NetBSD/x68k System Requirements and Supported Devices

NetBSD/x68k 1.4J runs on the Sharp X68030 series PCs with a true MC68030 MPU (not the original MC68EC030). Since the processor of the X68030 series is the MC68EC030, you need to replace it with an MC68030. Simply remove the old chip and put in the new one instead. The largest difficulty might be to open your X68030.

In addition, some accelerators are supported:

• Xellent30 series
• 040turbo
• Jupiter-X (040 / 060)
• 060turbo

This means all models of X680x0 series PC except for CZ-600C and CZ-674C, by using the appropriate accelerator, can run NetBSD!! Note that the processor for the Xellent30 series is MC68EC030, so you need to replace your processor as well as for X68030.

For 68030 systems, installing MC68881 or MC68882 FPCP is highly recommended but not required.

The minimal configuration requires 4M of RAM and about 100M of disk space. To install the entire system requires much more disk space, and to run X or compile the system, more RAM is recommended.

Here is a table of recommended HD partition sizes for a full install:

As you may note the recommended size of /usr is 70M greater than needed. This is to leave room for a kernel source and compile tree as you will probably want to compile your own kernel. (ALL is large and bulky to accommodate all people).

Supported devices include:

• Sharp genuine SCSI interface (builtin / optional) * SCSI harddisks, CD-ROM drives, tape drives, scanners,...
• Mankai Seisakusho Mach-2 SCSI interface
• The builtin floppy drives
• The builtin frame buffer (both of the text and graphics screen)
• The builtin serial (RS-232C)
• The builtin parallel (Centronics printer interface)
• The standard keyboard
• The mouse / trackball
• NS16550 serial
• Neptune-X ethernet

Hopefully, the AD-PCM sound device will be supported on the future releases.

Getting the NetBSD System on to Useful Media

Installation is supported from several media types, including:

• Removable SCSI hard disk, or Magneto-Optical disk (MO)
• Tape
• Remote NFS partition
• FTP

You'll need to have a install floppy disk. On the first, you'll put the install floppy image.

If you are using a UN*X-like system to write the floppy images to disks, you should use the dd command to copy the file system images (.fs files) directly to the raw floppy disks. It is suggested that you read the dd(1) manual page or ask your system administrator to determine the correct set of arguments to use; it will be slightly different from system to system, and a comprehensive list of the possibilities is beyond the scope of this document.

If you are using Human68k to write the floppy images to disks, you should use the rawrite utility, provided in the installation/misc directory of the NetBSD distribution. It will write the file system images (.fs files) to disks.

If you can retrieve loadbsd.x utility and netbsd.INSTALL file which can be found in installation/misc directory into your Human68k disk, you can run installation kernel without preparing the special boot floppy. Simply type:        loadbsd netbsd.INSTALL
from the Human68k command line, then NetBSD will start the installation sequence.

Obviously, the steps necessary to prepare the distribution sets for installation or upgrade depend on which installation medium you choose. The steps for the various media are outlined below.

Install From Removable SCSI Hard Disk or MO

To install NetBSD from a removable device the media must be of the IBM Super-floppy format. The Human68k format is not recognized by this release of the NetBSD/x68k. If you have a MS-DOS (or MS-Windows) machine with an MO drive connected, use it. If you don't, and if you have a program to handle IBM format MO for Human68k, copy all the files in the subdirectory x68k/binaries and CHANGE THEIR NAMES IN UPPER CASE.

Install From Tape

To install or upgrade NetBSD using a tape, you need to do the following:

To install NetBSD from a tape, you need to make a tape that contains the distribution set files, in "tar" format. If you're making the tape on a UN*X-like system, the easiest way to do so is probably something like:
       tar cf tape_device dist_directories
where tape_device is the name of the tape device that describes the tape drive you're using (possibly /dev/rst0, or something similar, but it will vary from system to system. (If you can't figure it out, ask your system administrator.) In the above example, dist_directories are the distribution sets' directories, for the distribution sets you wish to place on the tape. For instance, to put the base and etc distributions on tape (in order to do the absolute minimum installation to a new disk), you would do the following:
       cd .../NetBSD-1.4J # the top of the tree
       cd x68k/binary/sets
       tar cf tape_device base.tgz etc.tgz
(Note that you still need to fill in tape_device in the example.)

Once you have the files on the tape, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing NetBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading.

Install From Remote NFS Partition

To install or upgrade NetBSD using a remote partition, mounted via NFS, you must do the following:

Note

This method of installation is recommended only for those already familiar with using BSD network configuration and management commands. If you aren't, this documentation should help, but is not intended to be all-encompassing.

