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bootblock.readme
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1995-11-20
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Descr: bootblock loader for NetBSD/Amiga and AmigaOS
Uploader: Michael L. Hitch <osymh@gemini.oscs.montana.edu>
Author: Michael L. Hitch <osymh@gemini.oscs.montana.edu>
This is a preliminary version of a bootblock loader for NetBSD/Amiga. It
can be used to directly boot NetBSD/Amiga from the harddisk if the SCSI
driver supports bootblock booting.
To install the bootblock, you need to transfer "bootblock.bin" to the
root partition of your NetBSD disk. This can be done on NetBSD by
using the 'dd' command:
dd if=bootblock.bin of=/dev/rsd0a
where /dev/rsd0a is replaced with the device name of your actual root
partition. The 'dcp' or '[x]streamtodev' program can be used on
AmigaDOS to copy "bootblock.bin" to the NetBSD root partition. Using
the streamtodev program is the easier and safer method.
dcp bootblock.bin sd0a:
xstreamtodev --input=bootblock.bin --rdb-name=sd0a
where sd0a is the root partition name. To use dcp, the device must
be mounted; [x]streamtodev will use the RDB blocks directly.
Once the bootblock is copied to the root partition, you need to set up
that partition for bootblock booting. This can be done with HDToolBox
by going to the "partition disk" screen, enabling the advanced mode, and
setting the "custom boot" to 16 blocks. Some SCSI drivers will require
a valid filesystem to be present before the bootblock can be used. My
GVP SCSI drivers require this. I installed the BFFSFileSystem using the
DOStype of the NetBSD partition. My WarpEngine SCSI driver will using
the bootblock without needing to have a valid filesystem. The
Progressive Peripherals Zeus SCSI driver won't work with the bootblock.
You should then be able to test it by using the boot menu (holding down
both mouse buttons when rebooting the Amiga). The partition should show
up as a bootable device, and you should be able to select the NetBSD
partition and boot from it. After verifying that the bootblock works
properly, you can change the boot priority of the root partition to make
it the highest priority and boot into NetBSD by default. [Note: the
current default options are "-bsAS", so it will prompt for the root
device and boot into single user mode - that's my normal boot mode for
various reasons. This will probably be changed to boot multiuser with
no device prompt. If you are handy with a file editor and can
recalculate the bootblock checksum, you can change the default to suit
your needs.]
The bootblock will open a screen, print the default boot command, and
allow the default to be overridden. This prompt will eventually time
out, but the timeout is just a counter set up for my '040 systems and
may be rather long on slower machines. [This will be changed to use the
timer device to make it machine independant.] You can enter a different
kernel path (to boot an alternate kernel) or different options. You can
also enter 'q', which will abort the boot. A recoverable alert will be
displayed, and allow continuing to the next bootable device.
The program 'bootbsd' is an AmigaDOS executable which is a front-end to
the bootblock, and can be used to boot NetBSD using AmigaDOS. It has
several options to select the SCSI device driver, the unit number, the
partition name, and the default boot command:
bootbsd [-dPPSscsi2.device] [-u1] [-psd1a] "-c/netbsd -bsAS"
The default partition actually looks for the partition marked as the
root partition. The -p option allows specifying the name of a partition
to locate the kernel. The -c option allows changing the default parameters.
This can be used to specify an alternate kernel and/or different options.
For example, I can use:
bootbsd -psd1f "-c/tmp/src/sys/arch/amiga/compile/ZEUS/netbsd -bsAS"
to boot the kernel in my kernel build directory. Using:
bootbsd -dgvpscsi.device -u0 "-c/netbsd -aAS"
will boot the normal kernel from the root partition on unit 0 of the
disk on a GVP SCSI adapter, and will boot into multi-user mode with AGA
enabled and include kernel symbols.
The following options are currently available:
-a Boot into multi-user mode
-b Prompt for root device
-c n Set machine type to n (n = 500,1200,2000,3000, or 4000)
-k Reserve 4M of fastmem [for debugging purposes]
-m n Set fastmem size to n*1024
-n n Enable non-contiguous memory (n=0,1,2,3)
-p Select fastmemory segment by priority rather than size
-s Boot into single-user mode
-A Enable AGA modes
-D Enter debugger on startup (if the debugger is available)
-I n Set synchronous negotiation inhibit flags [not used yet]
-S Include kernel symbols [for debugging purposes]