John Nemeth <jnemeth@cue.bc.ca> writes:
> On Jan 6,  4:23pm, "Perry E. Metzger" wrote:
> } John Nemeth <jnemeth@cue.bc.ca> writes:
> } >      I think the best approach is to see if the boot floppy can be
> } > trimmed so that it fits on one floppy again.  I really like the single
> } > boot disk.
> } 
> } That won't work as a long term solution. The disk is going to continue 
> } to grow and there is no reasonable way to trim it. I say this as the
> 
>      This begs the question of why it is getting bigger.

There are new pieces of hardware released for the i386 series all the
time. Each of these demands drivers. People get upset when their
ethernet card or disk controller isn't supported. They get upset when
the new feature they need in order to get bootstrapped won't
work. That's why they keep growing, and will keep growing for the
forseeable future.

> } At best, we can probably by a couple of years by moving to a
> } boot/kernel disk and a disk that kernel loads its compressed ramdisk
> } image from.
> 
>      Hmm.  This doesn't sound good.  Two floppies isn't too bad, and
> is what we started with.  However, any more then two is pushing it.

If you have a way of stopping the manufacturers from producing new
hardware, please let me know.

BTW, having kernels with only limited hardware support doesn't work
well. You end up with situations like needing an NxN matrix of disk
and ethernet controllers and such.

Perry