Subject: A Pathological Question

From: Peter Berger <[email-masked]>

[Here's hoping my mailing list to newsgroup gateway worked.  Replies are
appreciated just to let me know that it's functioning...]

I'm running FreeBSD 1.1.5.1; I did this mostly because, no matter how hard
I looked, I couldn't find the damn NetBSD install floppies.

HOWEVER, now that I've got my box partitioned correctly and on the 'net, is
it at all feasible to install NetBSD current (the 4.4 lite Beta) "on top
of" FreeBSD; ie, can I just replace my /sys directory with a NetBSD sys,
config it, make it, and expect it to work?

If this is remotely possible, please let me know, and let me know what I
have to sup and where I have to sup it from.

Thanks!

-- 
........................................................................
  Peter G. Berger, Esq.  Telerama Public Access Internet, Pittsburgh
Internet: [email-masked] Phone: 412/481-3505 Fax: 412/481-8568
    http://www.lm.com/ gopher://gopher.lm.com/ ftp://ftp.lm.com/

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From: [email-masked] (T. William Wells)

In article <[email-masked]>, Peter Berger  <[email-masked]> wrote:
: Path: hudson.lm.com!epicycle.lm.com!not-for-mail
: Newsgroups: mail.netbsd-current-users
: Organization: Telerama Public Access Internet, Pittsburgh, PA USA
: Lines: 21
: Nntp-Posting-Host: epicycle.lm.com
: Apparently-To: [email-masked]
:
: [Here's hoping my mailing list to newsgroup gateway worked.  Replies are
: appreciated just to let me know that it's functioning...]

Not quite.....

: HOWEVER, now that I've got my box partitioned correctly and on the 'net, is
: it at all feasible to install NetBSD current (the 4.4 lite Beta) "on top
: of" FreeBSD; ie, can I just replace my /sys directory with a NetBSD sys,
: config it, make it, and expect it to work?

(I recently switched from the latest FreeBSD to NetBSD, without doing a full
install.)

The object formats aren't compatible. You can use the same filesystems, but
you have to bring everything over, starting with binaries. And don't forget
to install a new set of boot blocks; the FreeBSD boot blocks won't boot a
NetBSD kernel.  Other than that, there's no magic to switching over, just a
lot of sweat, since *everything* will have to be recompiled and reconfigured.