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Re: Debian bootdisk issues



On Tue, 29 Mar 1994 imurdock@gnu.ai.mit.edu wrote:
> 
> Is it worth going back to boot/root disks for 0.92 to accommodate this
> (and to allow a few other programs to be included on the bootdisk,
> such as vi)?  It seems to be the only way...

Yes, but be careful. I don't think that it is a good idea to stick to a 
less than adequate install procedure just so that it only takes one disk 
to boot rather than two. The difficulty comes in being able to handle the 
case where there is only one floppy and only 4Mb or RAM. That not unusual 
situation was a problem for Slackware at least up to 1.1.1.

I'm quite happy with the idea of walking before we try to run - have a 
fairly standard vanilla install up to a certain point, and then go into 
the options from hard disk. I recognise that there is a chicken and egg 
situation in this in that the decision about partitions and mount points 
might be best left until all the optional install choices are made.

One way, perhaps, to handle that dilemna is to require a swap partition, 
and to do the base install, even if it is three or four floppies, onto 
what will later become the swap partition, and do the luxury install from 
there. If the machine has oodles of RAM, then a "ram disk" instead of 
hard disk file system would be more appropriate (and a swap partition 
maybe unwanted), but I don't know how to make use of them.

Charlie Brady * (W) charlieb@tplrd.tpl.oz.au * (H) charlieb@budge.apana.org.au
"Make it as simple as possible - | Tel: (02) 413 6838 ____Telectronics__| /\__
  but no simpler"   Einstein, A  | Fax: (02) 413 6868 Pacing Systems    \/  



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