G4U - Harddisk Image Cloning for PCs - v1.13 released

[Hubert Feyrer <hubert%feyrer.de@localhost>]

 *** G4U - Harddisk Image Cloning for PCs - v1.13 released
     http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/

 - What is g4u?

g4u ("ghost for unix") is a NetBSD-based bootfloppy/CD-ROM that allows
easy cloning of PC harddisks to deploy a common setup on a number of PCs
using FTP. The floppy/CD offers two functions. First is to upload the
compressed image of a local harddisk to a FTP server. Other is to restore
that image via FTP, uncompress it and write it back to disk;  network
configuration is fetched via DHCP. As the harddisk is processed as a
image, any filesystem and operating system can be deployed using g4u.
Easy cloning of local disks as well as partitions is also supported.

 - Bad news

13's a bad sign, and version 1.13 means so for g4u. Due to my job
situation I'm not sure if I can continue working on g4u in the future.
Your donations can motivate to do so - paypal%feyrer.de@localhost is waiting for
your. Today, g4u is mentioned in in one place with commercial products
like PowerQuests's DriveImage and Norton's Ghost. g4u is free software and
I hoped upon it's users to support it via donations. If I just got $10
from everyone sending me questions about g4u, that'd be more than enough.
Fact is that only 1 person has donated back some money so far. Here's your
chance to contribute back to the Open Source community - join in!

 - Changes in 1.13

Griping aside, V1.13 is a wrapup based on NetBSD-current as of Jan 14th
2004, esp. made after many people hat troubles booting 1.12. New drivers
are for Adaptec 29320, 39320 (aic790x) SCSI (ahd), Broadcom 4401 10/100
Ethernet (bge), DECchip 21x4x and clones Ethernet (tlp), Intel 8254x
gigabit (wm), Intel IGP01E1000 MII driver (igphy), Intel i31244 and SiI
SATALink SATA controllers. See the g4u kernel config file for all the
details. Matthias Jordan has also sent me an update of his "nullfile" to
v1.02 which I've added to the g4u webpage.

 - Fallout

Due to some things growing again, I had to remove all Wireless LAN and
most PCI RAID controller drivers. Maybe it's time to start special g4u
versions for laptops (with pcmcia, cardbus, usb, wavelan), servers (with
raid, ...) in addition to the current version of g4u. Let me know if
you're interested!

 - Availability

g4u is available as floppy and CDROM image from:

        http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/


 - Hubert Feyrer

-- 
Hubert Feyrer <hubert%feyrer.de@localhost>