On Tue, 26 Nov 1996 11:16:52 -0800 
 "Kevin M. Lahey" <kml@nas.nasa.gov> wrote:

 > This sounds like the problem.  I'm sorta curious about why NetBSD
 > doesn't just include the /dev directory in the distributions -- I've
 > been bit by this bug before, when doing upgrades.   After unpacking the
 > tarballs and dropping a kernel in, it is mighty easy to forget that
 > critical 'MAKEDEV' step, and the error message isn't particularly
 > helpful.  It certainly would be worth downloading a few extra Kbytes
 > of data to get this working correctly.
 > 
 > Or am I missing something?

Old versions of tar(1) couldn't deal with device special files.  GNU
tar(1) and pax(1) can, so some NetBSD ports ship device special files
in the archives.

Jason R. Thorpe                                       thorpej@nas.nasa.gov
NASA Ames Research Center                               Home: 408.866.1912
NAS: M/S 258-6                                          Work: 415.604.0935
Moffett Field, CA 94035                                Pager: 415.428.6939