"Rick McCombs" <rick.mccombs@gmail.com> writes:

> I wonder if there has ever been much consideration to have more
> third-party software in binary form?
> It would seem to make it easier to install on older systems and
> systems that aren't online (install from CD).
> I have a Pentium II that is online and tar zxvf pkgsrc.tar.gz is still
> running  after over 2 hours.

Yes, thi is being actively worked on.  pkgsrc is set up to build binary
packages, and various developers do bulk builds and upload them to the
NetBSD web site.

See 

  http://www.netbsd.org/docs/pkgsrc/ftp-layout.html

for the plan of how they are stored, and for example

  ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/i386/3.1_2007Q3/

or

  ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/packages/NetBSD/i386/4.0_2007Q3/

> I may install on a computer that doesn't usually have net access but I
> probably will bring it here to  where I do have net access anyway back
> up some stuff but its not much faster than a Pentium ii so I'll
> probably have to leave it a few days.

> By the way is there an eta for 4.0 or should I try a release candidate?

You should try a release candidate and report back if you have any
trouble; that's what they're for :-) But seriously at this point I would
expect only extremely minor differences from RC to release.  And then
there will be changes along the stable branch.  So I'll go so far as to
say that it doesn't matter much exactly when you update/install.