Install NetBSD/ macppc using sysinst

This document may not apply for iMac/B&W G3/PowerBook.

making boot floppy

getting OF(Open Firmware) prompt

booting from floppy

Drop to the shell and setup network interface

Current sysinst seems to have problem setting up network interface. To get arround the problem, dropping into shell and configure network interface manually. Network interface name ne0 may differ dependinding what PCI card you have.

Network Interface Name for ifconfig command
Ethernet Card	network interface name
Macintosh internal	mc0
NE2000 or compatible	ne0
DEC 21x40	de0

Terminal type? [vt100] xterm
Erase is backspace.
(I)nstall, (S)hell or (H)alt ? s
# ifconfig ne0 192.168.40.123 netmask 255.255.255.0
if you read from NFS server, this is good
time to mount manually (and say local disk /nfs when 
120-select-medium asked )
# mkdir /nfs
# mount -t nfs 192.168.40.120:/home6/NetBSD/arch/macppc/snapshot/19990620/binary/sets /nfs

run sysinst

To sysinst again, type

./sysinst, Now you will get following dialogs.

Welcome to sysinst, the NetBSD-1.4 system installation tool (a) to start
020-guide (b) to continue
030-disk-selection wd0 or sd0 etc,
040-choose-installation (a)Standard, (b)w/X, (c)Custom ?
050-partition
060-disk-name (I typed wrong name in this example).
070-are-you-sure
071-unknown-disk-type ( So I got an error),
080-newfs (if just mydisk used at disk name dialog.
090-fsck-OK-go-fetch-dist ( Return to continue )
100-full-or-custom ( Full or Custom, again )
110-see-filename-q ( see filenames while extracting ? )
120-select-medium (Where and how to get binary/sets )
120b-nfs (Try setting up nfs from sysinst -- fails )
130-local-disk ( tell where to find *.tgz files )
140-extracting
150-unpacked
160-making-device-files(takes several mins, be patient.
170-complete
180-rebooting (d) to reboot actually get OF prompt again

booting from installed disk

Above sysinst will not take care booting parameters. printenv at OF prompt show you all the varible name, current settings and default values. Related value are shown below.

variable name	default value	my examle
auto-boot?	true	false
boot-device	/AAPL,ROM	ata/ata-disk@0:0

If you get auto-boot? false, you may be prompted what to do. The examples for manual booting are:

>boot scsi/sd@3:0
>boot ata/ata-disk@0:0

etc, depending on SCSI/IDE or SCSI id's.

To know the available alias for booting device, type devalias at Open Firmware prompt. My machine example here.

StarMax oddities

If you run StarMax (from Motorola), and installing IDE disk, kernel booting may stop while probing wdc1.

To avoid this problem,

use wdc1 disabled kernel, generated by 19990725 src
at ki.nu which is, at least tested with 19990620 snapshot on Model 3000/200. (put this file as /mnt/netbsd or target:/netbsd after unpack.)
install on SCSI disk, not IDE drive.
debug the problem and report by send-pr

setup /etc files

See another table for the list to setup


Last Update
19:53:02 03/12/08
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