Perry E. Metzger wrote:
> At some point, we bite the bullet, and move away from
> ramdisk-in-kernel boot media on the i386. I introduced them, and I
> think it is time they died.

If you're saying we should entirely stop supporting floppy-based bood 
media, I disagree.

> Why did we introduce the ramdisk-in-kernel boot stuff? We did it to
> eliminate a reboot during installs. We lived in a world ten years ago
> where you couldn't be sure people had a CD or a network, and there
> were no disk-on-key units. We had install packages available in the
> form of sliced up floppy sized units because people might have no
> other way to do stuff!

I still have a machine in active service which has no CD drive, no USB 
and isn't in a suitable environment for network booting. Sure, sets can 
be downloaded from the network, but install media still needs to be 
floppy-based.

> However, that world is gone. There is no point any more. You can now
> just put a root image on your CD or disk-on-key or over NFS and be
> done. This is even more true for AMD64 -- there is no AMD64 box that's
> 10 or 15 years old to need legacy support.

I'd agree for AMD64, but certainly not for i386.

> We should quit with this stupid bit fiddling and change the whole
> mechanism and be done with it. We aren't helping anyone by searching
> for ways to keep 'rescue_tiny' building in the first place.

I wouldn't object to the boot floppy sets growing to more than two 
floppies, if that meant they could be kept around for machines which 
otherwise wouldn't be installable.

-- 
Gilette - the best a man can forget