Date: Sat, 03 May 2003 23:16:08 +1000 From: Duraid Madina <duraid@octopus.com.au> To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Floppy Support Message-ID: <3EB3C118.6020203@octopus.com.au>
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Peter Schultz wrote: > Is floppy support a bad crutch for FreeBSD? Yes, it is. Given that CDRs are generally cheaper than floppy disks, and that CDR drives are cheaper than some floppy disk drives, there's really no point to using floppies. As early as 1997, Intel declared their intention to deprecate the floppy, and they've basically done it (anyone bought a laptop lately?). Anyone who wants to use floppies to install/repair FreeBSD will probably be more than happy to use 4.8, or 5.0. Indeed, the only machine I have with a floppy disk drive (a Compaq deskpro XE 560) can't even boot FreeBSD 4.x, let alone 5.x (due to a broken BIOS). On the other hand, I am unable to easily install FreeBSD on my modern (6 month old) run-of-the-mill PC, because support for my hard drive controller was only checked in a couple of days ago, but thanks to floppy-related brokenness, I haven't been able to download a snapshot ISO image. Can anyone give a *good* reason why floppies should still be supported from this point onwards? Why should we make using a recent version of FreeBSD convenient for someone with a machine so old that it can't boot from CDROM (if memory serves, it was in 1995 that this feature became widespread) or with some other aversion to CDROM hardware, while making it more difficult for someone with recent hardware? This does appear to be what FreeBSD is doing. (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong!) Puzzled, Duraid
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