Discussion on the future of floppies in 5.x and 6.x

[Matthew D. Fuller]

On Thu, Jan 08, 2004 at 02:05:14AM -0700 I heard the voice of
Scott Long, and lo! it spake thus:
> 
> For 5.x we already have a 3rd floppy that is dedicated to modules.
> Unfortunately, it doesn't work nearly as well as it should because there
> is no way to activate it during the boot sequence; it can only be used
> once sysinstall is running.  Also, it too is nearly overflowing.

Well, that's why I suggest more.  Have a "network cards" floppy, and a
"mass storage devices" floppy, etc.  We should be able to fit the
half-dozen most common network cards, the ata drivers, and a half dozen
of the more common SCSI drivers on the boot kernel.  That'll get us far
enough to be able to load the drivers off the other disks, as well as
install with just that on many systems.

It won't necessarily be the prettiest process, but I'm in favor of
letting the floppies be a bit ugly, or even explicitly moving them to
"experienced users only" status.  I just find them far too convenient, as
well as ubiquitous, to see them sent into the Great Bitbucket In The Sky
yet.

If somebody wants "pretty" and "not have to fudge around to find the
driver to load for my RAID controller", THEN let 'em download the CD  :)


-- 
Matthew Fuller     (MF4839)   |  fullermd at over-yonder.net
Systems/Network Administrator |  http://www.over-yonder.net/~fullermd/

"The only reason I'm burning my candle at both ends, is because I
      haven't figured out how to light the middle yet"