contents revision 1.1
1The alpha-specific portion of the NetBSD _VER release is found in the 2"alpha" subdirectory of the distribution. That subdirectory is laid 3out as follows: 4 5.../NetBSD-_VER/alpha/ 6 INSTALL Installation notes; this file. 7 8 binary/ 9 sets/ alpha binary distribution sets; 10 see below. 11 12 security/ alpha security distribution; 13 see below. 14 15 kernel/ alpha kernels; see below. 16 17 toolchain/ alpha toolchain; see below. 18 19 installation/ 20 21 floppy/ alpha boot and installation 22 floppies; see below. 23 24 source/ 25 26 toolchain/ Toolchain source code; see below. 27 28Bootable installation/upgrade floppies: 29 30 There is a bootable floppy disk image available which contains 31 the software necessary to prepare your hard drive for NetBSD 32 and install the NetBSD distribution, or to upgrading an already 33 installed system from a previous version of NetBSD. 34 35 Because the kernel on the installation disks is not suitable 36 for use beyond initial installation and configuration, a 37 "generic" kernel has been placed in a distribution set named 38 "kern". This kernel is intended to run your system while you 39 build a custom kernel. It is strongly encouraged that you 40 build a custom kernel for your installation rather than use 41 the prebuilt generic kernel on a long term basis. 42 43 Please note that because of space considerations the kernels 44 booted from the installation floppies do not contain drivers 45 that are not needed during installation -- in particular, no 46 drivers needed to run the X Window System are available in 47 these kernels. 48 49The alpha toolchain: 50 51 The toolchain (compiler, assembler, linker, etc.) for the 52 alpha port is not yet integrated into the main NetBSD source 53 tree, so the binaries for it are still distributed separately. 54 A tar file with the toolchain can be found under 55 binaries/toolchain, and the source can be found under 56 source/toolchain. 57 58 The toolchain installs under usr/local; to install it, 59 just cd to the root directory and type 60 61 tar -x -z --unlink -f /path/to/toolchain.tar.gz 62 63 Note that the "official" toolchain we use with 1.3 is actually 64 the snapshot build of it from 97.11.05; this is based on the 65 sources tagged WORKING-alpha in the NetBSD source tree. 66 67The NetBSD/alpha binary distribution sets contain the binaries which 68comprise the NetBSD _VER release for the alpha. There are eight binary 69distribution sets and the "security" distribution set. The binary 70distribution sets can be found in the "alpha/binary/sets" subdirectory 71of the NetBSD _VER distribution tree, and are as follows: 72 73 74 base The NetBSD/alpha _VER base binary distribution. You 75 MUST install this distribution set. It contains the 76 base NetBSD utilities that are necessary for the 77 system to run and be minimally functional. It 78 includes shared library support, and excludes 79 everything described below. 80 [ 13M gzipped, 41M uncompressed ] 81 82 comp Things needed for compiling programs, other than the 83 actual compiler programs themselves. (These are in 84 the toolchain snapshot file described above.) This 85 set includes the system include files (/usr/include) 86 and the various system libraries (except the shared 87 libraries, which are included as part of the base 88 set). This set also includes the manual pages for 89 all of the utilities it contains, as well as the system 90 call and library manual pages. 91 [ 6M gzipped, 31M uncompressed ] 92 93 etc This distribution set contains the system 94 configuration files that reside in /etc and in several 95 other places. This set MUST be installed if you are 96 installing the system from scratch, but should NOT be 97 used if you are upgrading. (If you are upgrading, 98 it's recommended that you get a copy of this set and 99 CAREFULLY upgrade your configuration files by hand.) 100 [ 50K gzipped, 320K uncompressed ] 101 102 games This set includes the games and their manual pages. 103 [ 3M gzipped, 8M uncompressed ] 104 105 kern This set contains a NetBSD/alpha _VER GENERIC kernel, 106 named "/netbsd". You MUST install this distribution 107 set. 108 [ 1M gzipped, 2M uncompressed ] 109 110 man This set includes all of the manual pages for the 111 binaries and other software contained in the base set. 112 Note that it does not include any of the manual pages 113 that are included in the other sets. 114 [ 2.5M gzipped, 10M uncompressed ] 115 116 misc This set includes the system dictionaries (which are 117 rather large), the typesettable document set, and 118 man pages for other architectures which happen to be 119 installed from the source tree by default. 120 [ 2M gzipped, 9M uncompressed ] 121 122 text This set includes NetBSD's text processing tools, 123 including groff, all related programs, and their 124 manual pages. 125 [ 1M gzipped, 4M uncompressed ] 126 127 128The alpha security distribution set is named "secr" and can be found in 129the "alpha/binary/security" subdirectory of the NetBSD _VER 130distribution tree. It contains security related binaries which depend 131on cryptographic source code. You do not need this distribution set to 132use encrypted passwords in your password file; the "base" distribution 133includes a crypt library which can perform only the decryption 134function. The security distribution includes a version of the 135Kerberos IV network security system, and a Kerberized version of the 136"telnet" program. The "secr" distribution set can be found only on 137those sites which carry the complete NetBSD distribution and which can 138legally obtain it. (Remember, because of United States law, it may 139not be legal to distribute this set to locations outside of the United 140States and Canada.) 141 [ 1M gzipped, 3M uncompressed ] 142 143The instructions given for extracting the source sets work equally 144well for the binary sets, but it is worth noting that if you use that 145method, the files are extracted "below" the current directory. That 146is, if you want to extract the binaries "into" your system, i.e. 147replace the system binaries with them, you have to run the "tar xfp" 148from /. Also note that if you upgrade or install this way, those 149programs that you are using at the time will NOT be replaced unless 150you run "tar" with the "--unlink" option. If you follow the normal 151installation or upgrade procedures, this will be taken care of for 152you. 153