From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jan 11 23:27:34 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 9A6A616A4CE for ; Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:27:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from server.vk2pj.dyndns.org (c211-30-75-229.belrs2.nsw.optusnet.com.au [211.30.75.229]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D439343D55 for ; Sun, 11 Jan 2004 23:27:32 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from peterjeremy@optushome.com.au) Received: from server.vk2pj.dyndns.org (localhost.vk2pj.dyndns.org [127.0.0.1])i0C7RL7B065817; Mon, 12 Jan 2004 18:27:21 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from peter@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org) Received: (from peter@localhost) by server.vk2pj.dyndns.org (8.12.10/8.12.10/Submit) id i0C7RFSF065816; Mon, 12 Jan 2004 18:27:15 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from peter) Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 18:27:15 +1100 From: Peter Jeremy To: William Grim Message-ID: <20040112072715.GA65549@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org> References: <20040111161839.53EC788@toad.stack.nl> <4001A019.2030604@siue.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <4001A019.2030604@siue.edu> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i cc: freebsd-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: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 07:27:34 -0000 On Sun, Jan 11, 2004 at 01:12:25PM -0600, William Grim wrote: >If it's really such a big deal to get rid of floppy support, how about >we get rid of it and make sure an older version of FreeBSD 4.x/5.x is >always available for download? This way, floppy users could install an >older version of the OS and cvsup to the latest version they want. 1) CVSup isn't an option for someone who wants to install a binary distribution and not have to do a buildworld. 2) Across major releases, "make world" is only defined for an up to date -STABLE to -CURRENT. Crossing multiple major releases isn't supported. 3) It's common for major releases to recommend a reinstall. 5.x is the current case-in-point: a reinstall allows upgrading to UFS2. 4) Bare-metal restores become very painful if you have to do a reversion and upgrade - especially if you want to use features that don't exist in the "older" version. 5) The "older version would need to be continuously upgraded with security fixes. Would you feel safe with instructions that said (in essence) "Install FreeBSD 2.2.8 and then CVSup to 6.x" when 2.2.8 was missing 5 years of security patches. Peter