From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 8 01:02:48 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1C22D16A4CE for ; Thu, 8 Jan 2004 01:02:48 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp.mho.com (smtp.mho.net [64.58.4.6]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 934AA43D31 for ; Thu, 8 Jan 2004 01:02:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from scottl@freebsd.org) Received: (qmail 97168 invoked by uid 1002); 8 Jan 2004 09:02:43 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ?10.4.1.5?) (64.58.1.252) by smtp.mho.net with SMTP; 8 Jan 2004 09:02:43 -0000 Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 02:05:14 -0700 (MST) From: Scott Long X-X-Sender: scottl@pooker.samsco.home To: "Matthew D. Fuller" In-Reply-To: <20040108075811.GJ48603@over-yonder.net> Message-ID: <20040108015954.V32598@pooker.samsco.home> References: <20040107235737.I32227@pooker.samsco.home> <20040108075811.GJ48603@over-yonder.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Discussion on the future of floppies in 5.x and 6.x X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 09:02:48 -0000 On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Matthew D. Fuller wrote: > On Wed, Jan 07, 2004 at 11:50:59PM -0800 I heard the voice of > Avleen Vig, and lo! it spake thus: > > > > While it is indeed true that most machines since 1997 will support this > > CD format, please take in to account: > > And, further, some of us don't have (and don't want) CD burners, and even > if we had 'em, don't want to burn (no pun intended ;) a CD blank just to > install an OS, when we can just (re-)use 2 floppies and do it across the > LAN from a local FTP mirror, which is as fast as a CD drive anyway. Well, using the emulated boot cd would only be about 3MB and would only contain the sysinstall environment, so you'd still be installing over the LAN or whatever. As someone else pointed out, it is apparently possible to use Compact Flash as the media instead of a CD, so that is something to consider also. > > It seems to me that we could split more out into modules, and/or add more > disks of modules (maybe categorize a "storage device" modules disk, a > "network drivers" modules disk, etc, keeping just the more common devices > in the main kernel). Last I saw, the current system only created a > single modules disk, which was a godsend to a kernel overflowing one > disk, but as we add more and more stuff becomes another, albeit larger, > noose. > For 5.x we already have a 3rd floppy that is dedicated to modules. Unfortunately, it doesn't work nearly as well as it should because there is no way to activate it during the boot sequence; it can only be used once sysinstall is running. Also, it too is nearly overflowing. Scott