*BSD News Article 88174


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From: engel@numerik.fb6.uni-siegen.de (Michael Engel)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc
Subject: Re: NetBSD on DECstations ?
Date: 2 Feb 1997 22:34:43 GMT
Organization: Computer Center, University of Siegen, Germany
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Yiorgos Adamopoulos (adamo@ajax.noc.ntua.gr) wrote:
: Has anybody tested NetBSD on DECstations?  I have five of them running
: Ultrix4.3 and would like to change to NetBSD.

Hmmm, well, I spent last Thursday and Friday trying to install NetBSD
on a DecStation 5000/200 here. Here's my experiences:
[I used NetBSD-1.2 from netbsd.wifo.uni-mannheim.de]

- As I had no NetBSD helper machine, my only option was to boot the 5000/200
  via network. This worked just fine using a Linux machine as tftp/bootp 
  server.
- The booted kernel didn't want to mount it's filesystems, so I read the 
  installation instructions :-) and found out that the kernel does a 
  bootparams request for its root and swap location. After compiling bootparamd
  and realizing that NetBSD wants a non-emtpy swap file ;), NetBSD came up in
  single user mode. Fine. Btw., I used the base.tar.gz-package as NFS-root.
- Next I tried to partition and label the hard disk (a 425 MB Quantum) with
  disklabel. Here the trouble started. That d**n disklabel program doesn't seem 
  to write correct disklabels. Every time I try to read a written label back,
  I get "No label on disk" :-(. Needless to say, I also wasn't able to install
  a bootloader. The funny thing is that I was able to newfs the partitions,
  mount them and unpack the distribution on it. But on next reboot, my "g" 
  (/usr) partition was gone. If anyone can shed some light on what's going on
  here, I'd be happy !
- disklabel works fine on our VAX3500, so I don't really understand
  what is wrong here ... [no, I can't use the VAX as a helper machine to 
  disklabel the Quantum drive, unless someone has a Q-Bus SCSI controller 
  for me :-) - this VAX is currently running off two 8" Fujitsu Eagle SMD
  drives !].

So, I'm back with Ultrix 4.4, as we wanted to get the machine running (it will 
be our student's WWW server here at Siegen Univ. !). I'd rather prefer to run 
NetBSD, but wasn't able to resolve the problems ...

regards,
	Michael Engel	(engel@unix-ag.uni-siegen.de)