Installation procedure for un-experienced ATARI users ----------------------------------------------------- (March 15th, 1997) This file is NOT part of the NetBSD1.2 official release. It is added by me (Christian Peppermueller) for user like me who are not experienced enough to do the installation ** after ** reading the INSTALL file without further help. So you really should READ THE INSTALL text file carefully (and this file perhaps not so carefully) Personal note: I installed the NetBSD system on an old 80MB SCSI hard disc (Seagate ST296N - very incompatible SCSI command set). Because I didn't buy the CD-ROM version, I downloaded the files of the distribution set via FTP (PC-compatible computer) to a 100MB ZIP medium. At home this medium was read (using BigDos from Rainer Seitel) and copied to a TOS compatible formatted ZIP disc (100 MB XGM-partition). After some tries to install NetBSD, I found out how to do (had a useful e-mail conversation with Leo Weppelman, the port-master for the Atari version - many thanks to him). If you try to do the installation in a similar way, this text *could* be of use for you.. BACK UP YOUR HARD DISC PARTITIONS! If you don't do so, you could loose all of your dat stored on the discs! And, of course, I'm not responsible in any way for damage resulting from the use of this text. I tried to describe the installation of NetBSD1.2 as I did it, but there of course could be severe errors in the text. 1) Hardware requirements * 68030 or above processor (so TT and Falcon are supported). Work for the Hades040 is done, there exist Hades040 kernels in the -current distribution. * at least 4MB of RAM, 2MB ST-RAM I had problems with Falcon/4MB RAM. In my case, the installation program just stopped in the installation process for longer than 30 minutes just after the lengthy filesystem initialization procedure.. An explanation for that problem is that I didn't install any swap partition (see below). Especially in the case of only 4MB RAM it is highly recommended to install a swap partition! * a standard DD or HD floppy disc drive and three DD (720kByte) media. Format them using the Atari TOS Desktop option! * at least one SCSI disc (the IDE driver is under development..) Hard discs that have been tested with NetBSD: MAXTOR 7245S, MAXTOR 7080S, SEAGATE ST157N tape drives: TANDBERG 3600 my configuration I installed NetBSD successfully on: - Falcon 14MB, 68882 FPU - IOMEGA ZIP 100 (changeable medium. ignore some error messages) - Seagate ST296N (80MB 5.25''; 'killer' for most TOS drivers) * a pocket calculator (for calculating the partition sizes) * a printer (for INSTALL text and perhaps this text, too) 2) Checking necessary space for the installation of NetBSD1.2 NetBSD has its own filesystem that is NOT compatible to TOS. Prepare a) a whole SCSI disc (or two..) OR b) an empty partition (or more) on a SCSI disc according to the following space requirements: ( X === X11 windows server) partition: advise, with X, needed, with X root (/) 15M 15M 10M 10M user (/usr) 65M 100M 45M 80M swap ----- 2M for every M ram ----- local (/local) up to you The root, user, swap and local filesystems can be put into different partitions or even on different SCSI devices. It is wise NOT to install the swap filesystem to a changeable medium.. The size of the swap partition is up to you; the more, the better. But even if you have plenty of RAM you should define a little swap partition. The local partition is the place where to install bulky programs to; as an alternative, you could omit /local and use a bigger /usr partition (after the installation, make a directory /usr/lcl and create a symlink /local to that directory /usr/lcl) (In my case - little hard disc space - I installed: a 3.6MB TOS partition for boot-up (see next paragraph) a 77MB NBD partition for root and usr filesystem that was divided in 12MB root filesystem and 65MB usr filesystem. ) If your computer doesn't boot from SCSI or you don't want to boot NetBSD all time, you'll also need a very little partition containing the kernel file and the NetBSD loader program, all together < 2MB. Recommended is 4MB partition size for people experimenting with the kernel. Of course, this partition is also useful for exchanging data with TOS.. In that case, and if your hard disc is empty and used only for NetBSD, you could use HDX to split your hard disc into two partitions: 1st partition: The boot-up 2..4MB partition for the kernel 2nd partition: The rest of the hard disc - for NetBSD For each filesystem you want to install: Write down * the SCSI device number of the hard disc * the partition scheme of this hard disc and what partitions are for NetBSD * if you want to check the proper hardware detection: The parameters of the bios parameter block (BPB), especially - the sector size in bytes (usually 512) - the number of sectors on