Hi Chuck,

Thanks for the checklist. Maybe someone should tidy it up,
and put it on the Web.

But the problem I had was not co-existence with FreeBSD. Linux doesn't
use disklabels inside an MBR partition, so the FreeBSD instructions
aren't really relevant to coexistence with Linux.

[I was installing NetBSD onto systems that already had Linux and LILO
in the MBR. These systems came with a 1Gbyte disk, factory-installed
with two ~450Mbyte bootable Linux MBR partitions.

Removing the Linux partition before installing NetBSD was not an
option; it was a custom Linux distribution.  Neither was installing
DOS; these machines were never licenced for any Microsoft product.

Installing NetBSD/i386 on those systems was ... horrific.  Even more
painful than installing 4.3BSD tape on a VAX-11 without the console
media. 

I saved the files from one of the Linux partitions, changed its MBR
partitiontype to BSD386 using the Linux fdisk, and start the NetBSD
install.  The MBR got blown away.

Andrew Brown has reported similar problems installing onto systems
with LILO in the MBR.  I don't think it's entirely due to pilot error
in either case.  (And even if it *were*, IMHO disklabel and the
install tools should do better checks, and give better warnings about
what they think they're doing. Because it looks like they're doing
_something_ wrong.)