Re: Booting from CD-RW disc

Hi,

> Hi, I have a PCI card with two SATA ports on Sun Ultra 10, so I can
> use modern SATA discs for / file system. I simply specify the
> following kernel config:

This is common on lots of architectures since PCI / PCIe cards of all 
kinds are readily available. Boot firmware, less so.

> Unfortunately OpenBoot cannot boot from the SATA card, so I either have
> to use built-in IDE controller or the PCI SCSI card. Over the years all
> of the IDE and SCSI discs that I hoarded have gradually failed and
> nobody manufactures new ones any more.

There are things you can buy which are new. The most common would be an 
IDE to CompactFlash adapter plus a CompactFlash card, as an example. I use 
lots of SATA SSDs via SATA-IDE adapters. But your point is taken.

> How can I replicate this on CD-RW disc, so that I can boot from it?
> Is it as simple as creating a bootable iso9660? I found these
> instructions https://www.netbsd.org/docs/bootcd.html#sparc64image which
> I'm going to try in the next few days. But if anyone thinks that's not
> the right way to go, then please let me know.

On systems which are local, making a bootable CD with a kernel with a 
hardcoded root works. I've done this before with older PowerPC G3 systems 
before figuring out that an HFS partition can also be used.

On systems where a CD drive isn't accessible (my Sun, Alpha and Amiga 
hardware is colocated), a CompactFlash or SATA-IDE would be easier.

John