Place the NetBSD distribution sets you wish to install into a directory on an NFS server, and make that directory mountable by the machine on which you are installing or upgrading NetBSD. This will probably require modifying the /etc/exports file on of the NFS server and resetting its mount daemon (mountd). (Both of these actions will probably require superuser privileges on the server.)

You need to know the the numeric IP address of the NFS server, and, if the server is not on a network directly connected to the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD, you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest to the NetBSD machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric IP address of the NetBSD machine itself.

Once the NFS server is set up properly and you have the information mentioned above, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing NetBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading.

Install via FTP

To install or upgrade NetBSD by using FTP to get the installation sets, you must do the following:

Note

This method of installation is recommended only for those already familiar with using BSD network configuration and management commands. If you aren't, this documentation should help, but is not intended to be all-encompassing.

The preparations for this installation/upgrade method are easy; all you make sure that there's some FTP site from which you can retrieve the NetBSD distribution when you're about to install or upgrade. You 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 upgrading NetBSD, you need to know the numeric IP address of the router closest to the NetBSD machine. Finally, you need to know the numeric IP address of the NetBSD machine itself.

Once you have this information, you can proceed to the next step in the installation or upgrade process. If you're installing NetBSD from scratch, go to the section on preparing your hard disk, below. If you're upgrading an existing installation, go directly to the section on upgrading.

If you are upgrading NetBSD, you also have the option of installing NetBSD by putting the new distribution sets somewhere in your existing file system, and using them from there. To do that, you must do the following:

1. Place the distribution sets you wish to upgrade somewhere in your current file system tree. At a bare minimum, you must upgrade the "base" binary distribution, and so must put the "base.tgz" set somewhere in your file system. If you wish, you can do the other sets, as well, but you should NOT upgrade the "etc" distribution; the "etc" distribution contains system configuration files that you should review and update by hand.

2. Once you have done this, you can proceed to the next step in the upgrade process, actually upgrading your system.

Preparing your System for NetBSD Installation

Note

Currently NetBSD/x68k requires a dedicated disk when you install it for the first time. In other words NetBSD/x68k cannot be installed on the hard disk on which Human68k or any other operating systems reside. This is because of the poor installer, and the system itself can share a single disk with other OSs. This problem should be fixed in the next release.

What you have to do to prepare the disk is only to physically format your hard disk by using FORMAT.x utility of Human68k to install the master boot program on your disk. You can now proceed with the installation instructions.

Installing the NetBSD System

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 should know the geometry of your hard disk, i.e. the sector size (note that sector sizes other than 512 bytes are not currently supported), the number of sectors per track, the number of tracks per cylinder (also known as the number of heads), and the number of cylinders on the disk. The NetBSD kernel will try to discover these parameters on its own, and if it can it will print them at boot time. If possible, you should use the parameters it prints. (You might not be able to because you're sharing your disk with another operating system, or because your disk is old enough that the kernel can't figure out its geometry.)

You should now be ready to install NetBSD. It might be handy for you to have a pencil, some paper, and a calculator handy.

The following is a walk-through of the steps you will take while getting NetBSD installed on your hard disk. If any question has a default answer, it will be displayed in brackets ("[]") after the question. If you wish to stop the installation, you may hit Control-C at any time, but if you do, you'll have to begin the installation process again from scratch.

1. Boot your machine using of boot floppy. If the boot prompt does not appear in a reasonable amount of time, you either have a bad boot floppy or a hardware problem. Try writing the boot floppy image to a different disk, and using that. If it still doesn't work, NetBSD probably can't be run on your hardware. This can probably be considered a bug, so you might want to report it. If you do, please include as many details about your system configuration as you can.

   It will take a while to load the kernel from the floppy, probably around a minute or so.

2. You will then be presented with the NetBSD kernel boot messages. You will want to read them, to determine your disk's name and geometry. Its name will be something like "sd0" and the geometry will be printed on a line that begins with its name. As mentioned above, you will need your disk's geometry when creating NetBSD's partitions. You will also need to know the name, to tell the install tools what disk to install on.

3. You will be presented with a welcome message and a prompt asking whether you are going to "install" NetBSD or "upgrade" an exisiting system. Select "install" to start installation.

4. You will be presented a prompt asking if you wish to proceed with the installation process. If you wish to proceed, enter "y" and hit return.

5. The install program will then tell you which disks it can install on, and ask you which it should use. Reply with the name of your disk.

