prep revision 1.7
1 $NetBSD: prep,v 1.7 1998/01/09 18:47:14 perry Exp $ 2 3 Installing NetBSD/pmax using the sysinst tool and an image of a full 4 bootable root filesystem is now a relatively painless process. The 5 diskimage is avaiable via (either a diskimage, dd'able to a raw disk 6 or tarfile to for NFS . 7 8 From most convenient to least convenient, the installation methods 9 are: 10 11 1. Booting as a diskless workstation via Ethernet, 12 followed by initialization of the local disk and 13 installing onto the local disk over NFS. 14 15 2. Copying a bootable diskimage onto the beginning of a disk 16 and installing onto that disk 17 18 3. installation using a helper machine to set up a bootable 19 NetBSD/pmax root filesystem, and moving the disk 20 to the target. 21 22 4. Installation from Ultrix or other OSes by putting a copy 23 of the diskimage into the existing swap partition and a copy 24 of the NetBSD kernel into your Ultrix root filesystem. 25 26 27 28 Before you start, you must choose an installation method. If you have 29 an Ethernet connection to an NFS server that can provide even ~30M for 30 a diskless-root filesystem, then installation via the net is best. 31 Next best, if your DECstation is already running Ultrix and has two 32 disk drives (or one, if you live dangerously), is to copy a diskimage 33 onto one drive. Finally, you can install by using a second machine as 34 a helper to prepare a bootable NetBSD/pmax disk. 35 36 If your target is going to run diskless, then installation proceeds as 37 for method 1. 38 39 This release of NetBSD/pmax uses the new sysinst installation utility. 40 You should examine the guide on the NetBSD/pmax web site, which has 41 more complete and more up-to-date instructions for sysinst. The 42 following is a brief synopsis which has been successfully followed by 43 both first-time NetBSD/pmax installers and to upgrade existing 44 gsystems. 45 46 You should familiarize yourself with the console PROM environment 47 and the hardware configuration. The PROMs on the older Decstation 48 2100 and 3100 use one syntax. The PROMs on the TurboChannel machines 49 use a completely different syntax. Be sure you know how to print 50 the configuration of your machine, and how to boot from disk or 51 network, as appropriate. 52 53 On the 2100/3100, that's 54 boot -f rz(0,N,0)netbsd (boot from rzN) 55 boot -f tftp() (boot diskless via TFTP) 56 boot -f tftp() (boot via MOP from an Ultrix server) 57 58 On the 5000/200, the equivalent is 59 boot 5/rzN/netbsd 60 boot 6/tftp 61 boot 6/mop 62 63 and on other 5000 series machines, 64 boot 3/rzN/netbsd 65 boot 3/tftp 66 boot 3/mop 67 68 You will also need to know the total size (in sectors) and the 69 approximate geometry of the disks you are installing onto, so that you 70 can label your disks for the BSD fast filesystem (FFS). For most SCSI 71 drives (including all SCSI-2 drives), the kernel will correctly detect 72 the disk geometry. The sysinst tool will suggest these as the default. 73 74 75 If you're installing NetBSD/pmax for the first time it's a very good 76 idea to pre-plan partition sizes for the disks on which you're 77 installing NetBSD. Changing the size of partitions after you've 78 installed is difficult. If you do not have a spare bootable disk, it 79 may be simpler to re-install NetBSD again from scratch. 80 81 82 If you install by copying a disk image, and you want to change the size 83 of the root partition from the default 32Mbytes, you will need a second 84 `scratch' disk. You should copy the diskimage onto the `scratch' disk, 85 boot the scratch disk, and use it to create a tailored root filesystem. 86 This is because you cannot change the size of an active partition (i.e., 87 the root filesysem you booted). The standard trick to get around this is 88 to put a cut-down miniroot into the swap partition, boot the miniroot, 89 and use that system to change the root filesystem size. DECstation 90 PROMs don't reliably support booting off partitions other than the 'a' 91 partition, which is why you need two disks to tailor the root filesystem 92 size. 93 94 Assuming a classic partition scheme with separate root (`/') and /usr 95 filesystems, a comfortable size for the NetBSD root filesystem 96 partition is about 32M. A good initial size for the swap partition is 97 twice the amount of physical memory in your machine (though, unlike 98 Ultrix, there are no restrictions on the size of the swap partition 99 that would render part of your memory unusable). The default swap 100 size is 64Mbytes, which is adequate for doing a full system build. A 101 full binary installation, with X11R6.3, takes about 150MB in `/usr'. 102
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