INSTALL(8) NetBSD System Manager's Manual INSTALL(8) NAME INSTALL -- Installation procedure for NetBSD/newsmips. CONTENTS About this Document What is NetBSD? Dedication Changes Between The NetBSD 8 and 9 Releases Installation and Partitioning Changes Features to be removed in a later release The NetBSD Foundation Sources of NetBSD NetBSD 9.4 Release Contents NetBSD/newsmips subdirectory structure Binary distribution sets NetBSD/newsmips System Requirements and Supported Devices Supported hardware Getting the NetBSD System on to Useful Media Preparing your System for NetBSD installation Installing the NetBSD System Running the sysinst installation program Introduction General Quick install Booting NetBSD Network configuration Installation drive selection and parameters Selecting which sets to install Partitioning the disk Preparing your hard disk Getting the distribution sets Installation from CD-ROM Installation using FTP Installation using NFS Installation from an unmounted file system Installation from a local directory Extracting the distribution sets Configure additional items Finalizing your installation Post installation steps Upgrading a previously-installed NetBSD System Compatibility Issues With Previous NetBSD Releases Using online NetBSD documentation Administrivia Thanks go to Legal Mumbo-Jumbo The End DESCRIPTION About this Document This document describes the installation procedure for NetBSD 9.4 on the newsmips platform. It is available in four different formats titled INSTALL.ext, where .ext is one of .ps, .html, .more, or .txt: .ps PostScript. .html Standard Internet HTML. .more The enhanced text format used on UNIX-like systems by the more(1) and less(1) pager util- ity programs. This is the format in which the on-line man pages are generally presented. .txt Plain old ASCII. You are reading the ASCII version. What is NetBSD? The NetBSD Operating System is a fully functional Open Source UNIX-like operating system derived from the Univer- sity of California, Berkeley Networking Release 2 (Net/2), 4.4BSD-Lite, and 4.4BSD-Lite2 sources. NetBSD runs on many different different system architectures (ports) across a variety of distinct CPU families, and is being ported to more. The NetBSD 9.4 release contains complete binary releases for most of these system architectures, with pre- liminary support for the others included in source form. Please see the NetBSD website: https://www.NetBSD.org/ for information on them. NetBSD is a completely integrated system. In addition to its highly portable, high performance kernel, NetBSD fea- tures a complete set of user utilities, compilers for sev- eral languages, the X Window System, firewall software and numerous other tools, all accompanied by full source code. NetBSD is a creation of the members of the Internet commu- nity. Without the unique cooperation and coordination the net makes possible, NetBSD would not exist. Dedication NetBSD 9.4 is dedicated to the memory of Wayne Knowles, who passed away in December 2022. Wayne was a long term contributor, working mostly on low level Mips code. Beyond his technical contributions, Wayne was always helpful and friendly. His example encouraged users to contribute to the project and share their work with the community. Changes Between The NetBSD 8 and 9 Releases The NetBSD 9.4 release provides many significant changes, including support for many new devices, hundreds of bug fixes, new and updated kernel subsystems, and numerous user- land enhancements. The result of these improvements is a stable operating system fit for production use that rivals most commercially available systems. It is impossible to completely summarize the massive devel- opment that went into the NetBSD 9.4 release. The complete list of changes can be found in the following files: CHANGES: https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.4/CHANGES CHANGES-9.1: https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.4/CHANGES-9.1 CHANGES-9.2: https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.4/CHANGES-9.2 CHANGES-9.3: https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.4/CHANGES-9.3 CHANGES-9.4: https://cdn.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.4/CHANGES-9.4 files in the top level directory of the NetBSD 9.4 release tree. Installation and Partitioning Changes The sysinst installation program has been reworked for this release. It now supports arbitrary big disks and offers GPT parti- tions as alternative to MBR/fdisk partitions on a lot archi- tectures. Unfortunately it has not been tested on all hardware sup- ported by NetBSD. If you have problems partitioning the target disk or installing the system, please report bugs with as much details as possible. See the Administrivia section below on how to report bugs or contact other users and ask for support. Features to be removed in a later release The following features are to be removed from NetBSD in the future: o groff(1). Man pages are now handled with mandoc(1), and groff(1) can still be found in pkgsrc as textproc/groff. The NetBSD Foundation The NetBSD Foundation is a tax exempt, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) corporation that devotes itself to the traditional goals and Spirit of the NetBSD Project and owns the trade- mark of the word ``NetBSD''. It supports the design, devel- opment, and adoption of NetBSD worldwide. More information on the NetBSD Foundation, its composition, aims, and work can be found at: https://www.NetBSD.org/foundation/ Sources of NetBSD Refer to mirrors: https://www.NetBSD.org/mirrors/ NetBSD 9.4 Release Contents The root directory of the NetBSD 9.4 release is organized