No, this is not the way it is!! 1.4 pmax works great. However,
I recommend reading all available FAQs on the netbsd web site.
This will help you out.

Here are a couple of thoughts on your first questions:

On Fri, 1 Oct 1999, wb2oyc wrote:

> Here's why:
> 
> 1) Every boot puts me in single user.  Is that supposed to happen?
>    The reason I ask is for the life of me I can't see where any error
>    preceeded that, but whether I do a normal shutdown or not, there 
>    are always errors found on the disk when I do fsck at that point.  
>    Hardware problem maybe?

Have you edited /etc/rc.conf? Are you doing a boot or boot -a rather than
a boot -s?  I believe these items are mentioned in the FAQ. 

> 2) What is the proper response to the prompt "Terminal type"?  No matter
>    what I tell it, if I have a file in an editor (vi, joe, whatever) the
>    file does not scroll when you reach the bottom line or using Next on
>    the edit keypad.  When in X, I can use them ok in an xterm but not at
>    the console.  Reading a man page is fine...scrolls properly, etc.  I
>    had to ftp the rc.conf file to another system so I could edit it, and
>    then put it back after the original install to get around this...at
>    that point there was no X.

rcons - definitely a FAQ but I am not sure it's in the FAQ.

> 3) How to stop messages from corrupting the root window when in X?  Will
>    being logged in as my user account stop this maybe?

This is the same as any Unix platform.  Make a console xterm, 
e.g. xterm -c. 

>    "child exited with status 1" and then pkg_add asking "is this a 
> package"?
> 
> 5) Then, if I ftp that same package over to the pmax and use pkg_add, it 
> blows
>    up, and messages from the lockmgr saying "I'm locking against myself" 
> and
>    the pmax reboots and ends up at the boot prompt.
> 
> 6) The first attempts to use pkg_add failed because there were no 
> directories
>    created under /usr for it...I manually had to add the /pkg and those 
> under
>    it (bin, lib and so on).  Did I forget others maybe?  Or, why didn't 
> the 
>    install do this, or is there something else I'm supposed to do that 
> would
>    take care of it?  The FAQ or none of the other doc's I've read mention 
> that
>    this is a postinstall step...

Uh, is your /usr filesystem mounted?? 

> 
> Have I wasted this install and actually made things worse?  Should I just 
> start
> over?  Oh, the original install was a netboot and NFS deal, so its not 
> like I
> have the CD on the pmax.
> 
> bummed out!
> Paul

Don't sweat it. Becoming your own sysadmin isn't hard, really - it just
requires a bit of documentation reading and investigation.

The great thing about NetBSD is it's BSD Unix - it's pretty well
understood and documented. In general, things work the way they do on
any other BSD system. Occasionally, the work a lot better!