6. You will then be asked to name your disk's disklabel. The default response is "mysd", and for most purposes it will be OK. If you choose to name it something different, make sure the name is a single word and contains no special characters. You don't need to remember this name.

7. You will be prompted for your disk's geometry information, i.e. the number of bytes per sector, cylinders on the disk, tracks per cylinder (heads), and sectors per track. Enter them when they are requested. If you make a mistake, hit Control-C and when you get to the shell prompt, restart the install process by running the "install" command. Once you have entered this data, the install program will tell you the total size of your disk, in both sectors, and cylinders. Remember this number; if you're installing on the whole disk, you'll need it again soon.

8. When describing your partitions, you will have the option of entering data about them in units of disk sectors or cylinders. If you choose to enter the information in units of sectors, remember that, for optimal performance, partitions should begin and end on cylinder boundaries. You will be asked about which units you wish to use, and you should reply with "c" for cylinders, or "s" for sectors.

9. You will be asked to enter the size of your NetBSD root partition. It should be at least 20M, but if you are going to be doing development, 25M is a more desirable size. This size should be expressed in units of sectors or cylinders, depending on which you said you wanted to use.

10. Next, you will be asked for the size of your swap partition. You should probably allocate twice as much swap space as you have real memory. Systems that will be heavily used should have more swap space allocated, and systems that will be lightly used can get by with less. If you want the system to be able to save crash dumps when it panics, you will need at least as much swap space as you have RAM. Again, this number should be expressed in units of sectors or cylinders, as appropriate.

11. The install program will then ask you for information about the rest of the partitions you want on your disk. For most purposes, you will want only one more partition, "/usr". (Machines used as servers will probably also want /var as a separate partition. That can be done with these installation tools, but is not covered here.) The install program will tell you how much space there is left to be allocated in the NetBSD area of the disk, and, if you only want one more partition ("/usr"), you should enter it at the prompt when the installer asks you how large the next partition should be. It will then ask you for the name of the mount point for that partition. If you're doing a basic installation, that is "/usr".

12. You are now at the point of no return. Nothing has been written to your disk yet, but if you confirm that you want to install NetBSD, your hard drive will be modified, and its contents may be scrambled at the whim of the install program. This is especially likely if you have given the install program incorrect information. If you are sure you want to proceed, enter "yes" at the prompt.

13. The install program will now label your disk and make the file systems you specified. The filesystems will be initialized to contain NetBSD bootstrapping binaries and configuration files. It will also create an /etc/fstab for your system, and mount all of the file systems under /mnt. (In other words, your root partition will be mounted on /mnt, your /usr partition on /mnt/usr, and so on.) There should be no errors in this section of the installation. If there are, restart from the beginning of the installation process.

14. You will be placed at a shell prompt ("#"). The remaining tasks are to copy the kernel from the kernel copy floppy to the hard drive's root filesystem and install the distribution sets. The flow of installation differs depending on your hardware resources, and on what media the distribution sets reside.

To install from removable hard disk

The first thing you should do is pick a temporary directory where the distribution files can be stored. To do this, enter the command "Set_tmp_dir", and enter the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget that your disk is mounted under /mnt; you should probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.) The default is /mnt/usr/distrib.

Insert the media onto the drive. Check the device name of your drive from the boot message. The device name is something like "sd2" depending on the SCSI disk drives connected to your machine. Note that the boot message can be displayed with the command more /kern/msgbuf.

Mount the disk on the temporary directory with a command like:
       mount -t msdos /dev/sd2c tmp_dir
if your removable drive's name is sd2.

Run the Extract command once for each distribution set you wish to install. For instance, if you wish to install the base distribution set, followed by the kern distribution set, and finally the etc distribution set, use the commands:
       Extract base
       Extract kern
       Extract etc

For each extraction, it will ask you if the extraction should be verbose. If you reply affirmatively, it will print out the name of each file that's being extracted.

To install from floppy

The first thing you should do is pick a temporary directory where the distribution files can be stored. To do this, enter the command Set_tmp_dir, and enter the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget that if your disk is still mounted under /mnt; you should probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.)

After you have picked a temporary directory, enter the Load_fd command, to load the distribution sets from your floppies.

You will be asked which floppy drive to use. Enter "0" (zero) if you're using the first floppy drive (i.e. what DOS would call "A:"), or enter "1" if you're using the second.

You will be prompted to insert a floppy into the drive, to have its contents copied to your hard disk. Do so, and hit return to begin copying. When that is done, read the remainder of the floppies that contain the distribution sets that you want to install, one by one. When the last is read, and you are being prompted for another, hit Control-C.

