On Thu, 27 May 1999, NetBSD Mailing list wrote:

> >   I just finished compiling a NetBSD kernel for my uVAX II and after booting
> > there were 2 things which i don't know how to fix:
> 
> Would it be possible for you to share how you installed your system
> initially with me?  Mine and another person's posting to this list
> regarding problems getting past the floppy/network miniroot boot
> have so far generated no responses on the list, and I guess I'll
> have to figure things out myself.  Knowing what method and steps
> you took to get netbsd going on your uVAX may prove helpful to me
> in getting it to work on my uVAX.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 				-skots
> --
> Scott G. Akmentins-Taylor     InterNet: staylor@mrynet.com
> MRY Systems			        staylor@idt.net, staylor@mrynet.lv
> Westlake Village, CA  USA		
>     (Skots Gregorijs Akmentins-Teilors -- just call me "Skots")
> 		----- Labak miris neka sarkans -----
> 

  Here it is, hope this helps:

  First i netbooted the uVAX from a linux box (complete NetBOOT - with 
mopd, kernel loaded from network, and root over NFS). I will explain later
the exact steps of the netbooting.  After netbooting i did:
  1. disklabel -e /dev/ra1 (ra1 is the disk i installed NetBSD on)
  With thin i created the partition info for the disk. I have ra1a for /,
ra1d for /var, ra1e for /usr
  My disklabel looks like this:
--------------
disk: ra81
label: NetBSDdisk
flags:
bytes/sector: 512
sectors/track: 47
tracks/cylinder: 20
sectors/cylinder: 940
cylinders: 838
total sectors: 787720
rpm: 3600
interleave: 1
trackskew: 0
cylinderskew: 0
headswitch: 0           # milliseconds
track-to-track seek: 0  # milliseconds
drivedata: 0

8 partitions:
#        size   offset     fstype   [fsize bsize   cpg]
  a:    64000        0     4.2BSD     1024  8192    16   # (Cyl.    0 - 68*)
  b:    64000    64000     unused        0     0         # (Cyl.   68*-136*)
  c:   787720        0     unused        0     0         # (Cyl.    0 - 837)
  d:    64000   128000     4.2BSD     1024  8192    16   # (Cyl.  136*-204*)
  e:   595720   192000     4.2BSD     1024  8192    16   # (Cyl.  204*- 837)

--------------
  2. mkfs /dev/rra1a ; mkfs /dev/rra1d ; mkfs /dev/rra1e
  3. mount /dev/ra1a /altroot
  4. mkdir /altroot/var ; mkdir /altroot/usr
  5. mount /dev/ra1d /altroot/var ; mount /dev/ra1e /altroot/usr
  6. mount nfsserver:/path_to_netbsd_sets /mnt
  7. cd /usr
  8. tar --unlink -xvfz /mnt/base.tgz
  9. the same for the other sets
  10. cd /altroot/dev ; ./MAKEDEV std
  11. diskabel -B /dev/ra1
  12. sync / umount /altroot/usr ; umount /altroot/var ; umount /altroot
  13. hit break on the console and ready for booting. Booting in my case is
  "b dua1", Then cames the bootloader where i just type boot.

  Now about the netbooting - to make the uVAX II netboot i had to "b xq"
from the console. Of course first i had to setup mopd but that is nicely
explained in the netbooting FAQ. The difference in my case was that i didn't
use rarpd or rpc.paramd but instead i used dhcpd (i already had that running).
Also i untarred the netbsd sets in a directory on the linux box (/netexp/NetBSD
in my case) and also cd /netexp/NetBSD/dev ; ./MAKEDEV std
  So the netbooting goes like this:
  b xq
  (the boot.mopformat loads if you have mopd setup correctly)
  on the prompt of the boot loader simply type boot
  The kernel will eventuilly load (if you have dhcpd/bootp setup correctly)
I say eventualy because it didn't alwais load in my case... It started
spinning characters which sometimes stopped before loading the kernel... it
looked like the NetBSD does not recover if there is a lost packet in the
network.
  When the kernel loads it will start init and tell you that the system is
not configured and drop you in single user mode. From there you can start
disklabel-ing your disk.