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Date:      Tue, 24 Aug 2010 09:16:13 -0700
From:      Marcel Moolenaar <xcllnt@mac.com>
To:        Bakul Shah <bakul@bitblocks.com>
Cc:        "freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.org" <freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.org>
Subject:   Re: RFC: enhancing the root mount logic
Message-ID:  <C6B677DB-5CC8-46C1-B551-7BEB7BF953E0@mac.com>
In-Reply-To: <20100824155205.C2A535B23@mail.bitblocks.com>
References:  <AFBE2FCA-30A6-4E1D-A964-AC4DC4C843EB@juniper.net> <20100823.171201.107001114053031707.imp@bsdimp.com> <8C76250B-E272-4807-BD0D-9F50D0BC5E10@mac.com> <20100824002350.042A45B3B@mail.bitblocks.com> <4CB9F7C8-39E8-4C3B-A3F8-A5A9EC178E7D@mac.com> <20100824043344.CA4DE5B56@mail.bitblocks.com> <760A97A4-62D2-4900-915D-CA5D889855E1@mac.com> <20100824155205.C2A535B23@mail.bitblocks.com>

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On Aug 24, 2010, at 8:52 AM, Bakul Shah wrote:
>> 
>> I see your point and buy into the argument, but not
>> entirely. I explicitly mentioned "embedding" and so
>> far your arguments include things like GENERIC being
>> 10MB or Linux server startup.
>> 
>> We're not exactly discussing the same thing are we?
> 
> This friend's company used linux in an embedded system [it
> was a fileserver product.  Presumably the OS had to run in a
> restricted environment since the FS space would be for their
> customers' use + you don't want to have to reload the OS when
> a disk dies! And yet you want the ability to upgrade your OS
> s/w etc.]
> 
> In my job[-2] we used FreeBSD as an embedded OS. IIRC we just
> ran from a readonly flash FS as root.  An upgrade was just a
> new FS image, including kernel + utilities.  Didn't Juniper
> do something similar?

Juniper's approach is still heavily rooted in PC-class H/W.
With Book-E, ARM and MIPS products for the low(er)-end and
in particular without these products having a real harddisk,
the existing way has shown it's problems and limitations.

Also: Juniper has hacked a few tools, including the kernel
at large and md(4) in particular to implement features they
needed/wanted, which I'd like to get away from.

FYI,

-- 
Marcel Moolenaar
xcllnt@mac.com






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