>
> Hello,
>
> I am a newbie who plans to install NetBSD for the first time on an older
> (supported) Alpha workstation.  I am UNIX-friendly(tm), but have never
                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

well said. user should be friendly, not OS :)

> worked with NetBSD.  I was considering using FFS for most of the
> partitions, but LFS for perhaps /etc and /var/log (BTW, is the typical

/etc???? what sense

> NetBSD directory layout similar to FSSTND?).  In reading the docs for LFS,
> I saw some comments about it being mostly complete - which implies to me it
> is not fully stable (at least in terms of development).
yes it is not stable and have bugs.

if it's workstation for mainly personal use install with 2 partitions only
- swap and / as ffs with softdep enabled (enabling noatime is good too)

it's simplest and efficient