: From: Kevin <kev@drule.org>

> Okay.  What's the easiest way to upgrade userland from the 19990325 
> snapshot.    I am already tracking the 1.4_beta kernel.  The only way I can 
> boot the install kernel is via bootp/nfs.  This is a big chore and would 
> rather not do it.  Can I boot into single-user mode and just extract the 
> tar files on top of my installed user files?  I guess the only problem with 
> this would be orphaned files left around from the old system.

Booting into single-user works, sort of. It doesn't install new boot blocks,
or clean up, but upgrading isn't the strong suite of sysinst, either. A
third alternative is to boot the install kernel, exit the install system,
and then unpack the sets manually.

I'm not sure I completely follow the boot conditions, here. When you say
"The only way...", I'm going to guess that what you mean is that you
don't have a floppy?  So you must be booting /netbsd from either local
disk or from NFS, but the "big chore" comment probably means "not NFS".

So, if you boot from your hard drive's /, then just drop the install
kernel into / and boot it up instead of /netbsd. You don't even have
to gzip -d it.

	su
	cd /
	ftp ...some site...
	cd /pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.4_BETA/alpha/installation/instkernel
	get netbsd.gz
	quit
	shutdown -h now
	>>> b -file netbsd.gz

Ross.Harvey@Computer.Org