> I just installed NetBSD/Sparc 1.0 on my machine for the first time.  Some
> comments about the installation procedure etc.:

things have changed _significantly_ since netbsd 1.0.

>  -- NetBSD mounts `/dev/sd0a' on `/', regardless of what drive it was booted
>     from.  I expected, and would have preferred, the SunOS behavior of
>     mounting the root file system from the `a' partition on the boot device.

this has changed somewhat. the current sources will attempt to figure
out the boot disk -- for some configurations this code will succeed
and do the right thing. some further advanced code that i have solves
the problem completely (even for floppies :-)

>  -- I have to say that I don't at all understand the purpose of numbering the
>     SCSI disks the way NetBSD does.

quite honestly, none of us understand the reason why SunOS numbers
it's disks the way it does :-) the scsi code has been replaced. some
of your complaints still hold for the default system, but it is
possible to build a kernel that (if you wanted to) would map your
disks in exactly the way SunOS does.

>  -- It would be nice if NetBSD came with a precompiled version of `tcsh',
>     since the SunOS executable doesn't work (yet?).

the SunOS binary emulation is not perfect, and probably never will be.
as well, some SunOS binaries disobey the exact rules for posix session
groups. it is likely that a SunOS-compiled version of tcsh fits into
the latter catagory. i've not checked if that's the case, and probably
won't...

>  -- To run many SunOS executables, it is necessary to
> 
>       # ld -s /usr/libexec/ld.so /usr/lib
> 
>     At least, I guess this is the right thing to do -- it seems to work.

read the compat_sunos(8) man page for details on how to do this in the
correct way. i don't think that man page made it into 1.0.

> Are any of these
> problems likely to have been fixed already in the latest version?

of all the questions you asked, that is the most important one. as far
as i know many of these problems are solved. but perhaps not all. many
of the problems which i specifically zoned in on regarded sunos
compat, and regarding that i can say that not many people are
bothering to use sunos compat to the extent you are. many people are
running with native binaries.