On Thu, Mar 22, 2001 at 08:21:26AM -0500, Webmaster Jim wrote:
> I'm trying to upgrade an old machine I have (AMD 486x133) that has been
> running NetBSD 1.3.2.  Something seems to be wrong with the floppy
> interface (2 drives have not been able to do i/o on the system).  I
> thought perhaps I could put a netbsd-INSTALL 1.5 kernel on the root
> filesystem and do "boot netbsd.INSTALL" but that gives a load error
> (wrong file type, I think).

Perhaps that netbsd.INSTALL is an elf bin while you netbsd
uses a.out.
This aint too easy ot upgrade to 1.5
Make a backup of all your configs etc etc file.
I guess best is to first unpack etc.tgz somewhere (not in /)
and check things out there, then integrate your normal
configs with that one, that is, modify the etc files until the 
daemons and other stuff is loaded the way you now have.
Then make a etc.tgz from the modified etc tree and unpack it in /etc
Then fetch the other tar balls from 1.5 and untar them.
That should work. I am prolly over looking some important issues.
For example the passwords files in /etc. Aint sure whether they'r
overwritten as well, while untarring etc.tgz
Then, the programs from pkgsrc installed in the 1.3 are a.out
They wont be changed, but i guess that's no problem.

Upgrading by rebuilding the complete kernel and userland
might become difficult. It should be done in steps i assume.
Perhaps you could go at once to 1.4 from there
and from there to 1.4.3 and then to 1.5.
But .... from 1.4.x to 1.5 requires more, cause 1.5 uses elf while 1.4.x
is still on a.out.
But you can find how to do that on the web page of netbsd.

Most easy way would be just untarring the tar balls
and dealing with the etc stuff.
Bye,

Mipam.