>>>>> "HT" == Hoang Tran <hqt@rocketmail.com> writes:

    HT> Hi, I just tried this snapshot and ran into the same problem
    HT> with the snapshot from 20000223 where base.tgz couldn't
    HT> extract properly.

    HT> ...

    HT> I'm so happy that this snapshot boot with my laptop and didn't
    HT> hang but I'm running into this problem that I'm unable to
    HT> figure out how to fix this.

The problem is that pax (and tar, which I believe is simply pax on the
install disk) creates a file in /tmp which is on an in-memory file
system during an install. As the install floppies have gotten bigger I
suspect the allocated memory for the file system has not.  Of course,
I have not actually looked at the innards of the installer and thus
may be talking out my ass. Anyway while unpacking larger tarballs
(such as base.tgz) the install dies and this is how I worked around it 
(installing off a cdrom I burned):

1. create the file systems using sysinst
2. tell sysinst that you will be installing from a cdrom and give it
     a bogus device name so that it will fail and you can then get
     back to the main sysinst menu and go to utilities to start a shell.
3. mount the file systems on /mnt by hand, fsck_ffs them if necessary 
4. create a /mnt/newtmp and set TMPDIR to point to that
5. get the tarballs over there from cdrom or the net and untar them
     under /mnt
6. go to /mnt/dev and do a chroot /mnt
7. do a "sh MAKEDEV all"
8. exit the shell, unmount the file systems
9. reboot
A. get rid of /tmpdir

Perhaps there is a far simpler way to do this that did not occur to
me.

Good luck...
lonnie

-- 
Lonhyn Jasinskyj
NASA Ames Research Center
lonhyn@nas.nasa.gov