Installing NetBSD is a relatively complex process, but, if you have this document in hand and are careful to read and remember the information which is presented to you by the install program, it shouldn't be too much trouble. Before you begin, you must have already prepared your hard disk as detailed in the section on preparing your system for install. The following is a walk-through of the steps necessary to get NetBSD installed on your hard disk. If you wish to stop the installation, you may hit Control-C at any prompt, but if you do, you'll have to begin again from scratch. First you need to get yourself into NetBSD. This can be done in a couple ways, both of which currently require GEMDOS. You can insert the GEMDOS kernel floppy and select the loadbsd program. It will ask for parameters, supply: '-b netbsd'. You can, of course, also run it from the shell command-line in MiNT: loadbsd -b a:/netbsd You should see the screen clear and some information about your system as the kernel configures the hardware. Then you will be prompted for a root device. At this time remove the GEMDOS kernel boot floppy from the drive if present and insert the BSD install floppy 1. Now type `rd0' to tell the kernel to load the install filesystem into RAMdisk. While While the kernel is loading, it will show a '.' for each track loaded. After loading 80 tracks, it will ask you to insert the next floppy. At this time, inser the BSD install floppy 2 and hit any key. The kernel continous loading another 40 tracks before it continues to boot. The system should continue to boot. For now ignore WARNING: messages about bad dates in clocks. Eventually you will be be asked to enter the pathname of the shell, just hit return. After a short while you should see a welcome message and a prompt, asking if you wish to proceed with the installation. If you wish to proceed, enter "y" and then return. If you have configured your hard drive[s] correctly it should find the drive and partition that you selected to use as your root. YOU ARE NOW AT THE POINT OF NO RETURN. If you confirm that you want to install NetBSD, your hard drive will be modified, and perhaps its contents scrambled at the whim of the install program. If you are sure you want to proceed, enter "yes" at the prompt. The install program will now make the root filesystem you specified. There should be only one error in this section of the installation. It will look like so: newfs: ioctl (WDINFO): Invalid argument newfs: /dev/rsd0a: can't rewrite disk label If there are any others, restart from the the beginning of the installation process. This error is ok as the Atari does not write disklabels currently. You should expect this error whenever using newfs. Next the install program will ask you which drive and partition you wish to use as /usr. First it will list the available drives. Choose one. Next it will give you a list of the partitions on that disk along with their sizes, types, etc.. Choose the letter that corresponds to the partition you wish to use for /usr. To be able to make the proper selection, you need to know, that NetBSD assigns a special meaning to some of the partition letters: 'a' : root filesystem 'b' : swap partition 'c' : whole disk You should choose a letter in the range 'd'-'p' for your /usr filesystem. If you are doing a full install this should be a partition that is at least 45M-50M large. If everything is ok the install program will then format and mount your /usr. If not then it will ask again for a drive and partition. When this completes your root partition will be mounted on /mnt and your /usr partition on /mnt/usr. An fstab will have been created and initialized to correctly mount these two file systems. This fstab will be in /mnt/etc. What you do from this point on depends on which media you're using to install NetBSD. Follow the appropriate instructions, given below. To install from an GEMDOS partition: You first need to mount the GEMDOS partition using the mount_msdos command. If e.g. your GEMDOS partition is the first partition on sd0 you could type: mkdir /mnt/gemdos mount_msdos /dev/sd0d /mnt/gemdos You can use `disklabel sd0' to find out what types of partitions are on the disk `sd0'. Next goto the directory in which you stored the distribution sets. If e.g. you stored them in the root directory of the partition: cd /mnt/gemdos When there, run "Set_tmp_dir" and choose the default temporary directory, by hitting return at the prompt. Run the "Extract" command, giving it as its sole argument the name of the distribution set you wish to extract. For example, to extract the base distribution, use the command: Extract base11 and to extract the games distribution: Extract game11 If the distribution sets are in different directories, you will need to cd to each directory in turn, runing "Set_tmp_dir" and