When you want (or have to) start
NetBSD from AmigaOS, you have to use the
loadbsd program that is supplied in the utils directory of the distribution. The loadbsd command line specification is:
loadbsd [-abknpstADZ] [-c model] [-m memsize] [-n memsegments] [-I mask] [-S amount] [-T amount] kernel-path
Description of options:
-a
Autoboot into multi-user mode.
-b
Prompt for the root file system device, the system crash dump device, and the path to
init(8).
-k
Reserve the first 4M of fastmem.
-m
Force fastmem size to be memsize kBytes.
-n
maximum number of segments of memory to use, encoded as follows: 0 (default): 1 segment, 1: 2 segments, 2: 3 or more segments.
-p
Select kernel load segment by priority instead of size.
-s
Boot into single-user mode.
-t
Test loading of the kernel but don't start NetBSD.
-D
Enter the kernel debugger after booting. Best with -S.
-I mask
inhibit sync negotiation as follows: The mask is a bitmap expressed in hexadecimal (e.g., ff) with 4*8bits, each bit, if set to 1, disabling sync negotiation for the corresponding target. Note that this only applies to (some of the) real SCSI busses, but not, e.g., to internal IDE. The bytes are used up from right to left by SCSI bus drivers using this convention.
-S
include kernel debug symbols (for use by -D).
-Z
Force load via chip memory. Won't work if kernel is larger than the chip memory size or on the DraCo.
Note: Because the loadbsd program can only read kernels from a AmigaOS filesystem, the file
/netbsd is often not the same as the actual kernel booted. This can cause some programs to fail. However, note that you can use third-party Berkeley filesystems such as bffs to access the
NetBSD root partition from AmigaOS.