image: the miniroot.
`bootfs' and its associated `ramdisk' image are merely tools to get
the miniroot loaded using a floppy medium.

The default installation/upgrade tools are still the old and trusted
miniroot shell scripts, but sysinst is offered as an alternative.

As a corollary, a CD-R image should also use the miniroot image as the
bootable UFS partition. A machine-dependent target for creating an
ISO CD image has been added to etc/etc.sparc/Makefile.inc.

I expect to have a fresh snapshot with all this in place by the week-end.

-pk