the appropriate "Extract" command(s). Continue this process until you've finished installing all of the sets which you desire to have on your hard disk. Once you have extracted all sets and are at the "#" prompt again, proceed to the section "Configuring Your System," below. To install from tape: The first thing you should do is pick a temporary directory where the distribution files can be stored. To do this, use the command "Set_tmp_dir" and enter your choice. The default is /mnt/usr/distrib. After you have picked a temporary directory, you should issue the load command: Load_tape Next, you will be told to insert the media into the appropriate drive, and hit return. Continue to follow instructions until you are returned to the "#" prompt. Go to the directory which contains the first distribution set you wish to install. This is either the directory you specified above, or possibly a subdirectory of that directory. When there, run "Set_tmp_dir" again, and choose the default temporary directory, by hitting return at the prompt. Run the "Extract" command, giving it as its sole argument the name of the distribution set you wish to extract. For example, to extract the base distribution, use the command: Extract base11 and to extract the games distribution: Extract game11 After the extraction is complete, go to the location of the next set you want to extract, "Set_tmp_dir" again, and once again issue the appropriate extract command. Continue this process until you've finished installing all of the sets which you desire to have on your hard disk. After each set is finished, if you know that you are running low on space you can remove the distribution files for that set by saying: rm set_name.?? For example, if you wish to remove the distribution files for the game09 set, after the "Extract game09" command has completed, issue the command: rm game11.?? Once you have extracted all sets and are at the "#" prompt again, proceed to the section "Configuring Your System," below. Configuring Your System: ----------- ---- ------ Once you have finished extracting all of the distribution sets that you want on your hard drive and are back at the "#" prompt, you are ready to configure your system. The configuration utility expects that you have installed the base system. If you have not, you will not be able to run it successfully (nor will you have a functional system regardless of configuration). To configure the newly installed operating system, run the command "Configure". Configure will ask for the machine's hostname, domain name, and other network configuration information. Once you have supplied `Configure' all that it requests, your machine will be configured well enough that when you reboot it it will almost be a completely functional NetBSD system. Note you should ignore the errors from `chown' they will be corrected shortly. Once you are done with `Configure', halt the system with the "halt" command (wait for "halted" to be displayed) and reboot. Then again boot NetBSD this time with the command: loadbsd netbsd You need to do your final tweeks now. First mount your file systems like so: mount -av Next you need to re-make your devices to get the ownership correct: cd /dev ./MAKEDEV all Your system is now complete but not completely configured; you should adjust the /etc/sendmail.cf file as necessary to suit your site and/or disable sendmail and other network related programs. These things can be found in /etc/netstart. Use vi, if you installed the man pages you can type `man vi' or `man ed' for instructions on how to use these somewhat non-intuitive editors. As mentioned at the end of the `Configure' run, you should copy the NetBSD kernel onto the root partition as "/netbsd". There is also another option to this. As NetBSD/Atari has to be booted from TOS, you could do the following: Reserve a small GEMDOS partition of about 4Mb. This is enough to put in a few kernels. Put the netbsd kernel into this partition. Also, edit your /etc/fstab to always mount this partition, say as /kernels. Now make a symlink from /netbsd to /kernels/netbsd. This sceme is particulary handy when you want to make your own kernel. When compilation is finished, you just copy your kernel to /kernels/netbsd and reboot. It's wise to make sure there is _always_ a 'know to work' kernel image present. To get the proper timezone settings, link /etc/localtime to the appropriate file in /usr/share/zoneinfo. The link provided is to /usr/share/zoneinfo/US/Pacific. Once you are done with the rest of configuration unmount your file systems and halt your system, then reboot: cd / umount -av halt Finally you can now boot your system and it will be completely functional: loadbsd -a netbsd When it boots off of the hard drive, you will have a complete NetBSD system! CONGRATULATIONS! (You really deserve them!!!)