Once running, a banner similar to the following will appear:
>> NetBSD BIOS Boot, revision 3.0
>> (user@buildhost, builddate)
>> Memory: 637/15360 k
Press return to boot now, any other key for boot menu
booting hd0a:netbsd - starting in 5
After a countdown, the system image listed will be loaded. In the example above, it will be “
hd0a:netbsd” which is the file
netbsd on partition “a” of the
NetBSD MBR partition of the first hard disk known to the BIOS (which is an IDE or similar device - see the
BUGS section).
Pressing a key within the time limit, or before the boot program starts, will enter interactive mode. When using a short or 0 timeout, it is often useful to interrupt the boot by holding down a shift key, as some BIOSes and BIOS extensions will drain the keystroke buffer at various points during POST.
If present, the file
/boot.cfg will be used to configure the behaviour of the boot loader including setting the timeout, choosing a console device, altering the banner text and displaying a menu allowing boot commands to be easily chosen. See
boot.cfg(5).
The
NetBSD/i386 boot loader can boot a kernel using either the native
NetBSD boot protocol, or the “multiboot” protocol (which is compatible with some other operating systems). In the native
NetBSD boot protocol, options are passed from the boot loader to the kernel via flag bits in the
boothowto variable (see
boothowto(9)). In the multiboot protocol, options are passed from the boot loader to the kernel as strings.