Messages in this thread | | | From | (david parsons) | Subject | Re: 2.3 wish: integrate pcmcia into mainstream kernel | Date | 7 Jun 1999 12:27:03 -0700 |
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In article <linux.kernel.199906050655.CAA18063@jupiter.cs.uml.edu>, Albert D. Cahalan <acahalan@cs.uml.edu> wrote: > >Alan Cox writes: > >>> Hell, even I can make a bootable-cdrom that includes PCMCIA support >>> (using David's excellent tools) on the initrd image. >> >> Except that you need two CD-ROM's then. The size of the 2.2 module >> set + the full pcmcia scs+net set + the installer + initrd means >> the resulting super initrd won't work on an 8Mb computer. > >I see an anachronism here. > >Most 8 MB systems will need a boot floppy, since they are too old >to support CD-ROM boot.
I don't know if 8mb is as much trouble as 4mb machines. Mastodon, which admittedly isn't the most feature-ridden distribution on the planet, fits the whole kitchen sink installer [1] into approximately 7 mb of core (this is kernel + 2400k ramdisk + libc4 + pcmcia modules + cardmgr + ksh) and a 1.44mb bootdisk; 4mb, on the other hand, just barely fits the installer in before it runs out of memory and performs the traditional Linux reenactment of a traveller encountering a basilisk along the road.
>Since boot floppy creation is already for nerds only, one might >bring back support for 4 MB machines. Slackware used to (still does?) >let the user create and enable swap before starting the setup program.
Well, once you start up a shell and run a script to ask about firing up swap, you've eaten as much core as you would have just dropping directly into a moderately well-written installer program [2].
____ david parsons \bi/ though I don't think I'd want to install X11R6 \/ on a 4mb machine.
[1: Which, after a weekend of late-night hacking, installs, from CD, without having to do any boot-time parameter tweaking, on a Sony VAIO 505TS. I will now dance a little victory dance before...] [2: ... I have to test and see if the system will still get the installer loaded on my 4mb test systems.]
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