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Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2010 11:14:22 +0000
From: "Thomas Mueller" <mueller6727@bellsouth.net>
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Cc: Bruce Cran <bruce@cran.org.uk>, Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de>
Subject: Re:  Installer program for FreeBSD-9.0?
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> It's easy enough to find error-free floppy disks if you don't mind
> paying for them: http://www.amazon.co.uk/b?ie=UTF8&node=430460031 :)

> Bruce Cran

Are you sure they're error-free?  I think most users would prefer USB sticks.

> The argument is normally that even without a CD drive everyone has USB
> so should install using that instead of floppies.

Not true on a very old computer (especially USB)

On choice of text editor, I prefer vi, but that might be uncomfortable for users completely unfamiliar with vi: this includes many MS-Windows users as well as users coming from DOS.

NetBSD uses ed on installation ramdisk, which leaves me completely floored.  vi is heaven compared to ed.

IBM had a Tiny Editor, not open-source, dating to 1993, .EXE about 10000 bytes: this was for DOS and 16-bit OS/2 (OS/2 1.x was 16-bit, became 32-bit with v2.0).  This was used on OS/2 installation floppies.


Tom