On Sun, 2 Nov 1997, netbsd wrote:
> Thanks for that explanation.  How about getting the kernel src for 1.2.1 so
> that I can compile a non Generic kernel. On ftp.netbsd what looks to be
> kernel src under 1.2.1 is a bunch of files with two letter endings. What is
> the deal with those?

Those are tar.gz files that have been split into smaller chunks with the
split utility... it names the split files whateveraa, whateverab, etc...
they're split up that way so you can put 'em onto either 1.2M or 1.44M
floppies. To extract, cat ksrc121*|tar xzvf -

> Again, I'm trying to come to terms with the way netbsd handles kernels.
> The one other system that I compiled kernels was Linux. If you are familar
> with that, then you would know that using the generic kernal that got your
> system going was a big memory hog. You could choose a kernel release, get
> the src for it (which came with the cdrom) and then re-compile it not to
> fix anything, but to make it as lean as possible. That is what I'd like to
> do for my se/30 and 1.2.1.

It's better to compile your own custom kernel for NetBSD too, for much the
same reasons. The GENERIC kernel is pretty huge, especially on the i386,
where there's support for so many scsi cards and ethernet cards.

> I got the current src tree, but again, now I now that its 1.3alpha. What
> happens if I compile that on a 1.2.1 machine?

While I think compiling and running the kernel itself will be fine (make
sure you have "options COMPAT_12" in your kernel config file though), some
programs like ps, w, uptime, and systat won't work. Upgrading the binaries
and stuff to 1.3alpha from source code is possible, although rather
difficult due to the large number of changes that have been made since
1.2.1. Besides, it takes a long time to download all that source and
compile it. You should consider installing a 1.3alpha snapshot, from
ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/arch/mac68k/1.3ALPHA-971101/
Freshly made from yesterday's source, it seems :)

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