"Jeremy C. Reed" <r...@reedmedia.net> writes: > On Wed, 20 Dec 2023, Greg Troxel wrote: > >> - beware that 5->10 is almost certainly not going to work. I have >> generally been doing N->N+1 on most machines, but had occasion to do >> 5->9. I found that the 9 kernel would not boot. I then tried 7, > > Does this mean the /netbsd 9 kernel itself wouldn't boot (never got to > attempting /sbin/init)? > Or that that /netbsd 9 kernel couldn't run NetBSD 7 /sbin/init and > /etc/rc, etc? > Or that the /netbsd 9 kernel couldn't run the NetBSD 9 /sbin/init etc, > maybe due to some left over NetBSD 5 configs or executables? If so, how > did you recover?
It means exactly that I tested doing a 5->9 upgrade on duplicate hardware, leaving it in the basement and pretending I couldn't walk down, meaning both not being able to touch the keyboard, power button, reset button and not being able to see the monitor. I got into a wedged state where I couldn't reach the machine enough that I concluded it would not work. I then did 5->7 and 7->9 successfully locally, and remotely. Fuzzy memory that came back to me is that netbsd-5's ifconfig fails to run properly with a netbsd-9. If that fuzzy memory is correct, then one should be able to unpack the user sets and then be ok. But I don't like these sitations of being broken and hoping step 2 will fix it. I prefer to see the system usable with the new kernel. Hence my recommendation to upgrade to 7 and then 9 or 10. If 10 boots to multiuser with remote ssh with 7 userland, then sure, install the 10 userland sets.
