*BSD News Article 15412


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From: kuku@acds.physik.rwth-aachen.de (Christoph Kukulies)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.bugs
Subject: Re: NetBSD install1.fs1 chokes
Date: 30 Apr 1993 16:56:20 GMT
Organization: I.Physikalisches Institut RWTH-Aachen
Lines: 57
Distribution: world
Message-ID: <1rrlnk$6dp@urmel.informatik.rwth-aachen.de>
References: <1rr0ke$snp@urmel.informatik.rwth-aachen.de>
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In article <1rr0ke$snp@urmel.informatik.rwth-aachen.de>, I wrote:

>Trying to boot [install.fs1] it yields the typical messages that appear
> when no kernel
>is being found (like ...trying boot, trying 386bsd.old, .alt, vmunix etc..)
>
>There is a README telling that the install disks are broken but why are they
>standing still around?
>
>Is there a replacement? Or a fix? A patch to patch the patch?
>

Sorry for the noise but a simple README with some instructions would have helped and would have prevented unnecessary asking.

I found out that I had also to make a kernel floppy.

So far so good. I found that the NetBSD does use the wdc/fdc patch. Exactly
this patch has caused big trouble with running two drives in the past.

I got my second IDE drive trashed several times. What was this patch good for?
Didn't 0.1 provide for two drives? This patch allows for two or more fdc/wdc
controllers, but who has 4 IDE drives (two controllers) or two floppy controllers?

After having installed the two install disks from NetBSD suddenly my 
wd0e got a !! bogus superblock !! and went into the nirvana. As usual I did not write down the superblock backup numbers but I believe it would not have helped anyway :-(.

I suspect that there is still something broken with the IDE drive handling
or with partition setup.

My drive is a CONNER 120 MB (I chose 762/8/39 as cyl/heads/sectors) - Is this 
OK?

Another remark about the NetBSD installation procedure: Why is the user asked so much about disk partitioning? This is distracting new users and is not good
advertising for EZ setup.

Especially cylinder boundary computation could be left to the computer to calculate once  the user has given some swap partition percentage (or MBs) (the default should be increased a bit - 5MB really wasn't much. 16 MB should be default today), then some percentages (MBs) for the other partitions should
be asked for and off it goes.

But these cylinder boundary calculations are really anachronisms. Leave that to a computer program !!!!!!!

The next problem I had was that the wd8003 was found but ftp after doing a 
ifconfig by hand did not work. I'm just mentioning that - the cause may be
elsewhere - but I once installed  easily on that machine using dist-wd800.fs
and now things are not a bit easier. It would be very easy
to add a question for the Internet address and broadcast address/netmask
into the install script and issue an ifconfig command automatically in the install script.

--Chris
Christoph P. U. Kukulies
kuku@acds.physik.rwth-aachen.de
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