Re: Please test this woody cd image
On Apr 10, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> A search on lists.debian.org shows:
>
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2001/debian-boot-200111/msg00016.html
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2001/debian-boot-200108/msg00258.html
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-boot/2001/debian-boot-200108/msg00260.html
>
> and nothing else ever. The couple of messages in 200108 are all musing and
> no code or testing. Last August would have been a good time to start
> experimenting with this if it was intended for woody.
Speaking for myself (and only myself) I didn't realize a multiboot
capability would be worthwhile until recently. I've never used a box
where the vanilla flavor wouldn't work enough to get Debian running.
Frankly, we have done a lot of work to make sure that this solution
works for most everyone. It will boot on most recent BIOSes. For
those it won't boot on, we've provided /install/boot.bat which uses
loadlin to bootstrap the system - something I don't think any other
major distro makes available (maybe Slackware does, but I doubt it);
this should work on any DOS/Windows up to ME (Real Mode went byebye in
XP, IIRC). If those solutions won't work, all four rescue disk images
are on the CD-ROM, along with rawrite2.exe, so you can make a floppy
from any version of DOS or Windows - even XP - or from any *nix with
dd. Or boot from another CD in the set, if your vendor wants to sell
them. (Personally I consider CDs 2-n a waste of digital storage
media, but that's me.) Or insist your vendor give you boot and rescue
floppies. Or use FreeDOS to boot up and use loadlin off the CD.
The only case where this will all fail is a lone machine with no OS
already with a BIOS that is so broken that it can't boot from a CD-ROM
in no-emulation mode, in which case one should bitch at the
motherboard vendor - in 2002, there's no excuse for shipping broken El
Torito support.
The irony is that as a vendor, I don't care what the project decides
to do with the code. I'm shipping my CDs with ISOLINUX. If the
project wants to go off and Don Quixote towards imaginary windmills
because we haven't spent months testing something that's been in
production use for years, that's all the better for me, since I'll be
shipping better discs than <INSERT OFFICIAL CD VENDOR/VELVEETA
PUBLISHER HERE>.
Chris
--
Chris Lawrence <chris@lordsutch.com> - http://www.lordsutch.com/chris/
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