From owner-freebsd-current Fri Feb 28 7:34:59 2003 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8823837B405 for ; Fri, 28 Feb 2003 07:34:57 -0800 (PST) Received: from mail.speakeasy.net (mail14.speakeasy.net [216.254.0.214]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E9A1843FAF for ; Fri, 28 Feb 2003 07:34:55 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jhb@FreeBSD.org) Received: (qmail 22796 invoked from network); 28 Feb 2003 15:34:49 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO server.baldwin.cx) ([216.27.160.63]) (envelope-sender ) by mail14.speakeasy.net (qmail-ldap-1.03) with DES-CBC3-SHA encrypted SMTP for ; 28 Feb 2003 15:34:49 -0000 Received: from laptop.baldwin.cx (gw1.twc.weather.com [216.133.140.1]) by server.baldwin.cx (8.12.6/8.12.6) with ESMTP id h1SFWwhT030070; Fri, 28 Feb 2003 10:32:59 -0500 (EST) (envelope-from jhb@FreeBSD.org) Message-ID: X-Mailer: XFMail 1.5.2 on FreeBSD X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <3E5EA745.F1910337@mindspring.com> Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2003 10:34:56 -0500 (EST) From: John Baldwin To: Terry Lambert Subject: Re: Any ideas why we can't even boot a i386 ? Cc: Ruslan Ermilov , Geoffrey , current@FreeBSD.ORG, Garance A Drosihn , David Schultz Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On 28-Feb-2003 Terry Lambert wrote: > David Schultz wrote: >> Thus spake Terry Lambert : >> > John Baldwin wrote: >> > > I doubt the usefulness of this. i386 kernels were just accidentally >> > > broken for almost a month and a half without anyone noticing. >> > >> > People who build embedded devices that need to be supported in >> > the field, and want to worry about their software, and not the >> > platform it runs on, don't use -current, FWIW. >> >> Moot point. People who build embedded devices have separate, >> usually modern, machines for building their kernels. > > They also outsource their hardware, and have to provide a > "golden master" CDROM. Yep, and they can easily build a custom CD to do that. Where I work we have a custom CD that includes a set of sysinstall configuration scripts, etc. > Likewise, when you have a room full of appliance boxes that > are rack-mounted, and have serial consoles, no CDROM, no > floppy, or other removable media, the normal way you use to > install an image is to boot up the current image, copy over > the sysinstall from an already installed bootstrap system > with a CDROM drive, and then NFS mount the CDROM, and run > the sysinstall from the serial console, and lie and tell it > the thing was mounted locally. Or you can use PXE at your provisioning center and have the BIOS setup to boot from the hard disk first, which will fail for the initial boot and fall back to PXE. Then once the box is installed you ship it to its destination. > If you've never built a closed-box appliance, then you are > probably not familiar with the operational differences you > have to live with, compared to something like Yahoo or > RackSpace, etc.. We just launched a closed-box appliance yesterday. Actually, it's going live to actual customers in about an hour and a half, but I digress. :) -- John Baldwin <>< http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message