From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 8 19:30:50 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 43BDC16A4CE; Thu, 8 Jan 2004 19:30:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from smtp1.adl2.internode.on.net (smtp1.adl2.internode.on.net [203.16.214.181]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6C6EB43D58; Thu, 8 Jan 2004 19:30:47 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from doconnor@gsoft.com.au) Received: from midget.dons.net.au (ppp108-195.lns1.adl1.internode.on.net [150.101.108.195])i093UiZC016662; Fri, 9 Jan 2004 14:00:44 +1030 (CST) Received: from chowder.gsoft.com.au (root@localhost.dons.net.au [127.0.0.1]) by midget.dons.net.au (8.12.9/8.12.9) with ESMTP id i093UfaW012926; Fri, 9 Jan 2004 14:00:42 +1030 (CST) (envelope-from doconnor@gsoft.com.au) From: "Daniel O'Connor" To: Avleen Vig , Scott Long Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 14:00:40 +1030 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.4 References: <20040107235737.I32227@pooker.samsco.home> <20040108075059.GK53429@silverwraith.com> In-Reply-To: <20040108075059.GK53429@silverwraith.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200401091400.40550.doconnor@gsoft.com.au> X-Spam-Score: -4.2 () IN_REP_TO,QUOTED_EMAIL_TEXT,REFERENCES,SIGNATURE_SHORT_DENSE,SPAM_PHRASE_05_08,USER_AGENT,USER_AGENT_KMAIL X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.26 (www . roaringpenguin . com / mimedefang) cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Discussion on the future of floppies in 5.x and 6.x X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 03:30:50 -0000 On Thursday 08 January 2004 18:20, Avleen Vig wrote: > I understand it is difficult to maintain the floppies. I wish I > understood them better :-) Is it not possible to have "ftp install" > floppies, which do nothing more than simple FTP installations? It wouldn't make it any easier. You still need the right drivers, ie which SCSI controller/network/... cards you have to get a minimal install is _more_ when you are doing FTP (you need a network). I think one possibility that wasn't mentioned is to have a floppy maintainer that generates several sets of floppies that are used for non-CD booting/no-CD installs which are available via download, and some are chucked on the CD. ie make it a separate part of the release, so it is not directly the install team's job. This would mean that the default 'make release' produces no floppy images. Instead they are built separately and bundled with 'official' releases. It would even be (fairly trivially) possible to setup a web site where you select what cards you want support for and it makes a floppy image for you. Even just having a page which tells you want card needs what KLD and where to get the KLD's would help, as you could download them on your and put them on floppy yourself. Scott also said stuff like SCSI cards won't get probed if a module is loaded but I can't see why that is true.. The module will load, the device get detected, and then sysinstall is told to reprobe the hardware, so it should pick it up. I see the 'which kld goes with what device' problem as separate to this issue. The KLD load stuff DOES show a small description for each KLD so it isn't a total black box, and heck, you can just pick everything and cross your fingers :) -- Daniel O'Connor software and network engineer for Genesis Software - http://www.gsoft.com.au "The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from." -- Andrew Tanenbaum GPG Fingerprint - 9A8C 569F 685A D928 5140 AE4B 319B 41F4 5D17 FDD5