> Several folks mentioned that they had run into
> this problem and suggested i use 1.2 Beta 
> installation floppies.
You'll find various snapshots of 1.2Beta in various
places amongst others in ~ftp/pub/NetBSD/ports/i386/distrib-current
on netbsd.wifo.uni-mannheim.de which tries to make
a distribution on the 13th of every month.

> These floppies seemed to work and on a test
> disk (spare hard drive ) I was able to
> get through installing a file system
> and copying in a kernel.
> 
> What I would like to do now is continue
> with the installation.
Follow the instructions in NetBSD-1.1 INSTALL
and get the file-sets (for 1.2Beta base,comp,etc,text,misc...)

> Could I simply proceed with the normal
> installation of the "release" version
> of "NetBSD 1.1" using the "normal"
> files. ?
Yes if the kernels were compiled with compatibility
to NetBSD-1.1 but it's not a good idea when "release"
sets exist of 1.2Beta anyway, you'd also be missing
out on the bug/security fixes.

> Preferences...
> 
> Best case 
> 1. I would like to know how I might
> patch the release kernel for  NetBSD 1.1
> i386 and make a new installation floppy
> given the folowing resources
Given that installation floppies exist for
release 1.2Beta there is no need to patch
a NetBSD 1.1 floppy, but if you really want to...

> Things I'm nervy about
> 1.I don't know how "Patch" works
>   I want "Patch" to update a specific
>   copy of the kernel hopefully
>  not ruining anything that is running.
If you want to replace an existing old kernel
with a new kernel you will need to compile
the new-kernel with the new source-files 
(and probably new gcc and binutils) remembering
the compatibility options COMPAT_10 COMPAT_11 
(and maybe COMPAT_09,COMPAT_NOMID if you still
 have very old files)

> 2.If running patch is easy and easily
>   made to update a targeted kernel.How
>   do I go about creating the floppy
>   images.
mount the floppies "mount /dev/fd0a /mnt"
and replace the kernel /mnt/netbsd with your
new one, you will probably not have enough
space as it's a 1.2MB-floppy-filesystem in 
which case you'll need to create a new 1.4MB floppy
and tar the files from the 1.2MB onto the 1.4MB.

> 2a Can I copy the patched kernel
>    straight to the floppy and expect it to work.
see above.

> 2b Is the floppy kernel special in any way.
It's small so it has as little options as possible
while still trying to support the most disk/net
configurations available. See sys/arch/i386/conf/INSTADP

> 3. Would it be easier to patch the floppy.
No

>    The floppy seems pretty packed Is there
>    anything not essential here
No

Cheerio
	Andrew
-- 
The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity. (Mark Twain)
current	release=doc host=netbsd.wifo.uni-mannheim.de \ "NetBSD-current mirror"
hostbase=/mit/ftp/pub/NetBSD base=/usr prefix=/usr backup delete use-rel-suffix