On Sat, 10 Feb 2001, Bob Nestor wrote:

> Notice I didn't say it would always screw up.  If you do your own kernel
> builds on a system with a combined root&usr that is BSD 4.3 format you
> will probably end up with a problem sooner or later.  The inode number of
> the kernel will eventually be assigned to a value that the Booter can't
> get to and your system will be unbootable.  The simplest way to avoid
> this is to use a separate, small root partition, prefereably one that is
> BSD 4.2 format.

The work-around is to always create the new kernel at the root level.
Having a separate root ensures that; size doesn't matter. What happens
when you have a single /-/usr-/usr/src/sys is that you're tempted to
type "mv netbsd /" to activate your new kernel, but the data doesn't
really move -- it's still out there on the high numbered cylinders,
where the Booter may not find it. However, if you do, for instance,
"cp -p netbsd /", instead, the data always ends up in the first
cylinder, and it always seems to work.


Frederick