Just to be clean on where the problem is

To install NetBSD by using FTP to get the installation sets, you
must do the following:
        The preparations for this installation method are easy;
        all you make sure that there's some FTP site from which
        you can retrieve the NetBSD distribution when you're about
        to install. You need to know the numeric IP address of that
        site, and, if it's not on a network directly connected to
        the machine on which you're installing or upgrading NetBSD,
        you need to know the numeric IP address of the router
        closest to the NetBSD machine.  Finally, you need to know
        the numeric IP address of the NetBSD machine itself. The
        install program will ask you to provide this information
        to be able to access the sets via ftp.

Note the last line

ftp://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.3.2/alpha/INSTALL



On Tue, 8 Sep 1998, Schenck, John wrote:

> 
> i ->LOVE<- this install method, so simple...
> 
> 
> >> What i ended up
> >> doing was using ftp and untarring all the sets. Should this  be like this?
> >> The INSTALL document certainly makes no mention of this!
> >
> >Hmm, what about section 4.3: `4.3 Extracting the Operating System Files'?
> >
> >And, yes, ftp and a manual un-tar(1) is exactly the right thing to do. Future
> >alpha releases will in fact feature the `sysinst' program that i386 already
> >has.
>