From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: William Josephson To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] one reason ideas from Plan 9 didn't catch on Message-ID: <20011113151435.A86087@honk.eecs.harvard.edu> References: <20011113195826.27824199BB@mail.cse.psu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20011113195826.27824199BB@mail.cse.psu.edu>; from presotto@closedmind.org on Tue, Nov 13, 2001 at 02:58:16PM -0500 Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 15:14:35 -0500 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 20865a2c-eaca-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Tue, Nov 13, 2001 at 02:58:16PM -0500, presotto@closedmind.org wrote: > - One possibility is to build a kernel on the fly for people >downloading and have it contain the right drivers. We get enough info from >the little question and answer session to set up plan9.ini. That could keep >us going for a number of generations since it considerably reduces kernel size > - We could also just start releasing CDROM's again where size wouldn't matter > as much. We'ld need someone willing to make them. One of the big advantages of the current system is that I can make a boot floppy off the net and then install the whole system over the network, too. Building a kernel on the fly has the advantage of preserving this ability. On the other hand, distributing a bootable ISO image seems to have worked reasonably well with things like FreeBSD and Linux. Having a source of burned CDs is nice, too, of course, but CD-R drives are pretty cheap anymore, so making people burn their own (or maybe buy a copy from Vita Nuova) doesn't strike me as too unreasonable. I have yet to see anyone get installation "right" -- it never just works in every case. I have had by far the worst time with Windows on the one or two occasions I made the mistake of trying to install it myself. Ugh. -WJ