I played with it some more and it looks like the file system attempts to
create inodes based upon where in the dir tree the file is.  Something
created in / tends to have a low inode number (and consequently tends to
be near the front of the disk), whereas something created in
/usr/src/sys/arch/sparc64/compile/GENERIC (or wherever your kernel gets
built) tends to not have such a low number.  So if I cp the kernel to /
and a new inode gets created it seems to boot.  If I mv the kernel to /,
the kernel's inode number is still high and I have no luck booting.  As
the file system gets full and inodes near the front of the disk run out,
my luck will run out I'm sure, but for now, I seem to be able to boot
kernels.  I hope this helps others....

-p


> > This question has been asked a few times, but never addressed.  After
> > building a new kernel, and installing it as /netbsd, the machine wouldn't
> > boot.  The bootloader gave the following:
>