From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jan 11 11:02:44 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 DF4FD16A4CE for ; Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:02:44 -0800 (PST) Received: from odin.ac.hmc.edu (Odin.AC.HMC.Edu [134.173.32.75]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 60A6D43D45 for ; Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:02:43 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from brdavis@odin.ac.hmc.edu) Received: from odin.ac.hmc.edu (IDENT:brdavis@localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by odin.ac.hmc.edu (8.12.10/8.12.3) with ESMTP id i0BJ2eA7030220 for ; Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:02:40 -0800 Received: (from brdavis@localhost) by odin.ac.hmc.edu (8.12.10/8.12.3/Submit) id i0BJ2eBv030219 for freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org; Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:02:40 -0800 Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:02:40 -0800 From: Brooks Davis To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20040111190240.GA28161@Odin.AC.HMC.Edu> References: <20040108163724.GA26745@lpthe.jussieu.fr> <200401101945.27234.wes@softweyr.com> <400108FC.9010008@iconoplex.co.uk> <200401110048.52747.wes@softweyr.com> <40011237.3000409@iconoplex.co.uk> <20040111092746.GA836@pc5.i.0x5.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="PEIAKu/WMn1b1Hv9" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040111092746.GA836@pc5.i.0x5.de> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-milter (http://amavis.org/) on odin.ac.hmc.edu 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: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 19:02:45 -0000 --PEIAKu/WMn1b1Hv9 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Sun, Jan 11, 2004 at 10:27:46AM +0100, Nicolas Rachinsky wrote: > * Dag-Erling Sm=F8rgrav [2004-01-11 10:19 +0100]: > > Paul Robinson writes: > > > Understood. I just think saying "let's get rid of floppies" is > > > shooting a dog that happens to be near to hand because you don't like > > > that dog, to stretch the analogy. > >=20 > > I don't think you have any idea how difficult it is (and has been for > > a couple of years now) just to keep the install floppies alive. The > > kernel keeps growing, and the amount of "must-have" features (such as > > acpi) keeps growing, and every time the boot floppies overflow we have > > to toss out yet another driver that about a dozen people vehemently > > tell us they can't live without. >=20 > Why not split the kernel onto 2 disks? The code to do this is already > there and seems to work. And the people who think they absolutly need > disks would have to deal with 4 disks, but that would be better than > no disks. >=20 > Look at the commit history of /usr/src/lib/libstand/splitfs.c. Is > there a reason not to use it? If you could make this work such that you just stuffed GENERIC and the mfsroot onto however many floppies it takes, I think that would almost certaintly solve re's problems with floppies (i.e. if all they had to do when the kernel/mfsroot got too big was to bump a NUMFLOPPIES variable.) Sure that would suck for the floppy users, but that would put the pain in the place where it's most likely to cause someone to come up with some better. Now, who wants to give this a try? -- Brooks --=20 Any statement of the form "X is the one, true Y" is FALSE. PGP fingerprint 655D 519C 26A7 82E7 2529 9BF0 5D8E 8BE9 F238 1AD4 --PEIAKu/WMn1b1Hv9 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFAAZ3PXY6L6fI4GtQRAk3qAKDJ472s6C0H/cWy+8BGaeUfsjLw1ACdHs3v wnxIAkCuRHz9an+OHcRZlJU= =Qr2l -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --PEIAKu/WMn1b1Hv9--