Run the "Extract" command once for each distribution set you wish to install. For instance, if you wish to install the "base" distribution set, followed by the "kern" distribution set, and finally the "etc" distribution set, use the commands:
       Extract base
       Extract kern
       Extract etc

For each extraction, it will ask you if the extraction should be verbose. If you reply affirmatively, it will print out the name of each file that's being extracted.

Note

If you know that you will be running low on disk space when installing NetBSD, you can load and extract one distribution set at a time. To do this, load only the floppies which contain the files for the first distribution set, extract them, and then change to the temporary directory and remove them with the command "rm set_name.??".

Once you are finished extracting all of the sets that you wish to install, you should proceed to the instructions below (after the last install medium type-specific instructions), that explain how you should configure your system.

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, enter the command "Set_tmp_dir", and enter the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget that your disk is mounted under /mnt; you should probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.) The default is /mnt/usr/distrib.

After you have picked a temporary directory, enter the "Load_tape" command, to load the distribution sets from tape.

You will be asked which tape drive to use. The default is "rst0", which is correct if you're using the SCSI tape drive with the lowest SCSI ID number. (For the SCSI tape drive with the next lowest SCSI ID number, you should use "rst1", and so on.)

You will be prompted to hit return when you have inserted the tape into the tape drive. When you do, the contents of the tape will be extracted into the temporary directory, and the names of the files being extracted will be printed.

After the tape has been extracted, to go the directory containing the first distribution set you wish to install. (Depending on how you made the tape, it's probably a subdirectory of the temporary directory you specified above.) Once there, run the "Set_tmp_dir" command again, and accept its default answer by hitting return at the prompt.

Use the Extract command to extract the distribution set. For instance, if you're extracting the "base" set, use the command: Extract base You will be asked if you wish the extraction to be verbose. If you reply affirmatively, the name of each file being extracted will be printed.

Repeat the previous two steps for each distribution set you wish to install. Change to the set's directory, run "Set_tmp_dir", and then run Extract set_name to extract the set.

Once you are finished extracting all of the sets that you wish to install, you should proceed to the instructions below (after the last install medium type-specific instructions), that explain how you should configure your system.

To install via FTP or NFS

The first thing you should do is pick a temporary directory where the distribution files can be stored. To do this, enter the command "Set_tmp_dir", and enter the name of the temporary directory. (Don't forget that your disk is mounted under /mnt; you should probably pick a directory under /mnt/usr.) The default is /mnt/usr/distrib.

Configure the network interface. To use SLIP, type the following command sequence:
       slattach -h -s speed tty00
       ifconfig sl0 my_ipaddr peer_ipaddr
where speed is the network speed, and my_ipaddr is the numeric IP address of the machine you are going to install NetBSD/x68k, while peer_ipaddr is the address of the peer machine connected with your machine. You might have to configure the peer SLIP interface with similar sequence (depending on the peer system).

For instance, the sequence
       slattach -h -s 38400 tty00
       ifconfig sl0 192.168.0.1 192.168.0.10
configures the SLIP interface for the network between your machine (with IP address 192.168.0.1) and the peer (192.168.0.10) with speed 38400 bps. Note that IP addresses 192.168.*.* are the private IP addresses described in RFC 1597.

To use ethernet, do following:
       ifconfig ne0 my_ipaddr
where my_ipaddr is the numeric IP address of the machine you are going to install NetBSD/x68k. ne0 is the interface name which correspond to the Neptune-X or clone.

If you are NFS-mounting the distribution sets, mount them on the temporary directory with a command like:
       mount -t nfs serv_ipaddr:dist_dir tmp_dir
where serv_ipaddr is the server's numeric IP address, dist_dir is the path to the distribution files on the server, and tmp_dir is the name of the local temporary directory.

Once this is done, proceed as if you had loaded the files from tape, changing to the appropriate directories, running Set_tmp_dir and running Extract as appropriate.

If you are retrieving the distribution sets using ftp, change into the temporary directory, and execute the command:
       ftp serv_ipaddr
where
       serv_ipaddr
is once again the server's numeric IP address. Get the files with FTP, taking care to use binary mode when transferring the files.

Once you have all of the files for the distribution sets that you wish to install, you can proceed using the instructions above, as if you had installed from a floppy.

Note

As with the floppy install, if you're short on disk space, you can transfer only one set at a time, extract it, and then delete it in order to save space.)

