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Date:      Tue, 17 Oct 2000 01:44:45 +0000 (GMT)
From:      Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>
To:        jkh@winston.osd.bsdi.com (Jordan Hubbard)
Cc:        mjacob@feral.com, current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Our kernel just got too big again. :)
Message-ID:  <200010170144.SAA06153@usr05.primenet.com>
In-Reply-To: <53853.971568753@winston.osd.bsdi.com> from "Jordan Hubbard" at Oct 14, 2000 05:12:33 PM

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[ ... manual driver load from third floppy ... ]

> The problem with such an approach is that it's not very user-friendly
> to first-time installers who have no idea how to drive the loader.
> Let's not forget the linux installation floppy saga and all the
> confusion it's caused people just in trying to figure out which
> floppies to use.  That would be where the forth hackery comes in - an
> additional set of menu options which make it a no-brainer to insert the
> kernel module floppy.

Jordan's right.  This is a non-starter, unless it says:

	"Please insert the optional drivers floppy now, and hit
	 return.  If you have no more optional drivers to load,
	 please insert the root floppy now, and hit return."

Ideally, the thing will be DOS formatted, and have a "\freebsd"
directory, in which drivers are located, and a "\freebsd\drivers.ini"
that contained name/value pairs indicating files to load and
version(s) available.  This would make it easy for the FreeBSD
project to provide binary drivers which vendors could then just
include some more files on their disks, since duplication costs
won't change by adding more files, so long as they fit.  A nice
win, all around.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@lambert.org
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.


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