As I recall, the Sparc-binary tars were meant to be dropped into /bin, /usr/bin
etc.., of an otherwise fully populated ( -current) tree, thus avoiding quite
an amount of annoying bootstrapping mess. Admittedly, this is not the smoothest
of installation procedures imaginable, but at least it provides a starting
point.

> For example, in going through the archives, I've seen at least 10 different
> postings on "How to install -current from src"; all different.  The latest one
> I have is dated 2/25.  More importantly, how do I know whether the procedure is
> proper for the SPARC port?  I don't recall what the state of shared libraries
> is on NetBSD/SPARC at the moment (Paul?) - should one still setenv "NOPIC"
> before building in .../libc, for example? 

These special procedures were necessary to get a number of utilities (cc,as,ld)
up to par before a decent shared library could be built. This also applies
to the Sparc binaries as of two months ago. The next set of binaries (which
will itself still be all statically compiled) should be able to build shared
libraries without special tricks.

-pk

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