Russell Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > And as we move forward in time, just about every network card > supports pxe2.x Which has nice boot functionality. I'm not sure > about the wisdom in moving away from this for network installs. > It's easy and fast :)
True. The trouble is that those PXE stacks are mostly buggy in various ways. And more importantly, each steals a different amount of conventional memory, which has caused at least one user some grief. Combine this with the other problems we have seen, like buggy SCSI BIOSes and MSCLIENT hanging with certain gigabit cards, and you have a pretty strong argument for finding another way. But you do have a good point. I am now convinced that we need to retain support for the existing DOS-based approach, and just add Linux as an option. I believe we can do this by writing the Perl code carefully to keep it portable between DJGPP and Linux. This will require platform-dependent code for things like disk partitioning, but for the most part everything should "just work". > I think in the short term, package management is potentially the > bigger fish to fry here. And especially adding applications after > the initial system install... I agree. I plan to attack package management before the Linux conversion. My basic plan goes like this: Rewrite .ini parser, use it to fix "mass storage" bug (minor release) Rework package management (major release) Add support for using Linux (minor or major release; not sure yet) Other tasks which I want to do, but would really appreciate some help from others: Explore FAT cluster alignment stuff (OFORMAT); patch FreeDOS and/or Linux format utilities to support it Switch to FreeDOS; debug FreeDOS kernel as necessary Completely redesign documentation; rewrite as necessary Volunteers would be gratefully accepted :-). - Pat ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: INetU Attention Web Developers & Consultants: Become An INetU Hosting Partner. Refer Dedicated Servers. We Manage Them. You Get 10% Monthly Commission! INetU Dedicated Managed Hosting http://www.inetu.net/partner/index.php _______________________________________________ unattended-info mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info