as follows: .../NetBSD-9.4/ CHANGES Changes between the 8.0 and 9.0 releases. CHANGES-9.0 Changes between the initial 9.0 branch and final release of 9.0. CHANGES-9.1 Changes between the 9.0 and the 9.1 release. CHANGES-9.2 Changes between the 9.1 and the 9.2 release. CHANGES-9.3 Changes between the 9.2 and the 9.3 release. CHANGES-9.4 Changes between the 9.3 and the 9.4 release. CHANGES.prev Changes in previous NetBSD releases. LAST_MINUTE Last minute changes and notes about the release. README.files README describing the distribution's contents. images/ Images (ISO 9660 or USB) for installing NetBSD. Depending on your system, these may be bootable. source/ Source distribution sets; see below. In addition to the files and directories listed above, there is one directory per architecture, for each of the architec- tures for which NetBSD 9.4 has a binary distribution. The source distribution sets can be found in subdirectories of the source subdirectory of the distribution tree. They contain the complete sources to the system. The source dis- tribution sets are as follows: gnusrc This set contains the ``gnu'' sources, including the source for the compiler, assembler, groff, and the other GNU utilities in the binary distribution sets. sharesrc This set contains the ``share'' sources, which include the sources for the man pages not associ- ated with any particular program; the sources for the typesettable document set; the dictionaries; and more. src This set contains all of the base NetBSD 9.4 sources which are not in gnusrc, sharesrc, or syssrc. syssrc This set contains the sources to the NetBSD 9.4 kernel for all architectures as well as the config(1) utility. xsrc This set contains the sources to the X Window Sys- tem. All the above source sets are located in the source/sets subdirectory of the distribution tree. The source sets are distributed as compressed tar files. Except for the pkgsrc set, which is traditionally unpacked into /usr/pkgsrc, all sets may be unpacked into /usr/src with the command: # cd / ; tar -zxpf set_name.tgz In each of the source distribution set directories, there are files which contain the checksums of the files in the directory: MD5 MD5 digests in the format produced by the com- mand: cksum -a MD5 file. SHA512 SHA512 digests in the format produced by the command: cksum -a SHA512 file. The SHA512 digest is safer, but MD5 checksums are provided so that a wider range of operating systems can check the integrity of the release files. NetBSD/newsmips subdirectory structure The newsmips-specific portion of the NetBSD 9.4 release is found in the newsmips subdirectory of the distribution: .../NetBSD-9.4/newsmips/. It contains the following files and directories: INSTALL.html INSTALL.ps INSTALL.txt INSTALL.more Installation notes in various file formats, including this file. The .more file contains underlined text using the more(1) conventions for indicating italic and bold display. binary/ kernel/ netbsd-GENERIC.gz A gzipped NetBSD kernel containing code for every- thing supported in this release. sets/ newsmips binary distribution sets; see below. installation/ floppy/ newsmips boot and installation floppies; see below. misc/ Miscellaneous newsmips installation utilities; see installation section below. Binary distribution sets The NetBSD newsmips binary distribution sets contain the binaries which comprise the NetBSD 9.4 release for newsmips. The binary distribution sets can be found in the newsmips/binary/sets subdirectory of the NetBSD 9.4 distri- bution tree, and are as follows: base The NetBSD 9.4 newsmips base binary distribution. You must install this distribution set. It con- tains the base NetBSD utilities that are necessary for the system to run and be minimally functional. comp Things needed for compiling programs. This set includes the system include files (/usr/include) and the various system libraries (except the shared libraries, which are included as part of the base set). This set also includes the manual pages for all of the utilities it contains, as well as the system call and library manual pages. debug This distribution set contains debug information for all base system utilities. It is useful when reporting issues with binaries or during develope- ment. This set is huge, if the target disk is small, do not install it. etc This distribution set contains the system configu- ration files that reside in /etc and in several other places. This set must be installed if you are installing the system from scratch, but should not be used if you are upgrading. games This set includes the games and their manual pages. kern-GENERIC This set contains a NetBSD/newsmips 9.4 GENERIC kernel, named /netbsd. You must install this dis- tribution set. man This set includes all of the manual pages for the binaries and other software contained in the base set. Note that it does not include any of the man- ual pages that are included in the other sets. misc This set includes the system dictionaries, the typesettable document set, and other files from /usr/share. modules This set includes kernel modules to add functional- ity to a running system. rescue This set includes the statically linked emergency recover binaries installed in /rescue. text This set includes NetBSD's text processing tools, including groff(1), all related programs, and their manual pages. NetBSD maintains its own set of sources for the X Window System in order to assure tight integration and compatibil- ity. These sources are based on XFree86 4.5.0. Binary sets for the X Window System are distributed with NetBSD. The sets are: xbase The basic files needed for a complete X client environment. This