Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 10:27:13 +0100 From: Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> To: Bruce Cran <bruce@cran.org.uk> Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Installer program for FreeBSD-9.0? Message-ID: <20101208102713.a446f685.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20101208090416.2ca8da98@core.draftnet> References: <4cfe1a85.d3rNX98SaYCaW7%2BQ%mueller6727@bellsouth.net> <20101208015804.d3b54f21.freebsd@edvax.de> <20101208090416.2ca8da98@core.draftnet>
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On Wed, 8 Dec 2010 09:04:16 +0000, Bruce Cran <bruce@cran.org.uk> wrote: > The argument is normally that even without a CD drive everyone has USB > so should install using that instead of floppies. That's not an argument, that's a dogma. :-) Especially when you want to use AT style hardware, maybe older laptops that should work as a kind of console device (serial console using the cu program), or older PCs that should run as a router, firewall, printer server or anything else that doesn't require a PlentyCore CPU and tenmelonhundred GB of RAM, taking into mind their very low power consumption, then you usually face the situation that you do NOT have - bootable network - USB - DVD (or at least CD-ROM) In such situations, you are happy to be able to boot from floppy (or floppies, that's okay too) and then perform an installation via network (or plip). Traditionally hardware of the AT and the early ATX times do not come with USB. And if they have USB, they can't boot from it. This sounds old-fashioned, I know. The strength of FreeBSD is that you actually COULD install it under this kind of circumstances - a strength other operating systems lack, especially when they call theirselves "advanced". One could argument that it should be possible to extract the hard disk from such a kind of computer and use it in a different system that can boot NOT from floppy. But that may cause other problems (e. g. no (P)ATA connector in a SATA system, can't reach hard disk, can't open laptop, and so on). -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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