Actually the kernel size is not *that* much bigger: -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 3620884 Jul 28 18:49 netbsd -rwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 3338486 Feb 11 09:05 netbsd163 but maybe it was hitting the magical 640k/2=320 kbyte bar... this one is because it's approaching the 4MB mark...