-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I haven't heard in a while about kernel 2.6 floppies for i386, and I know there aren't any, so I have a proposal (which I would implement)
I'm thinking that the first (syslinux + main kernel) floppy could be configured with an almost completely modular kernel (except the floppy, keyboard, console, and similar essentials, which I would figure out), and even then no modules not used by d-i shouldn't be compiled either, and an initrd that contained only dash, whiptail and other essentials to provide a menu that looks like the rest of the installer, but whose sole function is to allow the friendly (compared to the loading of the ramdisk from a floppy that the kernel does) loading of the real installer root, and essential floppies. The reason for my suggestion is that 2.6 is big enough that keeping the initrd/initramfs small enough to fit on the same floppy is very difficult, and loading the actual d-i environment is too big. The way I envision it, this suggestion could make the cd intrd or netboot initrd and the floppy 'real initrd' (that is the rootfs loaded by the initramfs on the boot floppy) the same, or almost the same. It's hard to get a minimal busybox small enough, at least compiled statically with glibc, so I'm thinking of the absolute minimum of executables that would allow for reasonably friendly loading of the rest of the install system. This option could also apply to powerpc miboot, with the addition of eject to allow a floppy installation without a bent paperclip to eject disks. - -- GnuPG Key Fingerprint 86 F5 81 A5 D4 2E 1F 1C And that's my crabbing done for the day. Got it out of the way early, now I have the rest of the afternoon to sniff fragrant tea-roses or strangle cute bunnies or something. -- Michael Devore -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFExEj3hvWBpdQuHxwRAuVhAJ4v+JI+Su2mlLgwSxHjq9LXoV/aXQCfS8QQ +j9We3CHRgoNmcMwE/zL3T8= =kAWO -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
