On Sun, 24 Aug 1997 11:54:11 -0700 (PDT)  David Haube wrote:

> I have a DS3100 that was running ultrix.  I had put netbsd on
> another disk a few months ago.  My ultrix system disk died and I decided
> to go back to netbsd.  I booted up the netbsd and decided that
> I should upgrade the disk to the current distribution. I downloaded
> the current distribution to my linux machine and then ftp'ed the
> base.tar.gz to the Decstation.  Not thinking very clearly (this is
> before I had breakfast), I untarred the base.  Now all the commands
> core dump.  This I presume is because everything is elf and my 
> kernel isn't.  
> 
> I am now left with a running machine that I'm logged in as root with only
> a couple of commands that work, tar, gunzip, no ftp, no ls, rm or other
> favorite commands.  Echo * does work so I can get directory listings.  I
> can copy files by tarring onto a floppy disk.  I transferred netbsd.elf by
> tarring it up on the linux machine to a floppy and untarring it in the
> root directory.  Now, my question is, if I reboot will it come up or do I
> need to change things in the startup scripts also? I can transfer any
> number of files using floppies if I have to, but once I reboot I will be
> stuck if it doesn't come up. 

The new netbsd.elf should be ok for you, especially if you got it from
the same snapshot where you got the base.tar.gz from.  If you get really
stuck, you can always boot diskless off your linux machine (although you
may need a trimmed down kernel if you have a really old PROM, and I'm
sure someone (including me :-) can build that small kernel for you if
it's not lying around on ftp.netbsd.org).

Simon.