Messages in this thread | | | From | "Albert D. Cahalan" <> | Subject | Re: 2.3 wish: integrate pcmcia into mainstream kernel | Date | Mon, 7 Jun 1999 20:50:32 -0400 (EDT) |
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Gerhard Mack writes: > On Sat, 5 Jun 1999, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
>> Typical 8 MB computers can not boot _any_ kind of CD-ROM. Since they >> will need a boot floppy anyway, the CD-ROM boot can use a 2.88 MB >> image and assume that the user has at least 16 MB. >> >> The boot floppy for older machines can drop support for many of the >> motherboard and BIOS features that were introduced after CD-ROM boot. >> >> Systems that support CD-ROM boot have features like this: >> >> at least 16 MB of RAM >> Pentium or later processor >> no XT disks >> better than color VGA >> no Microchannel >> no VLB or EISA (?) >> PnP BIOS features >> may have I2O >> may have CardBus >> >> There might be a few things wrong on that list, but exceptions should >> be rare. Don't pull out SIMMs to prove me wrong. :-) > > 90 mhz Pentium > Crappy via chipset > Ati Mach64 > isa/pci > ... > 8 meg ram > > And a bootable cdrom drive heh
The linux-kernel mailing list has about 10000 people, doesn't it? Only two people disagreed with me over the RAM, along with a third that disagreed over some other features. I'd say there is no big problem having old 8 MB machines require a boot floppy.
The alternative (expect only 8 MB; use a 1.44 MB image) is bad for all modern machines. There is something _wrong_ when Linus himself has trouble installing Linux, don't you think?
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