Re: Supported install hardware for Sarge?

[Miroslav Kure <kurem@upcase.inf.upol.cz>]

On Tue, Mar 09, 2004 at 01:17:56PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote:
> You mean 5 1/2 inch floppies? Unlikely. It is doable, but it's a matter
> of someone wanting to do it.

Of course 5 1/2", silly me.

Well, after some cleaning of the install manual is apparent, that the
greatest mess is in the en/install-methods/downloading-files.xml (and
connected build/*-{images|tarballs}.ent). The mess comes from
referencing too much installation files in the past releases.

There are basically two possibilities:
 1. Toss the old stuff and describe installation files for each arch
    individually. 
      pros: Easier to maintain, no need to wory your changes affect
            other architectures.
      cons: Some duplicate work
 2. Describe general, stable and valid layout of the archive
      pros: More elegant, smaller
      cons: If there will be more exceptions, it will turn into the
            mess it is currently.

I'm inclined to the second scheme, but look:

i386 and powerpc both use the same archive layout, yet they have
different kernel names: netboot/vmlinuz vs. netboot/vmlinux.

Current mips uses a bit different layout than i368/powerpc duo.  I'm
afraid how will the archive look like after the other architectures
join the party.

Any oppinions on the above toppic?

Is it realistic to expect that eventually *all* arches will keep their
files in the unified archive scheme and moreover that they will use
same names?

-- 
Miroslav Kure