WARNING: The information in this page is grossly out-dated. I will leave the pages up in case they might be of some use.
NOTE: I have not used NetBSD for more than 2 years! I have not used MacOS or Mac hardware in more than three years. If you have questions, you are probably better off e-mailing the NetBSD mailing lists rather than me.
Mark's NetBSD Not-So-Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some interesting things I have been doing with NetBSD as well as
some problems I have run into. You may be experiencing the same problems or
looking to do the same things. So here are some of my experiences.
Q: How do you get Netscape running under NetBSD/mac68k?
Mosaic is OK. You can get the Amiga binary and rn it under mac68k, but there are
some problems with it. First of all, it can't do Japanese, so I had to use MacOS
when I wanted to see Japanese homepages. Second, it crashes when servers have
HTTP 1.1 in the header instead of HTTP 1.0. I think Apache 1.2 and on uses 1.1 in
the headers. I tried applying the Japanese patch to Chimera and compiling my own
copy of Chimera. But I didn't have the locale stuff set up properly, so it never
worked.
So I decided to just use Netscape. I downloaded Netscape 2.02 for BSDI. I installed
FreeBSD on my old IBM ThinkPad and installed the
Netscape program on it. Then, I telnet to my laptop, and run the following command:
netscape -display ratbert:0.0 &
It worked! Since that time, I have set up my own i386 NetBSD
computer and I am using the BSDI version of Navigator 4.04. There are two interesting
developments since my original experiment, however. First, there is the public release
of the Netscape source code. Dave Huang has put up some statically linked binaries at
http://www.bga.com/~khym/netbsd/mozilla-netbsd-m68k.gz
or
ftp://ftp.macbsd.com/pub/outgoing/khym/mozilla-netbsd-m68k.gz
Another alternative is to install the KDE package. KDE
is actually an entire desktop environment including window manager, etc. However, the
built-in file manager program actually functions as a web browser and does a rather
good job. KDE uses quite a bit of RAM, but it is a stable alternative that can deal
with modern HTML.
When trying to install NetBSD files, I keep getting "SCSI Read Error, #5" no
matter what I do. How do I get over this so I can install the larger tarfiles like
base.tgz?
I had some serious problems doing the install of the NetBSD files on my Centris 650
with a Quantum 1.2GB Fireball. I kept getting the "SCSI Read Error, #5" message
when trying to install the large files like "base" and "comp". No matter how much
I set the RAM to in the installer (30000K), I still kept getting the error. In
the end, here is how I ended up installing my files.
To do the actual installation, you will need tar which is kept in /usr/bin/tar
and gunzip is kept in /usr/bin/gunzip. If you watch the files as they are
installed, hopefully you will get enough files to be able to boot into single user.
Install as much of base.tgz and the other files as you can. Then, use the cpin
command in the Installer to copy in the entire base.tgz file. If you had problems
intalling other tarfiles, also copy those into your netBSD partition using cpin.
If tar and/or gunzip were not installed, you can use MacGZIP and SunTar to unzip and
untar the base.tgz file. They, in the Installer program, use cpin to copy in the
tar and gunzip programs.
Now, boot NetBSD in single user mode. Run the command
fsck -f
and then mount all local partitions read/write. Usually
mount -a -t nonfs
should do the trick. Now, run the following commands. These assume that you copied
the base.tgz file in the / directory.
cd /
tar --unlink -zxvpf base.tgz
If the base.tgz file is in another directory, you will need to specify the full path.
Also, if you have any other files to install, install them unsing the same command.
Now, you can continue with the installation instructions. While in single-user mode, this
would be an excellent time to edit your /etc/rc.conf file.
How do I get my Microspeed Deluxe Three-button mouse to work with NetBSD?
Once I started using X, the first thing I wanted besides more RAM, was a three-button
mouse. I bought a Microspeed 3-button mouse, but it took me a while to get
the three-button mouse to work right under NetBSD. The trick is to set it to "MS-2KEY"
not "PS-3KEY" even though it is a bit counter-intuitive.
Q: Where did you get the names for your NetBSD machines?
Why Bullwinkle?
Growing up as a TV child in western Pennsylvania, I loved Saturday morning
cartoons. My favorite of them all was The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show. Watching
the re-runs as a college student in the early '80s, I saw for the first time the
depth and political humor hidden within. The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show was
really an adult political satire disguised as a children's show.
In his book The Tao of Pooh, Benjamin Hoff demonstrates how
Winnie-the-Pooh exemplifies Chinese Taoist philosophy. As a student of Chinese
philosophy, I realized that Bullwinkle, like Pooh, is a great Taoist master. He
succeeds through his simple-minded approach and complete rejection of "logic."
He naturally does the right thing at the right time, much to the dismay of Boris
and Natasha.
Why Ratbert?
Ratbert is my favorite character in the cartoon
Dilbert by Scott Adams.
Ratbert is a laboratory rat who has been genetically altered to crave love and
acceptance. He openly declares these needs while most people, who also crave
love and acceptance, deny their desires. In one cartoon (August 1, 1995),
Ratbert is hired as a temp at Dilbert's company. Ratbert says, "As a temp I
would finally get all of the respect and unconditional love that I deserve."
This sums up Ratbert's character. The irony is that while Ratbert craves love
and acceptance, as a rat most humans find him to be repulsive.
I guess since I kept a variety of rodentia as pets when I was growing up, I
never developed a repulsion for rats. In fact, I think they are kinda cute. So
I like Ratbert and I support him in his quest for the respect and unconditional
love that he deserves.
Back to my MacBSD page.
Last updated, 98-09-19.
This page and all pages in this site are Copyright 1997-98 by Mark Andres. All right reserved.
URL for this page: http://www2.giganet.net/~mark/NetBSD/nsfaq.html