Re: Two questions about the Vax installation guide...

On 8/4/25 09:30, Anders Magnusson wrote:
> Den 2025-08-04 kl. 15:06, skrev Perry Metzger:
>> On 8/4/25 06:42, Anders Magnusson wrote:
>>> Morning Perry,
>>>
>>> Den 2025-08-03 kl. 22:17, skrev Perry Metzger:
>>>> 1. The installation guide says to get a mopd from 
>>>> ftp.stacken.kth.se:/pub/OS/NetBSD/mopd -- however, this machine is 
>>>> long dead. (I know how to build myself a mopd, but it's nice if the 
>>>> install documents tell the truth for a new user.)
>>> Hm, that is the master distribution.  Need to check with Stacken 
>>> where it has gone today.
>>
>> Might this be hosted off a NetBSD machine instead? It would assure 
>> that the package and the install instructions were maintained by the 
>> same group and would not disappear easily.
> I checked with Stacken, and the (physical) machine went down 
> 2025-06-11 due to reorganization of the rack. The machine will 
> reappear as a vm.

It would still be nice not to have the documentation (and hosting) 
depend on a third party I think?


>>>> 2. The netboot/ directory that gets built these days has four files 
>>>> in it, boot, boot.mop, install.ram.gz, and install.ram.symbols.gz — 
>>>> it is unclear what install.ram.gz etc. are for. The install docs 
>>>> mention a netbsd.ram.gz but that's not in the directory and it 
>>>> isn't clear if these are the same, or what the "ram" in the name 
>>>> indicates.
>>> Heh, that is probably an ancient typo.  They are the same, yes.
>>
>> It should be fixed in one direction or another. (Honestly I think 
>> "netbsd.ram.gz" is a better name...)
>>
>> (It's also not clear what the distinction between boot and boot.mop 
>> is...)
> True.  boot is in ELF and boot.mop is in MOP format :-)
>
This should be in the manual I think.

>>>> 3. The guide claims that there is a a directory called 
>>>> installation/misc that contains "Miscellaneous vax installation 
>>>> utilities; see installation section below." -- this directory does 
>>>> not appear to exist and no further reference is made to it.
>>> That directory have never existed.  I assume that text have appeared 
>>> in some aligning of the install docs with some other port.
>>>
>> I wonder it did exist at some point long ago; there's all sorts of 
>> standalone utilities we shipped for most ports 30 years ago to aid in 
>> installation. The process used to be that after the release got 
>> auto-built that the portmaster would copy those things in to the 
>> release. (This lack of automation was probably a mistake and was 
>> probably my fault.)
> I couldn't remember having ever had something extra, so I looked into 
> the distributions 1.5-1.5, but no such dir existed...?
>
It's entirely possible we never shipped such things. I will note that 
the sys/arch/vax directory does seem to have some standalone utilities 
and similar things in it. Perhaps some were only in 4.4.

>>
>> For the VAX in particular, there seem to be a bunch of utilities of 
>> various kinds kicking around in src/sys/arch/vax that might have been 
>> part of 4.4 or our stuff at one point long ago.

Perry