From owner-freebsd-advocacy  Sat Apr  3  6:17:13 1999
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Date: Sat, 03 Apr 1999 15:15:34 +0100
From: Christopher Raven <c.raven@ukonline.co.uk>
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To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.cdrom.com>
Cc: Mark Ovens <marko@uk.radan.com>, advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: Getting more people to use FreeBSD
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If this is a matter of paying someone, why hasn't it been done?

Is this a *major* financial undertaking for FreeBSD.org ?

If so, what kind of monies would we be talking here ?






"Jordan K. Hubbard" wrote:

> > Half the battle in getting Windows users to try FreeBSD is getting
> > them to install it on their PCs and using it. This, of course,
>
> Yep.
>
> > It would be much easier if they could load FreeBSD onto their
> > existing HD.
>
> Slackware does this and they call it "zipslack" - apparently a very
> popular feature of theirs, in fact.
>
> > What I would propose, and ask if it is technically possible, is to
> > be able to create a virtual UFS inside a file on a FAT disk. I'm
> > thinking along the lines of the way DoubleSpace/Stacker work(ed).
> > In Windows there would just be a large file (FREEBSD.DAT?), with
> > the read-only, hidden, & system attributes set, but internally the
> > contents wuld be laid out like a Unix FS. Ideally it would be
> > possible to boot FreeBSD from DOS (does DOSBOOT allow that for
> > anything other than an install?).
>
> You could do this, yes, using the vn device to attach it.  You can
> even use the Windows swap file as the FreeBSD swap area, if one
> exists.  People have reported this to work, anyway - you can do a lot
> with the vn device, assuming that you also add some hacks to make it
> possible to mount one as root.
>
> > I believe that such a system would be really useful in getting
> > Windows users to at least give FreeBSD a try. It would make trying
> > FreeBSD as easy as those 30-day trial versions of Windows applications.
>
> Yep!
>
> > Is this idea feasible, how easy would it be to implement and would
> > the time and effort be worth it for the potential returns?
>
> 1. It's feasable.
>
> 2. It would require somebody with a reasonably significant
>    amount of clue to implement (we've looked into it before).
>
> 3. It would be worth the time and effort, IMHO, for all the reasons
>    you state.
>
> The only issue is that this has been brought up at least 10 times
> before, and each time by someone who also says:
>
> > Yes, I know the usual response to "why don't we" suggestions is
> > "don't just suggest it, do it" but, as I said before, this is beyond
> > my technical ability.
>
> So it never progresses any further beyond this point and whatever
> energy goes into discussing it proves, in hindsight, to be completely
> wasted. :-(
>
> - Jordan
>
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