NetBSD 2.0 Installation Issues

I wanted to install NetBSD 2.0 on a real system, so I called on one of the mightiest boxes in my arsenal to host a new installation. I picked a Dell-built 1996-era Pentium (original, not "Pro") 200 MHz with 32 MB RAM. This box was running Windows 98, and my father-in-law donated it to my collection when he bought a new system.

I had multiple problems with this box. First, it has a Sony CDU311 CD-ROM that refused to read the CD on which I had burnt NetBSD 2.0. I created boot floppies and did an FTP install. I missed a crucial part of the partition creation process, however, that caused the system to hang at "Mounting all filesystems..." after a reboot. If you look at the screenshot below, you'll see that NetBSD by default offers to host the "tmp" partition on a RAM disk:

By default the size is 0, meaning this "memory file system" (mfs) won't be created. However, I moved my cursor down to the "tmp" row and added a 1024 MB entry. I didn't stop and think that I should have created a real "/tmp" partition on the hard drive. When I rebooted, the system wasn't able to create a 1024 MB memory-resident "tmp" partition, so the system hung.

Before I fixed the problem, I was able to boot into single user mode with 'boot -s' at the boot loader. I then knew the problem involved the filesystems I had built. I reinstalled the system and created a "real" /tmp:

juneau: {2} cat /etc/fstab

/dev/wd0a / ffs rw 1 1

/dev/wd0b none swap sw 0 0

/dev/wd0e /usr ffs rw 1 2

/dev/wd0f /var ffs rw 1 2

/dev/wd0g /home ffs rw 1 2

/dev/wd0h /tmp ffs rw 1 2

kernfs /kern kernfs rw

procfs /proc procfs rw,noauto

juneau: {3} df -h

Filesystem    Size     Used     Avail Capacity  Mounted on

/dev/wd0a     497M      19M      453M     4%    /

/dev/wd0f     2.5G     535K      2.3G     0%    /var

/dev/wd0e     4.8G     153M      4.5G     3%    /usr

/dev/wd0g     993M     8.0K      943M     0%    /home

/dev/wd0h     249M     1.0K      237M     0%    /tmp

kernfs        1.0K     1.0K        0B   100%    /kern

I chose not to install the games or X distributions. Take a look at how much of the /usr partition is occupied -- 153 MB. That's what I call avoiding software bloat!

Now my monster NetBSD box is running like a champ. The only change I've made so far is enabling OpenSSH by adding this line to /etc/rc.conf:

sshd=YES

If you want to see dmesg output, visit NYCBUG.org/dmesgd. This is a good example of taking hardware that would otherwise go to the dump and making something useful out of it. I could turn this system into a low-volume mail, Web, or DNS server, for sure.