On 25 Oct 2007, at 20:01, Zafer Aydogan wrote:

> 2007/10/25, David Lord <netbsd@lordynet.org>:
> >
> > I'd like to update my NetBSD 3 and 4 systems that use LFS from the
> > NetBSD-4.0-rc3 cd.
> >
> > The Dell laptop doesn't have a fdd and neither network nor existing
> > LFS filesystems are available from the cd boot.
> >
> > I've done build release on another system but a cd from this will
> > have same problem. I can modify INSTALL_LAPTOP to provide kernel with
> > required LFS and network support for creation of a custom boot cd,
> > but I'm not sure if this will still work with sysinst. Is this likely
> > to be ok and will sysinst then be able to use LFS partitions?
> >
> > Whilst I've previously had some success with a manual install of sets
> > using a script, this has also too often left me with having to
> > recover an unusable system whilst sysinst from a cd boot has so far
> > always gone smoothly which is why it's my preferred method.
> >
> >
> > David
> >
> >
> >
> You can use a livecd (e.g. www.jibbed.org) to untar your sets on your notebook.
> If you untar all sets except etc.tgz, then it will be almost the same,
> what sysinst does.
> First copy the sets on your notebook, if they aren't already there,
> then boot from the live cd, mount your lfs filesystem and untar your
> sets to your targetroot.

Thanks, that's a slightly safer method than my manual method from 
single user. I used Live-cd to setup the initial rootlfs and I'm sure 
its use for an update would be a much simpler process. The problem I 
want to avoid is just with /etc not being updated and hassle of 
manual check/update or risk leaving it unchanged then finding out at 
most inconvenient moment that some program no longer works.

I think I'll try to use the script from sysins that Greg mentioned 
but for that need to work out how to make a cd with my own bootfs and 
kernels. That's a good objective as I've too many different systems 
that fail to boot or have other problems after install if I forget to 
replace GENERIC.

cheers

David