How to netboot NetBSD-5/i386

Martijn van Buul <[email protected]> Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:02:41 +0000 (UTC)
Newsgroups gmane.os.netbsd.devel.general
Organization Eindhoven University of Technology
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hi

It used to be so simple - if you have a system that will netboot, all you
need to do to install NetBSD is feed it the INSTALL kernel via a PXE boot,
and life is well.

Sadly, with the new bootstrap procedure in netbsd-5, this is no longer the
case. There is no INSTALL kernel anymore, it's just a GENERIC kernel with a
kernel module loaded afterwards, and try as I might, I haven't been able to
make this work over PXE.

So, how does netbooting an installation kernel work these days? I want to
install NetBSD on my netbook; http://www.netbsd.org/ports/i386/netbook.html 
suggests to netboot, but this seems to be no longer applicable. I don't have
a USB CD-ROM drive to my disposal, and I wasn't planning on buying one just
to in stall NetBSD ;) I do have a spare USB key, but that seems to be an
even bigger can of worms. Any suggestions?

Kind regards,

Martijn
-- 
Martijn van Buul - [email protected]