> Are there specific steps I must perform in order to build the entire
> dist from pristine src?
> Are those steps documented somewhere?

Yeah. Check /usr/src/UPDATING.

do anything which is in there - I just have a NetBSD-1.5 -> current 
survived...

[quoting:]

Critical utilities:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        gnu/usr.bin/egcs
        usr.bin/compile_et
        usr.bin/make
        usr.bin/yacc
        usr.bin/lex
        usr.bin/xlint
        usr.sbin/config

build those... (cd <dir>, make && make install), also goto 
       cd share/mk && make install,
and if you have further problems, rebuild & install libc

basically go to every line starting with Symptom and do the stuff that's 
standing there :) 

Martin Weber (who thinks this should be handled somewhat automatically)