From owner-cvs-src@FreeBSD.ORG  Wed Feb  1 14:37:07 2006
Return-Path: <owner-cvs-src@FreeBSD.ORG>
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 7792E16A420;
	Wed,  1 Feb 2006 14:37:07 +0000 (GMT)
	(envelope-from scottl@samsco.org)
Received: from pooker.samsco.org (pooker.samsco.org [168.103.85.57])
	by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 059BD43D45;
	Wed,  1 Feb 2006 14:37:04 +0000 (GMT)
	(envelope-from scottl@samsco.org)
Received: from [192.168.254.14] (imini.samsco.home [192.168.254.14])
	(authenticated bits=0)
	by pooker.samsco.org (8.13.4/8.13.4) with ESMTP id k11Eb2in032968;
	Wed, 1 Feb 2006 07:37:03 -0700 (MST)
	(envelope-from scottl@samsco.org)
Message-ID: <43E0C78E.8080906@samsco.org>
Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2006 07:37:02 -0700
From: Scott Long <scottl@samsco.org>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US;
	rv:1.7.7) Gecko/20050416
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: babkin@users.sourceforge.net
References: <3362285.1138799355022.JavaMail.root@vms170.mailsrvcs.net>
In-Reply-To: <3362285.1138799355022.JavaMail.root@vms170.mailsrvcs.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.4 required=3.8 tests=ALL_TRUSTED autolearn=failed 
	version=3.1.0
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.0 (2005-09-13) on pooker.samsco.org
Cc: Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy@optushome.com.au>, src-committers@freebsd.org,
	cvs-all@freebsd.org, cvs-src@freebsd.org,
	Scott Long <scottl@pooker.samsco.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 <cvs-src.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/cvs-src>,
	<mailto:cvs-src-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/cvs-src>
List-Post: <mailto:cvs-src@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:cvs-src-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/cvs-src>,
	<mailto:cvs-src-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 01 Feb 2006 14:37:07 -0000

Sergey Babkin wrote:

>>From: Peter Jeremy <peterjeremy@optushome.com.au>
> 
> 
>>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.
> 
> 
> The BIOSes have been able to do this feat for a while now. There are two caveats though:
> 
> 1. It's slow, since BIOSes tend to use USB 1.x speeds,
> and even that not in a really fast way. So the big
> images are best to be avoided. Though probably it's 
> still faster than floppies.
> 
> 2. Accessing the root filesystem - the USB drivers
> have to be either statically compiled into the
> kernel or be loaded by the boot loader through BIOS
> (maybe through an analog of initrd ram disk - I'm
> not sure what advances have been done to the FreeBSD
> boot loader nowadays).
> 
> -SB
> 

The installer environment runs from a ramdisk that is loaded by
the kernel at boot.  That will probably change as we migrate to
new installers in the future, but that's how it works right now.

Scott