Once you have finished extracting all of the distribution sets

that you wish to install, and are back at the "#" prompt, you are ready to configure your system. The configuration utility expects that you have installed the "base" and "etc" distribution sets. If you have not, you will not be able to run it successfully (nor will you have a functional system, in any case). To configure your newly-installed NetBSD system, run the command "Configure". It will ask you for the system's host name, domain name, and other network configuration information. It will set up your configuration files and make the device nodes for the newly-installed system.

Congratulations, you have successfully installed NetBSD1.4J. When you reboot into NetBSD, you should log in as "root" at the login prompt. There is no initial password, but if you're using the machine in a networked environment, you should create yourself an account and protect it and the "root" account with good passwords.

Some of the files in the NetBSD1.4J distribution might need to be tailored for your site. In particular, the /etc/sendmail.cf file will almost definitely need to be adjusted, and other files in /etc including /etc/rc.conf will probably need to be modified, as well. If you are unfamiliar with UN*X-like system administration, it's recommended that you buy a book that discusses it.

Post installation steps

Once you've got the operating system running, there are a few things you need to do in order to bring the system into a propperly configured state, with the most important ones described below.

1. Configuring /etc/rc.conf

   If you haven't done any configuration of /etc/rc.conf, the system will drop you into single user mode on first reboot with the message        /etc/rc.conf is not configured. Multiuser boot aborted.
   and with the root filesystem mounted read-write. When the system asks you to choose a shell, simply hit return to get to a prompt. If you are asked for a terminal type, respond with vt220 (or whatever is appropriate for your terminal type) and hit return. At this point, you need to configure at least one file in the /etc directory. Change to the /etc directory and take a look at the /etc/rc.conf file. Modify it to your tastes, making sure that you set rc_configured=YES so that your changes will be enabled and a multi-user boot can proceed. If your /usr directory is on a separate partition and you do not know how to use 'ed' or 'ex', you will have to mount your /usr partition to gain access to 'vi'. Do the following:
          mount /usr
          export TERM=vt220
   If you have /var on a seperate partition, you need to repeat that step for it. After that, you can edit /etc/rc.conf with vi(1). When you have finished, type exit at the prompt to leave the single-user shell and continue with the multi-user boot.

   Other values that need to be set in /etc/rc.conf for a networked environment are hostname and possibly defaultroute, furthermore add an ifconfig_int for your interface <int>, along the lines of
          ifconfig_de0="inet 123.45.67.89 netmask 255.255.255.0"
   or, if you have myname.my.dom in /etc/hosts:
          ifconfig_de0="inet myname.my.dom netmask 255.255.255.0"
   To enable proper hostname resolution, you will also want to add an /etc/resolv.conf file or (if you are feeling a little more adventurous) run named(8). See resolv.conf(5) or named(8) for more information.

   Other files in /etc that are new to NetBSD 1.4 and may require modification or setting up include /etc/mailer.conf, /etc/nsswitch.conf and /etc/wscons.conf.

2. Logging in

   After reboot, you can log in as root at the login prompt. There is no initial password, but if you're using the machine in a networked environment, you should create an account for yourself (see below) and protect it and the "root" account with good passwords.

3. Adding accounts

   Use the vipw(8) command to add accounts to your system, do not edit /etc/passwd directly. See adduser(8) for more information on the process of how to add a new user to the system.

4. The X Window System

   If you have installed the X window system, look at the files in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/doc for information.

   Don't forget to add /usr/X11R6/bin to your path in your shell's dot file so that you have access to the X binaries.

5. Installing 3rd party packages

   There is a lot of software freely available for Unix-based systems, almost all of which can run on NetBSD. Modifications are usually needed to when transferring programs between different Unix-like systems, so the NetBSD packages collection incorporates any such changes necessary to make that software run on NetBSD, and makes the installation (and deinstallation) of the software packages easy. There's also the option of building a package from source, in case there's no precompiled binary available.

   Precompiled binaries can be found at ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/packages/ Package sources for compiling packages can be obtained by retrieving the file ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-current/tar_files/pkgsrc.tar.gz and extracting it into /usr/pkgsrc. See /usr/pkgsrc/README then for more information.

6. Misc

   • To adjust the system to your local timezone, point the /etc/localtime symlink to the appropriate file under /usr/share/zoneinfo.

   • Edit /etc/aliases to forward root mail to the right place (run newaliases(1) afterwards.)

   • The /etc/sendmail.cf file will almost definitely need to be adjusted; files aiding in this can be found in /usr/share/sendmail. See the README file there for more information.

   • Edit /etc/rc.local to run any local daemons you use.

   • Many of the /etc files are documented in section 5 of the manual; so just invoking
            man filename
     is likely to give you more information on these files.