From owner-cvs-src@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Feb 1 08:28:01 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: cvs-src@freebsd.org Delivered-To: cvs-src@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2423116A420; Wed, 1 Feb 2006 08:28:01 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from peterjeremy@optushome.com.au) Received: from mail12.syd.optusnet.com.au (mail12.syd.optusnet.com.au [211.29.132.193]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4257243D48; Wed, 1 Feb 2006 08:28:00 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from peterjeremy@optushome.com.au) Received: from turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org (c220-239-19-236.belrs4.nsw.optusnet.com.au [220.239.19.236]) by mail12.syd.optusnet.com.au (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id k118Rqr4025448 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=EDH-RSA-DES-CBC3-SHA bits=168 verify=NO); Wed, 1 Feb 2006 19:27:55 +1100 Received: from turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org (localhost.vk2pj.dyndns.org [127.0.0.1]) by turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k118RpNu000938; Wed, 1 Feb 2006 19:27:51 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from peter@turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org) Received: (from peter@localhost) by turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org (8.13.4/8.13.4/Submit) id k118Rp5h000937; Wed, 1 Feb 2006 19:27:51 +1100 (EST) (envelope-from peter) Date: Wed, 1 Feb 2006 19:27:51 +1100 From: Peter Jeremy To: Scott Long Message-ID: <20060201082751.GA824@turion.vk2pj.dyndns.org> References: <200601301424.k0UEOVnw098992@repoman.freebsd.org> <1138631402.96727.4.camel@opus.cse.buffalo.edu> <1138734787.719.9.camel@opus.cse.buffalo.edu> <20060131192545.GA9936@freebie.xs4all.nl> <20060131132643.E10747@pooker.samsco.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20060131132643.E10747@pooker.samsco.org> X-PGP-Key: http://members.optusnet.com.au/peterjeremy/pubkey.asc User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.11 Cc: cvs-src@freebsd.org, src-committers@freebsd.org, cvs-all@freebsd.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/release Makefile X-BeenThere: cvs-src@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: CVS commit messages for the src tree List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2006 08:28:01 -0000 On Tue, 2006-Jan-31 13:39:33 -0700, Scott Long wrote: >Note: this amounts to life support for floppies. The end IS coming. What >we need is for people to start working out the kinks of using usb ram >drives to run the installer. This isn't the same as running nanobsd or >picobsd, this is about creating an image like the CD bootonly ISO that >can be easily transfered to USB and run at boot. Some time ago, I was surprised to find that my son's oldish (mid 2003) system was happy to try and boot off a USB memory stick. As an experiment, I just tried (on 6-STABLE): # mdconfig -a -t malloc -s 95m -u 10 # fdisk -B md10 # bsdlabel -wrB md10s1 # newfs md10s1a # mount /dev/md10s1a /a # cd /a # dump -0f - / | restore -rf - # umount /a # dd if=/dev/md10 of=/dev/da0 bs=8k and then rebooting off the memory stick - the activity LED showed that this worked. It got to single user (though since I hadn't updated fstab, it mounted ad0s2a as root). Admittedly, this is on a brand new laptop but I have no reason to believe it wouldn't on my son's system. Creating a downloadable, bootable image to write to a USB stick is trivial. I suspect the major effort will be providing a tool that is capable of writing the image to a raw memory stick using a common, proprietary GUI file loader. >all the sob stories about everyone's shiny new server only includes >support for floppies and MFM disks and how cd's and netbooting just aren't >an option. I still administer two (P-1) boxes that can only boot from HDD or floppy but one is due to be de-commissioned Real Soon Now and I suspect an inability to run 7.x on the other one will not be a problem. BTW, when will FreeBSD support booting from punch cards, paper tape and uniselectors :-) [EDSAC bootstrapped from uniselectors] -- Peter Jeremy