prep revision 1.7
1 $NetBSD: prep,v 1.7 1998/01/09 18:47:14 perry Exp $ 2 3Installing NetBSD/pmax using the sysinst tool and an image of a full 4bootable root filesystem is now a relatively painless process. The 5diskimage is avaiable via (either a diskimage, dd'able to a raw disk 6or tarfile to for NFS . 7 8From most convenient to least convenient, the installation methods 9are: 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 28Before you start, you must choose an installation method. If you have 29an Ethernet connection to an NFS server that can provide even ~30M for 30a diskless-root filesystem, then installation via the net is best. 31Next best, if your DECstation is already running Ultrix and has two 32disk drives (or one, if you live dangerously), is to copy a diskimage 33onto one drive. Finally, you can install by using a second machine as 34a helper to prepare a bootable NetBSD/pmax disk. 35 36If your target is going to run diskless, then installation proceeds as 37for method 1. 38 39This release of NetBSD/pmax uses the new sysinst installation utility. 40You should examine the guide on the NetBSD/pmax web site, which has 41more complete and more up-to-date instructions for sysinst. The 42following is a brief synopsis which has been successfully followed by 43both first-time NetBSD/pmax installers and to upgrade existing 44gsystems. 45 46You should familiarize yourself with the console PROM environment 47and the hardware configuration. The PROMs on the older Decstation 482100 and 3100 use one syntax. The PROMs on the TurboChannel machines 49use a completely different syntax. Be sure you know how to print 50the configuration of your machine, and how to boot from disk or 51network, as appropriate. 52 53On 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 58On the 5000/200, the equivalent is 59 boot 5/rzN/netbsd 60 boot 6/tftp 61 boot 6/mop 62 63and on other 5000 series machines, 64 boot 3/rzN/netbsd 65 boot 3/tftp 66 boot 3/mop 67 68You will also need to know the total size (in sectors) and the 69approximate geometry of the disks you are installing onto, so that you 70can label your disks for the BSD fast filesystem (FFS). For most SCSI 71drives (including all SCSI-2 drives), the kernel will correctly detect 72the disk geometry. The sysinst tool will suggest these as the default. 73 74 75If you're installing NetBSD/pmax for the first time it's a very good 76idea to pre-plan partition sizes for the disks on which you're 77installing NetBSD. Changing the size of partitions after you've 78installed is difficult. If you do not have a spare bootable disk, it 79may be simpler to re-install NetBSD again from scratch. 80 81 82If you install by copying a disk image, and you want to change the size 83of the root partition from the default 32Mbytes, you will need a second 84`scratch' disk. You should copy the diskimage onto the `scratch' disk, 85boot the scratch disk, and use it to create a tailored root filesystem. 86This is because you cannot change the size of an active partition (i.e., 87the root filesysem you booted). The standard trick to get around this is 88to put a cut-down miniroot into the swap partition, boot the miniroot, 89and use that system to change the root filesystem size. DECstation 90PROMs don't reliably support booting off partitions other than the 'a' 91partition, which is why you need two disks to tailor the root filesystem 92size. 93 94Assuming a classic partition scheme with separate root (`/') and /usr 95filesystems, a comfortable size for the NetBSD root filesystem 96partition is about 32M. A good initial size for the swap partition is 97twice the amount of physical memory in your machine (though, unlike 98Ultrix, there are no restrictions on the size of the swap partition 99that would render part of your memory unusable). The default swap 100size is 64Mbytes, which is adequate for doing a full system build. A 101full binary installation, with X11R6.3, takes about 150MB in `/usr'. 102