From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 9 14:08:12 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 82BD316A4CE for ; Fri, 9 Jan 2004 14:08:12 -0800 (PST) Received: from rwcrmhc11.comcast.net (rwcrmhc11.comcast.net [204.127.198.35]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 510B043D5A for ; Fri, 9 Jan 2004 14:08:10 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from julian@elischer.org) Received: from interjet.elischer.org ([24.7.73.28]) by comcast.net (rwcrmhc11) with ESMTP id <20040109220810013006sglqe>; Fri, 9 Jan 2004 22:08:10 +0000 Received: from localhost (localhost.elischer.org [127.0.0.1]) by InterJet.elischer.org (8.9.1a/8.9.1) with ESMTP id OAA49413; Fri, 9 Jan 2004 14:08:09 -0800 (PST) Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 14:08:08 -0800 (PST) From: Julian Elischer To: Martin Nilsson In-Reply-To: <3FFF23E4.8090803@gneto.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Discussion on the future of floppies in 5.x and 6.x X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 22:08:12 -0000 On Fri, 9 Jan 2004, Martin Nilsson wrote: > This is getting stupid! > > > > Here at Vicor, we have over a thousand machines spread over about > > 20 sites. About 10 of those machines have cdrom drives. Our plans call > > for moving from 4.x to 5.x, probably at the end of 2004, maybe early > > 2005. Most of the machien swill not have been replaced by then so > > we'll still have very few cdroms. > > That is why I want to get boot from an USB CDROM to work, this way you > just plug in the portable drive in the machine that you want to boot > just like you do with a floppy, the difference is that you don't have to > wait to change floppies. You can also save some money by not having to > buy CD/floppy drives for your servers. Slim drives (for server use) are > not cheap. Besides floppydrives tend to collect dust and never work > anyway when you want to use them. > Many of the older machines don't have the USB connectors brough out of the boxes The motherboards mostly have them but even then I wouldn't guarantee that all of them do. Certainly I know that many of the machines from 4 or so years ago have no externally accessible USB connectors. (custom cases etc.). These boxes are doign fixed jobs and as long as they can "keep up" they will not be replaced. That's the "real world". > > Luckily this would probably not be an issue for the upgrade, but > > the Custommer Engineers (CEs) need to be able to rebuild machine quickly > > in the case of disk failures or other problems. They use floppies at the > > moment for this. > > PXE boot against an automated backup/restore service would be much more > useful for this. Assuming they have PXE and a supported card.. > > /Martin > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-hackers-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" >