(
p Installation is supported from several media types, including:
p
(
l -bullet -compact t FTP
t .No Remote Tn NFS No partition
t DOS floppies
.El
)
p No matter which installation medium you choose, you'll need to use one or two floppies to boot your system (that is, unless you are using a bootable CD-ROM). There are three different boot floppy sets available, they are: l -bullet t The two-floppy image set which consists of ``boot1.fs'' and ``boot2.fs''. This installation set is suitable for writing to 1.44MB floppies, and supports the most devices of the boot floppy sets. This is the set almost all users should pick. t The one-floppy image called ``boot-small.fs''. This image is suitable for writing to a 1.2MB floppy, so can be used on machines which do not have a 1.44MB floppy drive. However, the kernel on this floppy does not support PCMCIA or PCI devices, and is thus only suitable for use on older machines. t The one-floppy image called ``boot-tiny.fs''. This image also fits on a 1.2MB floppy. In addition to having the PCMCIA and PCI device driver support removed, it also does not support EISA or any SCSI controllers. The kernel on this floppy also has a specially reduced set of buffer cache buffers, and is the only one which has any hope of being able to install .Nx on 4MB machines. This has not been tested recently, but an additional tip is to suspend sysinst before it starts extracting files, and turn on swapping on the newly labelled drive with .e.g ``swapon /dev/wd0b'' before continuing (if you get that far). Also, remember to manually fetch and install netbsd.GENERIC_TINY (suitably renamed) before trying to boot from the hard disk (the default GENERIC kernel is way too large for 4MB machines). .El
p The ``boot-big.fs'' image is an image sized for 2.88MB floppies, and its primary intended use is as a boot image for CD-ROM images.
p If you are using a UN*X-like system to write the floppy image(s) to disks, you should use the .Xr dd command to copy the file system image(s) (.fs files) directly to the raw floppy disk. It is suggested that you read the .Xr dd 1 manual page or ask your system administrator to determine the correct set of arguments to use; it will be slightly different from system to system, and a comprehensive list of the possibilities is beyond the scope of this document.
p If you are using .Tn DOS to write the floppy image(s) to floppy disk, you should use the .Li rawrite utility, provided in the
a i386/utilities directory of the .Nx distribution. It will write a file system image (.fs file) to a floppy disk.
p Note that, when installing or upgrading, the floppy can be write-protected if you wish. These systems mount ramdisks as their root file systems once booted, and will not need to write to the floppy itself at any time -- indeed, once booted, the floppy may be removed from the disk drive.
p Obviously, the steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets for installation or upgrade depend on which installation medium you choose. The steps for the various media are outlined below.
p
To install or upgrade
.Nx
using
.Tn DOS
floppies, you need to do the following:
.
(
l -bullet t Count the number of
.Ar set_name.xx
files that make up the
distribution sets you want to install or upgrade. You will
need one fifth that number of 1.2M floppies, or one sixth that
number of 1.44M floppies. You should only use one size of
floppy for the install or upgrade procedure; you can't use
some 1.2M floppies and some 1.44M floppies.
t Format all of the floppies with
.Tn DOS .
.Em Do not
make any of them bootable
.Tn DOS
floppies, i.e. don't use
.Li format/s
to format them. (If the floppies are bootable, then the
.Tn DOS
system
files that make them bootable will take up some space, and you
won't be able to fit as many distribution set parts per disk.)
If you're using floppies that are formatted for
.Tn DOS
by their
manufacturers, they probably aren't bootable, and you can use
them out of the box.
t Place all of the
.Ar set_name.xx No files on the
.Tn DOS
disks, five per disk if you're using 1.2M disks, six per disk if you're
using 1.44M disks. How you do this is up to you; there are
many possibilities. You could, for instance, use a DOS
terminal program to download them on to the floppies, or use
a UN*X-like system capable of reading and writing
.Tn DOS
file systems (either with "mtools" or a real
.Tn DOS
file system) to place them on the disk.
p
Once you have the files on
.Tn DOS
disks, you can start the actual installation or upgrade process.
.El
)
.
p
To install or upgrade
.Nx
using NFS, you must do the following:
.
(
l -bullet t Place the
.Nx
distribution sets you wish to install into a
directory on an
.Tn NFS
server, and make that directory mountable
by the machine on which you are installing or upgrading
.Nx .
This will probably require modifying the
a /etc/exports file on the .Tn NFS server and resetting its mount daemon (mountd). (Both of these actions will probably require superuser privileges on the server.) t You need to know the the numeric IP address of the .Tn NFS server, and, if the server is not on a network directly connected to the machine on which you're installing or upgrading .Nx , you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest to the .Nx machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric IP address of the .Nx machine itself. The install program will ask you to provide this information to be able to access the sets.
p
Once the
.Tn NFS
server is set up properly and you have the
information mentioned above, you can start the actual
installation or upgrade process.
.El
)
.
p
To install or upgrade
.Nx
by using FTP to get the installation
sets, you must do the following:
.
(
l -bullet t The preparations for this installation/upgrade method are
easy; all you make sure that there's some FTP site from which
you can retrieve the
.Nx
distribution when you're about to
install or upgrade. You need to know the numeric IP address
of that site, and, if it's not on a network directly connected
to the machine on which you're installing or upgrading
.Nx ,
you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest
to the
.Nx
machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric
IP address of the
.Nx
machine itself. The install program
will ask you to provide this information to be able to access
the sets via ftp.
p
Once you have this information, you can proceed to the actual
installation or upgrade.
.El
)
.
p
If you are upgrading
.Nx ,
you also have the option of installing
.Nx
by putting the new distribution sets somewhere in your existing
file system, and using them from there. To do that, you must do the
following:
.
(
l -bullet t Place the distribution sets you wish to upgrade somewhere in
your current file system tree. Please note that the
a /dev on the floppy used for upgrades only knows about wd0, wd1, sd0, sd1 and sd2. If you have more than two IDE drives or more than three SCSI drives, you should take care not to place the sets on the high numbered drives. t At a bare minimum, you must upgrade the .Sy base and .Sy kern binary distribution, and so must put the .Sy base and .Sy kern sets somewhere in your file system. If you wish, you can do the other sets, as well, but you should NOT upgrade the .Sy etc distribution; it contains systems configuration files that you should review and update by hand.
p
Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in
the upgrade process, actually upgrading your system.
.El
)
)
Indexes created Mon Oct 27 08:10:08 GMT 2025