the hard disc Furthermore, for the installation program the NetBSD distribution has to be accessible. This means that a SCSI CD-ROM, a SCSI tape or a SCSI disc containing the NetBSD distribution has to be present. Of course, the NetBSD distribution could be on the same disc you want install NetBSD. After the installation you could e.g. re-define the partition as 'swap' or 'local' partition. If you are using the standard TOS file system you had probably problems how to rename the NetBSD distribution files after downloading. All files in the 'binary' and 'security' folder should have the extension 'tgz' , the files in the 'kernel' and 'floppy' folder the extension 'gz'. Write down * the path of the NetBSD distribution in the partition * the partition number (== drive letter minus drive letter of first partition on that hard disc) * the SCSI device number; this is in most cases the same as the NetBSD device number - but NOT ALWAYS. Read INSTALL text for details. 3) Preparing the system for the installation of NetBSD1.2 Open the NetBSD distribution folder 'floppy' Copy the 'GZIP.TTP' program from the 'utils.tos' folder. Start it with the parameter '-d boot-12.gz' After the program finishes (without error messages..): Copy the 'RAWWRITE.TTP' program from the 'utils.tos' folder. Put in the first DD floppy. This will be the boot floppy. Start 'RAWWRITE.TTP' with the parameter 'BOOT_12' It will now fill up the floppy disc with a (minimized) version of the NetBSD kernel and with the TOS starting program. If you have decided to use a GEMDOS partition for boot-up of NetBSD, you could copy the files from the boot floppy to there. Repeat the procedure using GZIP, RAWWRITE, and the other two floppies with the files MINIROOT1 and MINIROOT2 (rename them to minir_1 and minir_2 or similar..) Those both floppies are not readable for TOS and so you shouldn't try so. Now copy the GZIP.TTP program into the kernel folder. Use it (GZIP -d filename) to extract one of the kernels (GENERIC is for people with a lot of RAM, BOOT is nearly useless and BOOTX somewhat in between - read INSTALL text if you want to know more) Rename the extracted kernel file to NETBSD 4) Starting the install program Reboot the computer. Put in the boot floppy or open the drive you copied the boot floppy files to. Start LOADBSD.TTP with the parameter NETBSD. After a while (hardware detection etc), a prompt asks for the root device. NOW insert the MiniRoot1 - floppy. Answer for the prompt is: rd0 After a while, the installation program asks for the 2nd floppy. Insert it and press ENTER. Answer with a simple ENTER to the question 'path for SH' if it comes up. 5) Using the install program After doing that lot of work, the rest of the installation will be like fun :-)) After start, the installation program will print out a welcome text and ask "install or upgrade". You should answer "i", if you didn't install NetBSD already (then this text would be of no use for you!!!) After reading the warning text, answer the question with "y", if you are sure that you want to install NetBSD and that your hard discs could be wiped out if you make a mistake.. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 5a) The following steps require a certain understanding of the way NetBSD handles devices, especially hard discs: the name for a device is e.g. sd1a meaning 'scsi disc number 1, partition a' The number is NOT THE SCSI ID of the disc, but something similar. It is the number of the disc in the system (the nth disc NetBSD found during boot-up). Read INSTALL text for details! The partition letter has a special meaning: a = root filesystem. Does not exist on TOS partitioned hard discs! b = swap partition. Does also not exist on TOS hd. c = the_whole_disc. Also not usable on TOS hd. d = first partition. This is the first partition of the hard disc as TOS / HDX recognizes it. In the case of an Atari with only one hard disc, it is the drive 'C:' (if it is accessible to TOS). e = 2nd partition. f = 3rd partition. ... On the floppy device fd0, the letters mean a different thing: a = 360kB b = 720kB c = 1440kB So your boot floppy disc could be accessed using the device name fd0b. