One or two floppies (was: first weekly debian-installer status report)
On Wed, Nov 01, 2000 at 10:30:33PM -0800, Joey Hess wrote:
> Vaidhyanathan Mayilrangam wrote:
> > > - kernel module udebs [UNCLAIMED]
> > > Not started. We will need various sets of kernel modules;
> > > one such set is NIC drivers. Each set goes in a udeb; there
> > > probably has to be a system to build the whole kernel and
> > > udebs.
> > I already did some stuff on this and got the different modules built. So if I
> > can get the mechanism to build udebs, I can upload them and
> > YEAH.. I claim this :)
>
> What are your thought on how this should integrate with our normal
> kernel deb building procedure and all that? (If at all?)
Just some prior info:
The base kernel takes 385K and all the net drivers take 575K. It essentialy
means it is a two floppy install (unless there is someway a user could choose
only the drivers he/she needs). It is a catch-22 here.. We need to know the
NIC card to choose the driver, but we need the module before that..
Couple of ideas:
1. create a kernel with Tulip, 3Com, NE2K, Intel EtherExpressPro drivers built
in and let the user choose this as a default.. (This will make it one floppy
install for some, but the user should be aware of what NIC he has)
2. Have some way of telling the users the files they need to download and
assume they downloaded the right files (Yuck.. I hate this myself)
3. Create a mutliple boot floppies for different combo (Nuff Said)
4. Can we fit in a code to detect NIC and activate it in about 400K.. If so,
we can have one floppy with kernel and the net drivers and 400K code which will
activate the NIC and start downloading everything ??
Any more ideas ??
Regards,
Vaidhy
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