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Date:      Sat, 6 Mar 2010 09:44:34 -0800 (PST)
From:      James Phillips <anti_spam256@yahoo.ca>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: freebsd install from floppy
Message-ID:  <799211.14657.qm@web65514.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>
In-Reply-To: <20100306120022.DB2A2106568B@hub.freebsd.org>

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> Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:54:38 +0000
> From: Matthew Seaman <m.seaman@infracaninophile.co.uk>
> Subject: Re: freebsd install from floppy
> To: perryh@pluto.rain.com
> Cc: questions@freebsd.org,
> plukawski@gmail.com
> Message-ID: <4B92265E.5030109@infracaninophile.co.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=3DUTF-8
>=20
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>=20
> On 06/03/2010 09:26:22, perryh@pluto.rain.com
> wrote:
> > I seem to remember something about the floppy images
> being dropped
> > because few current (or even recent) systems have a
> floppy drive at
> > all, much less a bootable one.
>=20
> Yeah, but the floppy disk drive was already obsolete 10
> years ago.=A0 It's
> just taken this long for it to fall down dead.=A0 Good
> riddance to it.
> Why would anyone want an unreliable, slow and tiny capacity
> device when
> you can get GiB capacity USB sticks everywhere nowadays?
>=20

Correction: Apple stopped selling computers with floppy drives about 10 yea=
rs ago. The floppy drive is not obsolete because there is still no viable r=
eplacement that has the same (or better) functionality.

The problem with USB sticks is that they don't have user-accessible write-p=
rotect tabs. If you plug a USB stick into a compromised system, it is "tain=
ted."

Secure Digital Cards have a write-protect tab, but "Secure" means "secure a=
gainst copying" (Copy Protection for Recordable Media), making them inappro=
priate for "known good" filesystem images.

I have started using CD-ROM booting to install FreeBSD. The problem with CD=
-R images is that any "tweaks" to the disk image require burning a new disk=
.

Regards,

James Phillips

Recent Slashdot exchange about exactly this issue:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3D1565678&cid=3D31302916

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