does not include the X servers. xcomp The extra libraries and include files needed to compile X source code. xdebug This distribution set contains debug information for all X11 binaries. It is useful when reporting issues with these binaries or during developement. This set is huge, if the target disk is small, do not install it. xfont Fonts needed by the X server and by X clients. xetc Configuration files for X which could be locally modified. xserver The X server. The newsmips binary distribution sets are distributed as gzipped tar files named with the extension .tgz, e.g. base.tgz. The instructions given for extracting the source sets work equally well for the binary sets, but it is worth noting that if you use that method, the filenames stored in the sets are relative and therefore the files are extracted below the current directory. Therefore, if you want to extract the binaries into your system, i.e. replace the system binaries with them, you have to run the tar -xzpf command from the root directory ( / ) of your system. Note: Each directory in the newsmips binary distribution also has its own checksum files, just as the source distribution does. NetBSD/newsmips System Requirements and Supported Devices NetBSD/newsmips 9.4 will run on single MIPS-based Sony NEWS workstations. They include the NWS-34x0/37x0 and NWS-5000 machines. NetBSD/newsmips 9.4 does not support all framebuffers so you have to use serial console to install NetBSD/newsmips on such NEWS without a framebuffer listing below. Supported hardware o CPUs - R3000-based with hyper-bus: NWS-3470D, NWS-3410, NWS-3720 - R4000/4400-based with apbus: NWS-5000 o Framebuffer - NWB-253 monochrome framebuffer on NWS-3470D (text only) - XA color framebuffer on NWS-5000 o RS232 interfaces - built in Zilog 8530 Serial Communication Con- trollers (zsc) o Network interfaces - built in LANCE Ethernet (le) - built in SONIC Ethernet (sn) - NWB-5852A 100BaseTX ethernet interface (tlp) o SCSI interfaces - built in SONY CXD1185 SCSI interface (sc) - built in HP SPIFI3-SE SCSI interface (spifi) - most SCSI devices Note: When NetBSD/newsmips 9.4 is booted after NEWS-OS without power off, SCSI bus some- times hangs up. If it's not on this list, there is no official support for it in this release. More information can also be found at the NetBSD/newsmips homepage: http://www.NetBSD.org/ports/newsmips/ Getting the NetBSD System on to Useful Media Note: NetBSD/newsmips 9.4 does not support any framebuffers other than NWB-253 on NWS-3470D and XA on NWS-5000 (yet) so you have to use serial console on installa- tion procedure if your machine doesn't have supported framebuffers listed above. You will need to have two 1.44 MB floppy disks to boot off. You must put the boot floppy image onto this disk, which contains software to install NetBSD system. If you are using a UNIX-like system (such as NEWS-OS or other NetBSD machines) to write the floppy images to disks, you should use the dd(1) command to copy the file system image(s) (.fs file(s)) directly to the raw floppy disk. If you have an i386 machine which runs Microsoft Windows and use it to write the floppy image(s) to floppy disk, you can use the Rawrite32 Windows program. It can be downloaded from https://www.NetBSD.org/~martin/rawrite32. rawrite utility for the MS-DOS environment is also available in the i386/installation/misc/ directory of i386 install media. Though NetBSD/newsmips uses the floppy disk to boot for the initial installation, the NetBSD/newsmips kernel does not support the floppy device. Some other machines or systems are still required to write floppy images even after NetBSD/newsmips has been installed. If your machine doesn't have any SCSI disks, or the SCSI interface on your machine is not supported, it can still run NetBSD/newsmips diskless. No file transfer is needed, and all you have to do is to prepare files on the server. More information about diskless setups can be found at http://www.NetBSD.org/docs/network/netboot/ On NWS-3xxx machines, the PROM also supports network boot but it uses an unusual protocol which is not supported by NetBSD/newsmips. On NWS-5000 machines, the PROM uses the ordinary tftp protocol, so you can load bootloader via net- work by bo tftp() command on the PROM prompt. The NEWS PROM also supports tape boot, but NetBSD/newsmips does not support that currently. After the boot floppy is prepared, just type bo fd (NWS-5000) or bo fh (NWS-3xxx) on the PROM prompt to boot it. Installation is supported from several media types, includ- ing: o CD-ROM / DVD / USB-stick o FTP o Remote NFS partition o Tape o Existing NetBSD partitions, if performing an upgrade The steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets for installation depend upon which installation medium you choose. The steps for the various media are outlined below. CD-ROM / DVD / USB-stick Find out where the distribution set files are on the CD-ROM, DVD or USB stick. Likely locations are binary/sets and newsmips/binary/sets. (You only need to know this if you are mix- ing installer and installation media from different versions - the installer will know the proper default location for the sets it comes with). Proceed to the instructions on installation. FTP The preparations for this instal- lation/upgrade method are easy; all you need to do is make sure that there's an FTP site from which you can retrieve the NetBSD distribution when you're about to install or upgrade. If you don't have DHCP available on your net- work, you will need to know the numeric IP address of that site, and, if it's not on a network directly connected to the machine on which you're installing or