I got tired of having to jump through hoops to install NetBSD on my Eee PC, so I wrote a simple script to take a NetBSD release ISO and convert it to an image that can be written to a USB memory stick.

The script can be found here: http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/misc/jmcneill/mkmemstick.sh

So use the script, simply feed it an ISO and tell it where to write the resulting image:

$ sh mkmemstick.sh i386cd-5.0.1.iso i386memstick-5.0.1.img

The resulting image can be written to a memory stick using dd(1):

$ dd if=i386memstick-5.0.1.img of=/dev/sd0d

Please note that this script depends on the sysutils/cdrtools package for extracting the contents of the release ISO.

Hopefully this will be integrated with the build process so these images are available for those who cannot prepare an image due to lack of access to a NetBSD machine.

Thought I would record a link to my Amazon Wishlist before I forget about it.

Video transcoding feature is total garbage, don’t buy it. The web site advertises DivX support:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/mm4psp/fileformats

But of course it is hit and miss when you try it. A little more digging on the web site shows the following knowledge base article:

http://www.custcenter.com/cgi-bin/sonypictures.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=61&p_created=1060635041&p_sid=_vF7-cwj&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_lva=&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9MywzJnBfcHJvZHM9MCZwX2NhdHM9JnBfcHY9JnBfY3Y9JnBfcGFnZT0xJnBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9ZGl2eA**&p_li=&p_topview=1

If you have determined that the file is DivX or Xvid, be aware that Sony Creative Software does not officially support any version of these codecs.  At this point, we would suggest that you find a way to save the DivX or Xvid file to some other supported format, then open it in the Sony Creative Software program.

Shame, it was the only reason I upgraded from the free version to the pro version. Anybody know of a better tool for managing content on the PSP?