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

[Scott Long]

On Thu, 8 Jan 2004, Matthew D. Fuller wrote:
> 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  :)
>

Well, regardless of how you label it, these floppies still require lots of
care and feeding in order to work.  We currently have no way to support
multiple floppies in a convenient way.  This can be fixed in a variety
of ways that range from fragile hacks to wonderful designs, but it still
requires someone to put forth the effort.  My offer for a 'floppy
maintainer' is quite sincere; I hope that someone takes an interest and
steps up to the challenge.

Scott