From owner-freebsd-hackers Sun Sep 15 18:33:13 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id SAA01942 for hackers-outgoing; Sun, 15 Sep 1996 18:33:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mailbox.neosoft.com (mailbox.neosoft.com [206.109.1.16]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with ESMTP id SAA01934 for ; Sun, 15 Sep 1996 18:32:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: from bonkers.taronga.com (bonkers.neosoft.com [206.109.2.48]) by mailbox.neosoft.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id TAA25374 for ; Sun, 15 Sep 1996 19:09:00 -0500 (CDT) Received: (from peter@localhost) by bonkers.taronga.com (8.6.11/8.6.9) id TAA19884; Sun, 15 Sep 1996 19:07:34 -0500 Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 19:07:34 -0500 From: peter@taronga.com (Peter da Silva) Message-Id: <199609160007.TAA19884@bonkers.taronga.com> To: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: File System on a tape Newsgroups: taronga.freebsd.hackers In-Reply-To: <199608161557.IAA19105@seagull.rtd.com> References: Organization: none Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk [sorry for sending this to doc first time. brain fart] You can get an IDE controller and an IDE CDROM for $60.00. And have any of you guys RUN a file system off a tape? I have. Even with DECTAPE cartridges and a file system designed for file systems it sucks, bigtime. And it's also going to put serious wear on any streaming tape drive... they're not designed to go stop-start like the DECTAPEs were. I suspect it'd be a use-once deal. Afterwards, you throw out the tape drive. Yes, by all means have an install from tape option... but it'd be easier and quicker to do it with a floppy boot to a tmpfs file system loaded off the first file on the tape, then just seek over whole tape files to extract particular options.