Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 23:14:28 -0800 From: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> To: Matthew Dillon <dillon@apollo.backplane.com> Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: GENERIC build broken Message-ID: <199911030714.XAA03030@dingo.cdrom.com> In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 02 Nov 1999 23:03:07 PST." <199911030703.XAA55313@apollo.backplane.com>
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> :> great deal of work required to support this we're stuck with BOOTP > :> in the kernel. > : > :Er, hello? It's _already_been_done_, even. See above inre: netboot. > > Good god, you are talking about netboot? Hello? Mike, I get the feeling > that you've never actually tried to use netboot. You "get" wrong. You could probably actually search the archives for much of what I've said about diskless booting over the last four or so years and get a reasonable picture of what I know, or just accept that fact that I'm acutely aware of the possibilities and limitations that currently exist. I'd like to suggest you use etherboot in the interim, but it doesn't fill in the nfs_diskless structure, which is somewhat of a pity since that's all that's needed. You could probably fix this in about ten minutes if you want a functional solution, and it probably supports most if not all of the cards you currently have. > You seem to believe > that it is direct replacement for BOOTP. It isn't even close. That's neither what I said, nor what I believe. I merely pointed out that netboot has already done the "great deal of work" that you're agonising about. You'll note that the loader also already contains this "great deal of work", since it seems to netboot Alphas just fine. If you care to read what I've actually written, you'll note that I am advocating the death of BOOTP once it's replaced by something that works better. You might want to consider turning down the gain on your Panic-o-tronic implant on this one. > netboot > only works with a very small number of ethernet cards while the BOOTP > code in the kernel works with *all* ethernet cards that the kernel > supports. The BOOTP code in the kernel is singularly useless if you can't get the kernel onto the machine in the first place. Until I see clear air under your feet via judicious use of your own bootstraps, I'll persist in making diskless booting work properly. Should you care to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem, I'd appreciate it if you could pick up a couple of network cards that boast PXE 2.0 compliant boot ROMs. I still hold out hope of having something minimally functional before Comdex, although the first step will probably still require BOOTP in the kernel. It was quite unnecessary and inappropriate to get so frazzled about this in public Matt. I'm not a moron, and labelling me such isn't really terribly productive. You could have made the points you tried to above without anywhere near as much angst, and I could have addressed them far more palatably as well. As a general rule, it's useful to assume that the person you're talking to is not a complete idiot. If it looks like they're behaving that way, you might want to double-check your assumptions before going off. It's a little more overhead, but it can save on the repercussions later. Regards, -- \\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\ Mike Smith \\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself, \\ msmith@freebsd.org \\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime. \\ msmith@cdrom.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message
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