On Wed, 3 Jul 1996, Bill Studenmund wrote:

> Also, why is a kernel file tar'ed? There's only one file there.

Because you can install it from the Installer into your root partition, if
you like.  This is convenient and as an added bonus it preserves the
modification time on the kernel file.  At least, that's why _I_ do it.

It's trivial to find gunzip/tar software for the MacOS side, should you
happen to want to load it from the MacOS partition.  I'd expect that's
usually not the case, especially given that many things expect the kernel
to be /netbsd (things that grovel around in /dev/kmem, particularly stuff
linked with libkvm).

--scott