From owner-freebsd-current Tue Oct 13 02:40:45 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id CAA29921 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 02:40:45 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from spinner.netplex.com.au (spinner.netplex.com.au [202.12.86.3]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id CAA29755 for ; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 02:40:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from peter@netplex.com.au) Received: from spinner.netplex.com.au (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by spinner.netplex.com.au (8.9.1/8.9.1/Spinner) with ESMTP id RAA29552; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 17:09:31 +0800 (WST) (envelope-from peter@spinner.netplex.com.au) Message-Id: <199810130909.RAA29552@spinner.netplex.com.au> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.2 2/24/98 To: Studded cc: Mike Smith , Edwin Culp , FreeBSD-current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Make elf release In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 12 Oct 1998 21:16:22 MST." <3622D416.E2E627AC@gorean.org> Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 17:09:30 +0800 From: Peter Wemm Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Studded wrote: > Mike Smith wrote: > > > There's some (understandable) resistance to putting an ELF kernel in > > 3.0, so the changeover will probably happen a few weeks afterwards. At > > that stage we'll shift to the new bootloader as well. > > I still think getting the pain over now is a good idea. Leaving a major > change for after the "release" will just postpone by one more quarter > the time when 3.0 has a chance of being stable. Unfortunately, I agree, in part at least. The biggest difficulty in doing a changeover is upgrading the stage2 bootblocks. If we get the 3.0 CD installing ELF-capable bootblocks (even if it's a hacked biosboot), then it's going to make the transition *so* much easier. It's not a question of flipping a switch, we've got to get the bootblocks upgraded. If we could get the 3.0 release sysinstall to do this for us it would be a big win. Ideally there should be a choice in sysinstall, and sysinstall could change them on the fly. If somebody installed a system and the new bootblocks didn't work, it'd be nice if it was as simple as booting the floppy and downgrading to the older system. IMHO, whether /kernel is a.out or elf is far less of an issue than which bootblocks we use. Cheers, -Peter To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message