Chris G Demetriou writes:
> > BTW, as an aside, I'd like to suggest that boot kernels on floppies
> > for 1.1 be very special things that include a minimum number of
> > drivers not absolutely needed to bring things up -- no Mitsumi driver,
> > no bus mice, etc.

> I agree with this, mostly, but if a mitsumi CD-ROM driver were
> properly working (i dunno; does the one in our source tree work?  if
> not, why not?)

It works, but the probe sequence damages lots of other cards and
peripherals.

> then it could be very useful when installing, CD-ROMs being what
> they are.  8-)

Well, along with Thor Simon, I'm a partner in Wasabi Informatics,
Inc., which currently plans to offer a NetBSD CD-ROM -- we are
currently targetting a ship date for the first one within a week or so
of the 1.1 release.

Now, I'll say that, as a CD purveyor, I don't particularly need the
FTPable boot disks to have Mitsumi support. Generally, I don't see
much reason for any CD manufacturer to need CD support in the FTPable
i386 boot and install simply because we can put our own boot and
install stuff on our CDs, and indeed, we have to, because people
buying the CDs are probably those without very high speed net access
anyway.

So, as I was saying, I can put Mitsumi support on a floppy image you
can copy from the CD for those who need it, and I'm very scared of
people having people without Mitsumi's have trouble because of Mitsumi
driver blowing away their other drivers. I'd say, therefore, there
isn't much point in the release i386 floppy images having Mitsumi
support.

Perry

PS What other ports can be booted from floppy images? For us, an ideal
situation would be to include floppy images for Sparc and other
systems on the same CD. (Unfortunately, trying to direct boot a 9660
CD on a Sparc is a futile effort...)