contents revision 1.2
1 The alpha-specific portion of the NetBSD _VER release is found in the 2 "alpha" subdirectory of the distribution. That subdirectory is laid 3 out 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 28 Bootable 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 the INSTALL kernel (which is booted from 44 the install floppy or the network) is not usable for anything 45 other than installing; it will always use as root an internal 46 ramdisk with the install tools. Also, currently the INSTALL 47 image only supports systems that are likely to have a floppy 48 drive (the NoName, EB64+, EB164, AS500/600; the DECStation 49 3000 systems and the 8200/8400 are not supported by this 50 floppy). If booting the INSTALL kernel from the network 51 proves popular, we will generate another network version 52 of the INSTALL kernel that supports more systems. 53 54 The alpha toolchain: 55 56 The toolchain (compiler, assembler, linker, etc.) for the 57 alpha port is not yet integrated into the main NetBSD source 58 tree, so the binaries for it are still distributed separately. 59 A tar file with the toolchain can be found under 60 binaries/toolchain, and the source can be found under 61 source/toolchain. 62 63 The toolchain installs under usr/local; to install it, 64 just cd to the root directory and type 65 66 tar -x -z --unlink -f /path/to/toolchain.tar.gz 67 68 Note that the "official" toolchain we use with 1.3 is actually 69 the snapshot build of it from 97.11.05; this is based on the 70 sources tagged WORKING-alpha in the NetBSD source tree. 71 72 The NetBSD/alpha binary distribution sets contain the binaries which 73 comprise the NetBSD _VER release for the alpha. There are eight binary 74 distribution sets and the "security" distribution set. The binary 75 distribution sets can be found in the "alpha/binary/sets" subdirectory 76 of the NetBSD _VER distribution tree, and are as follows: 77 78 79 base The NetBSD/alpha _VER base binary distribution. You 80 MUST install this distribution set. It contains the 81 base NetBSD utilities that are necessary for the 82 system to run and be minimally functional. It 83 includes shared library support, and excludes 84 everything described below. 85 [ 13M gzipped, 41M uncompressed ] 86 87 comp Things needed for compiling programs, other than the 88 actual compiler programs themselves. (These are in 89 the toolchain snapshot file described above.) This 90 set includes the system include files (/usr/include) 91 and the various system libraries (except the shared 92 libraries, which are included as part of the base 93 set). This set also includes the manual pages for 94 all of the utilities it contains, as well as the system 95 call and library manual pages. 96 [ 6M gzipped, 31M uncompressed ] 97 98 etc This distribution set contains the system 99 configuration files that reside in /etc and in several 100 other places. This set MUST be installed if you are 101 installing the system from scratch, but should NOT be 102 used if you are upgrading. (If you are upgrading, 103 it's recommended that you get a copy of this set and 104 CAREFULLY upgrade your configuration files by hand.) 105 [ 50K gzipped, 320K uncompressed ] 106 107 games This set includes the games and their manual pages. 108 [ 3M gzipped, 8M uncompressed ] 109 110 kern This set contains a NetBSD/alpha _VER GENERIC kernel, 111 named "/netbsd". You MUST install this distribution 112 set. 113 [ 1M gzipped, 2M uncompressed ] 114 115 man This set includes all of the manual pages for the 116 binaries and other software contained in the base set. 117 Note that it does not include any of the manual pages 118 that are included in the other sets. 119 [ 2.5M gzipped, 10M uncompressed ] 120 121 misc This set includes the system dictionaries (which are 122 rather large), the typesettable document set, and 123 man pages for other architectures which happen to be 124 installed from the source tree by default. 125 [ 2M gzipped, 9M uncompressed ] 126 127 text This set includes NetBSD's text processing tools, 128 including groff, all related programs, and their 129 manual pages. 130 [ 1M gzipped, 4M uncompressed ] 131 132 133 The alpha security distribution set is named "secr" and can be 134 found in the "alpha/binary/security" subdirectory of the NetBSD 135 _VER distribution tree. It contains security related binaries 136 which depend on cryptographic source code. You do not need this 137 distribution set to use encrypted passwords in your password file; 138 the "base" distribution includes a crypt library which can perform 139 only the one-way encryption function. The security distribution 140 includes a version of the Kerberos IV network security system, and 141 a Kerberized version of the "telnet" program. The "secr" distribution 142 set can be found only on those sites which carry the complete NetBSD 143 distribution and which can legally obtain it. (Remember, because 144 of United States law, it may not be legal to distribute this set 145 to locations outside of the United States and Canada.) 146 [ 1M gzipped, 3M uncompressed ] 147 148 The instructions given for extracting the source sets work equally 149 well for the binary sets, but it is worth noting that if you use that 150 method, the files are extracted "below" the current directory. That 151 is, if you want to extract the binaries "into" your system, i.e. 152 replace the system binaries with them, you have to run the "tar xfp" 153 from /. Also note that if you upgrade or install this way, those 154 programs that you are using at the time will NOT be replaced unless 155 you run "tar" with the "--unlink" option. If you follow the normal 156 installation or upgrade procedures, this will be taken care of for 157 you. 158
Indexes created Tue Feb 10 14:27:00 CET 2026