On 5 Mar 1999, rdkeys@unity.ncsu.edu wrote:

> I went playing with the better of the two VAXstations (2 x RZ23 + 8M ram)=
,
> and managed to get the silly thing to boot off the floppy.
>=20
>    >>Netbsd vaxboot....blah, blah.
>    :
>=20
> But, when I typed in a call to the edlabel, it came back with some
> register dumps and a file or directory not found message.
> At least it seemed to boot.
> Anyone know if it is possible to boot further and actually get it
> to label and install a miniroot for testing?

Eh,,, No!
I tried to make a usable bootimage, and got as far as a kernel that
should fit on a diskette, with all the stuff necessary for installation.
Unfortunately i wasn't able to boot it from diskette, only netboot
worked. Strangely no one seemed interested in helping me out with
the diskette booting problems!
If i was able to make it work it would be very easy to install NetBSD
on a VAX, you could even boot it from CD-ROM. If Ragge reads this:

- Please try to compile the installkernel from Dec. with SCSI, CD and
  support for CD9660.

IMHO.
At least half of the installation problems on the VAXen could be avoided
with a better installation tool, and many other, if the FAQ's and HOWTO's
were updated. There are many FAQ's floating around on the net, that
doesn't say anything about the problems with booting on SCSI, not even
the FAQ's on netbsd.org says anything about the problems.
The least one could be expected to do is putting in the undocumented
"boot rom()" stuff in the FAQ's.
Well, it seems that using SCSI doesn't have any priority, many seem to
think that everyone can use a system that boots and runs with everything
mounted over net.
I haven't got the necessary skills to make SCSI work, but i could
easily make a bootable installation CD if someone took care about the
SCSI-drivers in the kernel.

I'm sorry if someone feels bad about this, but in my opinion the
priorities have been a bit mixed up. At least booting over the net
doesn't make me happy...

cheers,
/Anders=20

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