Floppy Support

[Peter Schultz]

M. Warner Losh wrote:
> This thread should end here.  Enough people want to support floppies
> that they aren't going to go away before 6.0 at the earliest.  It
> doesn't matter what arguments are brough up for the removal, it simply
> won't happen anytime soon.  This is bikeshed.  Concentrate these
> energies on testing and fixing problems.
> 

Okay, floppy support must stay, and by the sound of it we will have to 
support them for a long time to come.  I myself have typically taken 
advantage of the floppies for installing FreeBSD.  That is not the end 
of our problem, however.

I am not new to FreeBSD at all.  I've tested the hell out of 
5.0-CURRENT, and at times have even helped fix problems.  I have done 
this by supplying bits of information to FreeBSD commiters so that they 
can use their vast knowlege and understanding of FreeBSD to progress it 
to a state of stability and reliability.

Since we need to keep the floppies, why don't we create a number of 
custom kern.flp images?  This is a current issue of vital importance and 
must not be ingnored any longer.  Why, a simple rackmount system 
compatible kernel.gz could easily be less than 1MB in size.

Why insist kern.flp to be all things to all people?  That is what seems 
to be the root of the problem here.  Please forgive me if there are 
further binding issues holding the floppies in the position that they're 
currently in, but I don't see such a big problem in having some custom 
kernels defined for creating a set of kern.flps that people can choose 
from in order to match their set of requirements.  FreeBSD is already 
quite complex and to add a few more options in this area is not too much 
to ask of the installer's brain capacity.

Pete...