Subject: Re: vax port on snowhite
To: None <port-vax@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Bertram Barth <bertram@gummo.bbb.sub.org>
List: port-vax
Date: 06/26/1995 23:34:00
> After getting miniroot onto a disk and having used that to build to root
> partition from the root.cpio, be sure to say "ra0a" when asked for the
> root partition when you boot the new root image (I was using things like
> ra0* from previous experience and that nicely gave me my old miniroot
> image instead).

BTW: giving "ra0" as root-device or booting via >>> b dua0 (if /vmunix exists)
     will also mount the new root-partition.

> I wasn't sure why racopy wanted to always install on the a-partition of
> a disk then optionally onto another partition.  Would it not always be
> true that I would want to install only onto b so that I can continue to
> bootstrap to a full root fs image?  Although the docs do say something
> later in what I think may be the NFS section that you cannot mount ra0a
> anywhere but on / which would make booting on ra0b rather useless if true.

The kernel which mounts b-partition as root-device has been modified by rick.
Kernels built out of the NetBSD-current tree don't have this feature (yet).
Thus racopy installs on the a-partition to support both types of kernels.
I'd like to have kernels which can mount any partition [a-h] as root-device.
For installing onto two disks it's sufficient to install/mount ra0a and
then newfs/install the second disk.

Some of the docs/tools are not older than a few weeks and already outdated :-)

> Sorry about more whining but if racopy could not ask for image size when
> input is tms or tape that would also be great!  I suspect reading to the
> end of file is the right thing from tape.

Since the same racopy is used for loading from tape and from floppy, this
was the easiest way support both. There will be some improvements in later
versions. [BTW: how to judge a read-error from normal EOT?]

Ciao,
	bertram