Brian B. Brown said:

# I didn't think that downloading the binary snapshot of 1.2.1
# and trying to install it on a running system would be a good idea.

If you do it carefully[!], I see no reason why you can't do this on a
system that is at least in single-user mode.

Just move anything that you have running out of the way by 
suffixing it with a .12c.  Here's my tack:

- go single-user
- get whatever up you need for connectivity (pppd in my case)
- make sure /usr (and /var, if separate) is mounted
- immediately mv /netbsd /onetbsd.
- back your stuff up.

The list of files I'd rename to $FILE.12c includes:
/sbin/init
/sbin/dump
/sbin/restore
/sbin/ifconfig
/bin/sh
/bin/csh [possibly]
/usr/bin/tar
/usr/bin/ftp
/usr/sbin/pppd
/usr/bin/gzip [ just in case ]

You'd probably do good to make sure that they were
statically linked as well so gzip doesn't puke when it
extracts from the ftp'd tar file.  If gzip and/or pppd are
not statically linked, you might do well to move your
/usr/lib to /usr/lib.12c and set LD_LIBRARY_PATH
to /usr/lib.12c.  Possibly re-run ldconfig as well.

It's all probably overkill but better safe than sorry; I haven't
reduced it to the minimum set of possibilities just because
I don't want to _really_ hose my system and need to redo
my root filesystem via ScumOS.

Then just go do it.  Don't do:

ftp> get base.tar.gz "|tar.12c xvfpz -"

Do instead:

ftp> get base.tar.gz "| gzip.12c -d | tar xvfp -"

[tar calls gzip directly unless you specify some option,
 at which point you might as well do the double pipe instead.]

If I'm missing something here, please, anyone, feel free
to point it out, but this is exactly how I managed to upgrade my
system after I partly hosed it [and IP addresses began to
mysteriously fail].

--*greywolf;

WE ARE MICROSOFT OF BORG.
OPENNESS IS FUTILE.  UNIX IS IRRELEVANT.
YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED.