Hi All, Here is my opinion on the floppy question.
I have been using LEAF for firewalls ever since LRP 2.9.x. Over the years I have tried just about every way of booting the system, floppies, ZIP, LS120, HD, CD + floppy for config and CF. In all cases when a floppy or floppy like device (ZIP or LS120) was used I have had failures. The HD based systems have had much better reliability. I have just started using CF based systems so I don't have any history on reliability yet but I expect that this will be more reliable. If you want reliability then floppies are not the way to go. Use a modern air bearing HD or use CF. Floppies are also fading away. I have not bought a machine for work in the last 3 years that has a floppy installed Why do I use LEAF at all? You can buy a decent ready to go out of the box firewall that supports wireless, VPNs, web based config and runs an embedded Linux distro from Linksys for less that $50 now so what advantage does LEAF offer? I still use LEAF for firewalls because of the more complex things that I can do with it. Most of my configs will not even fit onto a floppy. LEAF and the future. I certainly have no objection to small or floppy based systems for those that want to use them unless doing so holds back the development of LEAF. It seems to me (from a non developers point of view) that a lot of effort is being expended trying to shoe horn the current system into a bootable system smaller than 1.6 MB. Splitting the distro into 2 streams has been mentioned. This could be a good solution if the resources are available to do it. Personally I would rather spend a little money on adding CF or USB boot capacity to a system. LEAF is a great distro. The recent changes to Bering uClibc especially the new backup procedures are a huge step forward. I would hate to see LEAF fall behind due to a decision to support obsolete hardware. So that's my opinion. Not a complaint, just another data point. I really appreciate all of the work that the LEAF team has put in. Dave ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2005. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ leaf-user mailing list: leaf-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leaf-user Support Request -- http://leaf-project.org/
