Subject: re: INSTALL kernel size
To: NetBSD/sparc Discussion List <port-sparc@netbsd.org>
From: David Brownlee <abs@netbsd.org>
List: port-sparc
Date: 05/05/2000 20:41:45
On Thu, 4 May 2000, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> If I wanted to boot from anything other than disk/net/CD, I'd want to
> boot from SCSI tape. I have several possible boot drives, including an
> original external QIC-150.
>
> PC's have to boot from floppies because they can't boot easily from
> anything else -- sparcs can boot from almost anything, and can always
> boot from the network, so they shouldn't have to be able to boot from
> floppy, especially given the extreme restrictions these devices
> typically have in comparison with any other possible boot device.
Uh, sun keyboards also have all the keys you need if you exclude
the numberic keypad, so they shouldn't have to be able to read
from the numeric keypad...
Just because you don't use a feature doesn't mean others do not
find it very handy.
In particular its a real win for when you do not have the hosts
or access to setup rarpd, bootpd/bootparamd, and export the
appropriate files via nfs.
The set of people who would use QIC-150 to boot is probably
smaller than that who would use floppy, but it would also be
useful functionality, particularly for those on sun4 machines...
David/absolute
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