It seems to me that the most important aspect of the isntall process for the
user community is getting the system to come up wihtout having support
problemms.  Since we have so many *test kernels going around, we tend to feel
as a group that we have a lot of support.

In fact, we do support a lot of hardware in various kernels.  We have
distributions which do cool things with intvideo, adb, and fpuless as well as
daystar machines.  However, none of this code has been merged into line with
the source tree. And, as such, is not supported by NetBSD/mac68k.

I think the best way to build up a better installer and isntlal process is to
build a more robust kernel (as has already been suggested).  Either put
together an EVERYTHING kernel for the distribution or wait til the persons
writing things like ADBTEST and intvidtest are ready to put in mainline
NetBSD.  

Also, one idea I have for making a better install process is to shift the
focus from a MacOS installer to a miniroot in MacOS.  Once partitions are
made, one could boot to the miniroot and follow through some well-written
install scripts to newfs the filesystem and start the copy of binaries in.  We
could much more easilly break the distirbution down into packages then.

I know the idea is a bit vague and would need to have some details (like
automating the hfs activity) worked out, but it may be a better solution.
Also, it might make the diagnostic process of finding otu whether the system
will actually run on a person's system much less painful (especially if you
can obot without needing to kill your hard drive)

Gene
-- 
Gene Skonicki - gene@imsa.edu - Network Postmaster
  "May it hold you through the winter of a long night,
   and keep you from the loneliness of yourself."