> (whoopee!)
> 
> Looking to get a head start on things, I'm wondering if the only planned
> changes are to the kernel.  In other words, if I download everything now,
> what's the chance that all I'll have to do is drop in a new
> kernel at the final release?
> 
You should only have to install the changed files.  If only the
kernel changes, that's all you have to install.  If there is a need
to recompile other parts of the distribution (slim), you will
only have to re-install those parts.

> Also, I read the install notes, and it explicitly states that
> there is no way to upgrade from the previous releases.  This
> is what I expected, but I'm not clear about a couple of things:
> 
> 1. Does this mean that I also have to repartition the disk, or
> is mkfs smart enough to just blow away what's there and write out
> the new stuff?  I'm leary about giving SilverLining another crack
> at my HFS partition.
> 
No need to repartition.

> 2. Is the only way to get the work that I've done on my own out (before
> I install the new stuff), to move it out via the installer to MacOS?
> (I know that I could also ftp stuff out, via slip).  I guess that
> what I really want to know is are the floppies not available via
> NetBSD.  I've never been clear about whether this is the case.
> It'd sure be easier to just put my stuff on floppies.
> 
You cannot store anything on floppies at the moment, unless you
copy them out to MacOS via the installer and store your files
on Mac-formatted floppies.

I believe you don't need to worry about losing the stuff already on
your Root&Usr partition.  The installer basically uses tar to extract
the distribution files.  As long as whatever you want to save does
not have the same path and filename as any file extracted by the
installer, your file(s) will not be overwritten.

If you want to be safe, I would copy everything you want to backup
into a common directory, create a tar file for that directory,
gzip it, and use the installer to cpout the .tar.gz file.

--Dave