README.files
1$NetBSD: README.files,v 1.14 2009/04/23 01:56:48 snj Exp $
2
3 Tape, CD, Disk, and Netboot Images
4 ----- --- ----- --- ------- ------
5
6This release or snapshot contains three installation image types.
7The first, for floppies, is split into a multiple volume set.
8
9 installation/floppy/disk1of3
10 installation/floppy/disk2of3
11 installation/floppy/disk3of3
12
13 installation/diskimage/cdhdtape
14
15 installation/instkernel/netbsd.gz
16
17All three boot images load the same installation kernel into memory
18and then make no further use of the source media. The general idea
19is to load a kernel with a pre-initialized memory filesystem of
20utilities and an installation program.
21
22The floppy image set uses two floppies to load the install kernel.
23The cdhdtape image can be written to a CD, hard drive, or tape and
24then booted from the SRM console. The kernel image can be netbooted
25or loaded off the root directory of an existing installation.
26
27Note: The netboot loader can load the netbsd.gz file directly; it
28 is not necessary to ungzip this kernel first.
29
30To copy the boot images to a magnetic disk under unix, the dd(1)
31command can be used:
32
33Floppy:
34 dd if=disk1of3 of=/dev/rfd0a bs=18k
35 (change floppies)
36 dd if=disk2of3 of=/dev/rfd0a bs=18k
37 (change floppies)
38 dd if=disk3of3 of=/dev/rfd0a bs=18k
39
40
41You can write the image to a hard drive too:
42
43 dd bs=18k if=cdhdtape of=/dev/rsd1c
44 dd bs=18k if=cdhdtape of=/dev/rsd1d (NetBSD/i386)
45
46For a tape, it is important to use a block size of 512, so:
47
48 dd bs=512 if=cdhdtape of=/dev/erst0 (NetBSD)
49 dd bs=512 if=cdhdtape of=/dev/rmt0h (Digital Unix)
50
51Note that the bits on the installation media are only used when
52initially loaded. They can be written to a hard drive, loaded, and
53then overwritten during the installation with no conflict, or
54alternatively, the boot CD or tape can be removed and replaced with
55one containing the installation sets.
56
57The install notes from this directory subtree are present on the
58installation file system.
59