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From: jan@bagend.atl.ga.us (Jan Isley)
Subject: Re: Quick start installation
To: kelly@fsl.noaa.gov (Sean Kelly)
Date: Tue, 18 Jul 1995 10:53:52 -0400 (EDT)
Cc: jfieber@grendel.csc.smith.edu, doc@freebsd.org
In-Reply-To: <9507181344.AA05571@emu.fsl.noaa.gov> from "Sean Kelly" at Jul 18, 95 07:44:53 am
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Ah, I think I missed the start of this.  I am new to the doc list.
 
My first take would be that if you are talking about dd instead of
dos's rawrite.exe, tell them to use bs.

   dd if=boot.flp of=/dev/fd0 bs=18k

is pretty darn simple.  On every system I have played with, not
using bs=18k makes the write take so much longer you are sitting
there wondering if something has gone wrong.

I know, assuming that because they are using dd that they know
what you are talking about is a BAD assumption.  Never mind. :)

Sean Kelly wrote:
> >>>>> "Jan" == Jan Isley <jan@bagend.atl.ga.us> writes:
>     Jan> John Fieber wrote:
>     >> I don't think you *need* the blocksize, but I think an
>     >> appropriate blocksize makes things go a little faster.  Am I
>     >> wrong?  Anybody know optimal block sizes?
>     Jan> Define optimal. :) Optimal block sizes for dd to a floppy
>     Jan> would be the size of the track.
> But for a ``quick start'' document, the KISS principle applies, so
> John had the right idea: just leave bs options out!
-- 
Jan Isley              Heroes have the shelf life of cottage cheese,
jan@bagend.atl.ga.us   and public memory is shorter than Dudley Moore.
                       -- Rheta Grimsley Johnson