Hi,

[ Quick summary of discussion: it has been noted that there are problems
installing some of the larger tarballs like base.tgz and comp.tgz on
Quantum Fireball 1.2G hard drives using the Installer. ]

I also have a Quantum Fireball 1.2G running on my Centris 650. When I was
installing NetBSD 1.2 for the first time about a year ago, I had exactly
the same problems. It is *not* a RAM problem as I was allocating 30MB of
RAM to the Installer. I am not a programmer or a hardware guy, so I will
leave the fix to others.

What I can do is suggest a work around to those who have problems
installing on a Fireball 1.2GB HD.  Here is how I got my system up and
running.

When you install base.tgz, you will probably get most of the files
installed before it gives up the ghost. IIRC, the most recent victim got
as far as /usr/share/man/something before it stopped. Tar is in
/usr/bin, so it should have already been installed. Here is what you do.

1) Install base.tgz as far as you can.

2) Install kern.tgz (or the SBC kernel), etc.tgz, and any other tarballs
that you can get get.  

3) Use the mini-shell under the installer to cpin the remaining tarballs
as well as base.tgz. If you don't have enough space on your / file
sysyetm, you will need to install it on another file system.

4) Boot into single-user, run fsck -f, and mount your partitions using
mount -a.

5) Use tar to install the remaining tarballs.  You need to be in / and
then do

  tar --unlink -zxvpf /path/to/base.tgz

Do the same for the other tarballs and you should be able to have a
complete NetBSD system.

Any chance this could make it into the FAQ, since the Fireball 1.2G drives
are rather common?

   Mark Andres               E-mail: mark@giganet.net
          Running NetBSD, 100% Microsoft Free!
   Me & NetBSD: http://www2.giganet.net/~mark/NetBSD/