Advice on 2.88MB FDDs; can't e-mail

[Craig Carey]

FreeBSD is making available a 2.88MB floppy image for installing a
bootable FreeBSD. The i386 documentation makes too small a mention of the
file and that is not the case with that alpha documentation.

An improvement would be to copy some helpful text from the alpha
documentation into the i386 (v4.8 and v5) installation documentation.

However 2.88MB floppies seem to be very difficult to buy so maybe the
"boot.flp" file would be deleted (or else a mention made of how the
2.88MB floppy would be copied onto an LS-120 zip disk drive).

Here is a copy of he paragraph in the alpha documentation:

| 1.3 Floppy Disk Image Instructions
|
...
|
| If you're on an alpha machine that can network-boot its floppy images or
| you have a 2.88MB or LS-120 floppy capable of taking a 2.88MB image on
| an x86 machine, you may wish to use the single (but twice as large)
| boot.flp image. It contains the contents of kern.flp and mfsroot.flp on
| a single floppy. This file should also be used as the boot file for
| those mastering ``El Torito'' bootable CD images. See the mkisofs(8)
| command for more information.
|
| 1.4 Installing FreeBSD from CDROM or the Internet
...
Came from:
   ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/alpha/5.0-RELEASE/INSTALL.HTM

It looks like that is designed to discourage people from thinking that
they want a 2.88MB floppy disk drive. The difficulty of getting a 2.88MB
floppy disk drive is not the only problem. Also the install may fail when
the 2 alternative files to "boot.flp" are used (and they are
"kern.flp and mfsroot.flp").

That text says the the boot.flp file is not needed and it explains why.
These similar documentation files do not have that paragraph or anything
similar:

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/5.0-RELEASE/INSTALL.HTM
ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/4.8-RELEASE/INSTALL.HTM

Here are the websites of makers of floppy disk drives and it seems that
2.88MB floppy disk drives are becoming hard to find:

TEAC: no 2.88MB floppy disk drives: http://www.teac.com/DSPD/floppy.html

Sony: no 2.88MB floppy disk drives:
   http://sony.storagesupport.com/floppydrive/index.htm

Panasonic: no 2.88MB floppy disk drives:
   http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/computer/storage/fdd/

Here is a snapshot of a listing of the FreeBSD "boot.flp" file:

Thus it is not just alpha machine owners who can't find 2.88MB floppy
disk drives.

ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/4.8-RELEASE/floppies/ :
-------------------------------------------------------
04/03/2003 01:06            256 CHECKSUM.MD5
04/03/2003 01:06         57,852 README.TXT
04/03/2003 01:06      2,949,120 boot.flp
04/03/2003 01:06      1,474,560 fixit.flp
04/03/2003 01:06      1,474,560 kern.flp
04/03/2003 01:03      1,474,560 mfsroot.flp
-------------------------------------------------------


The old unpopular 2.88MB floppy disk drive technology:
  http://www.tavi.co.uk/ps2pages/ohland/floppy.html#288_Mechanics


I recommend that the "boot.flp" file be deleted. Thanks. Otherwise
it provides a hope that it is possible to install FreeBSD
successfully (at least once some ancient, or commonplace) piece of
hardware is obtained.



  --  Craig Carey