Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 21:02:10 +0100 (CET) From: Wilko Bulte <wilko@yedi.iaf.nl> To: jkh@zippy.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: New drivers and install floppy space Message-ID: <199812052002.VAA22930@yedi.iaf.nl> In-Reply-To: <2780.912830688@zippy.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at "Dec 4, 98 08:04:48 pm"
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As Jordan K. Hubbard wrote... > > Eventually with the growing hardware support we would be back at a > > 2 floppy boot set it seems. Not a problem in my opinion, but is there a > > general strategy or is it simply 'waiting for the wall'? > > We're already back there, to be perfectly honest. Even though it > wasn't actually documented as such (note to self: document this before > 3.0.1), in the 3.0-RELEASE we did indeed hit the wall quite firmly and > none of the following: > > Any EISA bus machine requiring an EISA peripheral for installation. > Any machine without an FPU. > IDE floppies. > Adaptec 1542. > Mitsumi CDROM. > Matsushita/Panasonic CDROM. > Sony (CDU-xx) CDROM. > Wangtek QIC tape. > Floppy tape. > > Can be used by boot.flp in actually installing the system. For this, > kern.flp is the only option. As time goes on I also expect this list > to grow (and be documented :) into pretty much anything we deem "not > mainstream enough" to go onto boot.flp, leaving the non-mainstream > folks with the abject misery of a 2-floppy installation (said with > tongue-seriously-in-cheek since this has been a requirement for just > about everyone else for some time now). I know that "mainstream" is > also a pretty darn difficult target to hit but we'll just have to do > our best using whatever metrics are available. I certainly want > *most* people to be able to continue using boot.flp for as long as > space permits. When a majority can no longer be thusly accommodated, > we'll just shrug and ditch it completely in favor of the 2(*)-floppy > solution. Hmm. I don't see too much problems in 2 floppies but then again I'm notorious for using out-of-date hardware anyway (as you have seen ;-) In my personal opinion a generic strategy with 2 floppies is prefered over a more or less obscure distinction in old/new hardware support with 2/1 floppy respectively. Your new support people will hate you for it.. ;-) Just to add some horror to this: I played around with the SCO Unixware 7 CD I got at SANE. Uses 2 boot floppies and 1 driver floppy (more or less optional, depends on your hardware). On the same machine it took 3+ hours to install compared to FreeBSD basic install in 30 minutes or so. Wilko _ ______________________________________________________________________ | / o / / _ Bulte email: wilko@yedi.iaf.nl |/|/ / / /( (_) Arnhem, The Netherlands WWW : http://www.tcja.nl ______________________________________________ Powered by FreeBSD __________ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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