Quoting ad675@sfn.saskatoon.sk.ca,

> I got a 486 box installed with linux, and a sun3/50 netboot from the 486.
> Now, I am wondering if I can transfer the OS from Linux to NetBSD in 
> convenience. (I heard that NetBSD is more like UNIX than Linux. 8-)
> I want to know the amount of work like:

>    * Do I need to re-partition the disk? I have a 120Meg ext2 partition 
>      for the linux.

Yes, you do need to do that. ext2fs should be supported by NetBSD
soon (there are patches for it / people working on it), but you'll
need an FFS root filesystem now. I'm not sure what else you have
on your harddisk. If you do have another system on that harddisk,
I suggest that you change the space used for Linux to a partition
of type 'a5', so that the NetBSD install will see it. Oh, back up
any data from the Linux partition first of course, as it will be lost.

>    * How many floppies I need to grab from the net. 

You will need all of the base*.* files, the etc*.* files,
and the 2 boot floppies. This is the bare minimum. You'll
want at least the man*.* and comp*.* files too. But the
INSTALL file will tell you more.

I apologize for the current install procedure, if you're used
to fancy, say, RedHat install procedures: it's not that.

>    * For sure I need to recompile the kernel. But how about the other
>      linux packages. Will they work with NetBSD kernel?

If you want to use Linux packages, you can, by recompiling the 1.2.1
kernel with the options COMPAT_LINUX and EXEC_ELF. What you basically
can do is transfer any Linux files needed at runtime (like the
shared libs and loader) from the place where they used to be,
say, /foo/bar, to /emul/linux/foo/bar. See the compat_linux(8)
manpage.

>    * Do I need to reinstall the XFree386/X11 packages.

The X server, at least. You could run the rest of X under Linux
emulation mode if you really want to but.. it would be cleaner
if you grabbed the Xfree86 binaries for NetBSD.

>    * How many disk space will be used for sun3 netboot? It is about 
>      2-3Meg in Linux which makes sun3 work as a dump Xterminal. However, 
>      I hope the sun3 can provide net services like telnet and ftp at the
>      same time.

I'm not sure. But hey, why not install NetBSD on the sun3 as well :)

- Frank