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now you should be able to answer the question about the disc you want to install NetBSD to (the root disc). The first thing the installation program does is to get the partitions for NetBSD. If your SCSI disc is not partitioned, you just introduce ONE NetBSD partition (type NBD), if you decided so the swap partition (type NBS) and - if you intend to boot NetBSD from that disc - the very small MSDOS partition (type GEM) If your SCSI disc is partitioned, edit the partition scheme according to the instructions to define the partitions you want to reserve for NetBSD. This procedure can then be repeated for other drives (if you want to split the /usr, swap or /local partition to other SCSI devices). After that procedure, the more advanced part comes up: Defining the space for the file systems. * Remember the meaning of the device letters (sec. 5a) * Now, calculate the number of sectors for the different file systems located inside of the NBD partition that is beeing edited. Remember not to use the letters d..??? that are for the TOS compatible partitions of the drive! Each filesystem you define has three parameters: - The start sector on the hard disc - The length in units of sectors on the hard disc - The filesystem type Again, this procedure can be repeated for other SCSI devices. Now, the point comes up where all data on the defined NBS/NBD partitions will be wiped out totally! You have to enter the 'fstab' filesystem link table, so that's what device should be mounted to what directory (e.g. the usr filesystem on sd1e for the root system on sd1a: device name [done]: sd1e mount point [/]: /usr ) After the done and additional chance to correct (using the editor ed (see sec. A)) the NetBSD partitions will be "formatted" just sit down and relax, it can take some minutes.. ------------------------------------ A) using ed This is not a complete manual page, but there are some remarks necessary for people who don't know ed. ed is a line editor, that means that you have to type in commands to do anything.. any number: ed will switch to it, displaying its contents. If that line doesn't exist, ed will show a ? and do nothing. +: move one line downwards -: move one line up i: Start text insert mode. The next lines you enter are inserted into the edited file, until you enter a line consisting only of a dot ( . ) w: write the file back to hard disc. q: quit ed. If you didn't write changes, you'll have to repeat the q command two times to quit. 1,$p: lists the contents of the file. -------------------------------------------- Now, that the file systems are prepared, you have the chance to configure the network. I don't have one, so no remarks here.. After that, the 'fstab' (the filesystem link table) could be edited again, but that is only useful, if you installed a network.. 6) Installing the BINARY sets: Now you have to specify the TOS partition or CD-ROM where your NetBSD1.2 distribution files are. First question only asks for the device name WITHOUT the device letter that is asked in the 2nd question (e.g. sd0 and d). After that, the path to the .TGZ files is asked (e.g. netbsd/binary). YOU SHOULD AT LEAST INSTALL BASE.TGZ AND ETC.TGZ, so start with base and continue with etc (it takes a while..). Install all the files if you have the space (you should have it when you used the table at the beginning of the file). 7) Now the timezone should be selected. Living in Germany, I decided to use "Europe" and sub-division "Berlin". 8) After that, you'll have even more time to relax - the device building takes a lot of time! 9) Installing the kernel: This is done the same way as installing the BINARY sets. Specify device (e.g. sd0) dev. letter (e.g. d) full path (e.g. netbsd/kernel) and choose the file (netbsd) 10) Answer 'no' to the question about installing the bootstrap. If you answer 'yes' in the present ATARI version (1.2), you'll just get an error message about conflicting version numbers. You can get NetBSD bootability during running NetBSD later on, (installboot command). 11) End of the installation program. Enter 'halt' at the prompt, wait for the text 'halted' and reboot your Atari. Now you could copy the NETBSD kernel file to the GEMDOS partition you probably installed for booting-up NETBSD. Finally, you should be able to boot NetBSD by starting LOADBSD.TTP with the parameter -a NETBSD (-a means immediately multi-user boot; without the -a option you'll first see a prompt; ending of that 'single user mode' is done with CTRL-D) In some cases, it might happen that NetBSD asks for the root device; specify sd1 or whatever device your hard disc is.. If you are able to mount the GEMDOS boot partition for booting-up NetBSD (create a directory /kernel, mount -t msdos -o rw,-G /dev/sd1d /kernel - replace sd1d by appropriate device name), then you could delete the netbsd kernel from the root filesystem and place a symlink netbsd to /kernel/netbsd. AND don't forget to include the mount parameters in the /etc/fstab file!! O.k., that's all for the moment. Hope this text was useful and didn't contain too many errors or bad suggestions. Have fun with the great NetBSD system! Well, I'll start right now to discover NetBSD (and perhaps - some day - install X, too). NetBSD is running on my Falcon half a week now.. So I'm not the right person who can answer questions about UN*X or NetBSD - but perhaps I'll learn something about NetBSD in the future. Christian Peppermueller e-mail: Christian.Peppermueller@rzmail.uni-erlangen.de