Message-Id: <199509301946.MAA00312@aslan.cdrom.com>
To: dennis@etinc.com (dennis)
Cc: "Justin T. Gibbs" <gibbs@freefall.FreeBSD.org>, jkh@time.cdrom.com,
        hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: FreeBSD 2.1 will require a minimum of 8MB for installation. 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sat, 30 Sep 1995 15:45:04 EDT."
             <199509301945.PAA06042@etinc.com> 
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 1995 12:46:08 -0700
From: "Justin T. Gibbs" <gibbs@freefall.FreeBSD.org>
Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org
Precedence: bulk

>>>>Fixing LKMs (something even people with more than 4MB want) should take
>>>>care of this.
>>>>--
>>>
>>>It really shouldn't. I think that  what is needed is a "bootload" kernel and
>>>a "generic"
>>>kernel. While its ok for the generic kernel to be large, the "bootload"
>>>should allow someone to 
>>>load the system and compile (or load) a custom kernel, which can be much
>>>smaller. There's no
>>>reason why the generic kernel has to be used on the boot floppy.
>>
>>I respectfully disagree.  ;-)
>>
>>The "boot kernel" should have enough glue to load LKMs for anything from
>>NFS support to your favorite SCSI driver off of the boot floppy (or even
>>additional floppies).  The LKM for device drivers should have an entry
>>point that lets you determine presence of the hardware before committing
>>the whole module to memory.  In this way, a "generic" boot floppy could
>>cycle through all LKMs asking them to do the probe and only load the full
>>module (or perhaps unload the module in the event of failure) if the probe
>>is successful.  In this way, the only way you'd not be able to install
>>in a low memory configuration is if you had everything but the kitchen
>>sink in your machine.
>>
>>I want to move toward a more dynamic system where
>>in most cases you don't have to recompile the kernel to get the right
>>configuration for you system.  LKMs seem the natural solution.
>
>This is a lofty goal that requires not only that LKMs be substantially
>improved, but that every
>driver (almost) be implemented as a loadable module and that the modules be 
>extremely clean and non-destrucitve. While this is certainly possible, its
>not a solution for today

I never said that it was a solution for today... only that fixing LKMs
properly should make this problem "go-away".  How Jordan deals with making
2.1 install in 4MB is his business.  The rest of us can work on making
my "lofty goal" a reality for 2.2 or 2.3.

--
Justin T. Gibbs
===========================================
  Software Developer - Walnut Creek CDROM
  FreeBSD: Turning PCs into workstations
===========================================