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

[Sergey Babkin]

Leo Bicknell wrote:
> 
> I'm going to propose a different solution that was brought up about
> two years ago (although I can't find it now).
> 
> You start with something like the CD boot image mentioned, that is
> a 3-5 Meg iso image that basically contains what is now on the
> floppies (perhaps with a few more drivers/modules) and nothing more.
> Downloading and burning to CD would be the primary method of install.
> 
> Then, to replace the current floppy process, a new floppy installer
> is created.  It may or may not be based on FreeBSD, but what it

I guess a simple variation would be to split the CD boot filesystem
into multiple floppies. Then remove the current contents from
the MFSROOT floppy and put there a small program (plus possibly
the first part of the split CD filesystem image) that would load
the boot filesystem from the bunch of floppies into memory,
load the extra kernel modules, and then start the installer
from memory just as it would go when booted from CD. That should 
really be a no-brainer as long as the base kernel still fits onto one
floppy. The only inconvenience is that we get something like 6
install floppies instead of 2, but it's not _such_ a big deal.

-SB