First off, to get it out in the open and out of the way, these might 
very well be dumb questions.  I've read the macppc install doc, and the 
faq, and the partitioning document numerous times (which ought to 
explain why these might be dumb questions :-) .  I'm trying to avoid 
using any os9 disk utilities if possible; I don't have install disks for 
os9, nor do I have os9 installed.

I have a powerbook g4 667 gig ether with a 28gb drive.  When I got it, I 
repartitioned it and reinstalled it minus the bloat (excuse me, OS9).  I 
knew that sooner or later (i.e., as soon as 1.6 was available, or mostly 
available), I'd also be running netbsd on it, so I partitioned the drive 
in half -- 14gb for macosx (wd0d), 14gb partitioned 'empty' (wd0a) for 
netbsd.  Two partitions.  The disklabel output, edited for the pertinent 
information, is at the bottom of this message.

A `disklabel wd0` properly shows the partitions, but it's sysinst that 
makes me nervous; I've never had a macppc netbsd box, let alone a 
dual-boot macppc netbsd box while attempting to preserve the current 
installation.

The questions I have are:

can I assign (from sysinst) 2 new partitions to what was previously used 
by the unused wd0a partition (cylinders 29070-58139) for swap and netbsd 
root partitions?

Can I avoid reinstalling macosx by using this tactic?  Can I avoid 
apple's partitioning tools altogether, given that I already have the 
space for netbsd, or is sysinst not currently able to create partitions 
alongside already existing HFS+ partitions?

Is there any known good reason that the osx 'disk utility' won't let me 
create a partition size less than 2.16 gb?  2.16gb is a mite extravagant 
for swap.

If I can use sysinst to split wd0a into 2 partitions, what are safe 
cylinder size & offset values, taking 512mb of swap into account?

Exactly how much trouble am I getting into?

Any questions you can answer are greatly appreciated.  If I can get this 
working, I'll contribute documentation of the process to the FAQ/install 
doc.  Alternately, I'll buy any answerers in the greater Twin Cities 
metro area a beer/wine/scotch/burger/sushi/etc.

Mike Overbo

(the disklabel, edited for readability)

# disklabel wd0
[....]
4 partitions
#          size    offset     fstype
wd0a:  29302496  29302624    unknown [...] (Cyl. 29070* - 58139)
wd0c:  58605120         0     unused [...] (Cyl.      0 - 58139)
wd0d:  29302560        64        HFS [...] (Cyl.     0* - 29070)