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SubjectRe: 2.3 wish: integrate pcmcia into mainstream kernel
On Wed, Jun 02, 1999 at 06:08:33PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2 Jun 1999, David Hinds wrote:
> >
> > If you can boot from this PCMCIA device (which is a platform specific
> > feature, and not something you should necessarily expect to be able to
> > do), then you can load an initrd image from it. So the issue reverts
> > to the distribution maintainers' choice of supported installation
> > modes. I don't know whose CD you were using, but Red Hat has chosen,
> > and documented their choice, to support this type of installation
> > using boot diskettes.
>
> In short, it's not supported. Why? Because the current PCMCIA architecture
> just makes it too painful to validate easily.

Given that a small minority of systems can boot an IDE CD-ROM, and an
even smaller minority of laptops can boot an IDE PCMCIA device, this
is bullshit.

And the current PCMCIA architecture does not make it any more painful
than for any other driver. Red Hat uses an initrd for *all* their
drivers on the installation image. There are too many drivers, at
this point, to put *everything* in one image, so PCMCIA is in a
separate image. Which was their choice: it wasn't required by the
PCMCIA architecture, and your alternative would not be made any easier
by allowing PCMCIA to be linked into the kernel, because no one would
do this in an installation environment.

-- Dave Hinds

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