On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 17:12, Ken Gentle wrote:
> Write protecting the Floppy is a feature I value (I routinely use > it). I would not change firewalls just because I couldn't use a floppy for > the configuration. > I use uClibc Bering to protect my business and home networks; The > write-protect is a little bit of extra reassurance that I can get back to > exactly the configuration I had if a compromise of either network occurred. > I've never needed to do so. > > However, I think we're off topic - the real requirement question is this: > > Is a LEAF distribution required to fit on and boot from a 1.44Mb floppy? > > My personal opinion is that booting from CD is great. However, I haven't > tried to put LEAF distros in teeny, tiny, minimal hardware architectures. > LEAF has always been a very small distribution and should continue with > that goal. > > What is the smallest non-disk media in use these days? 2Mb? 4Mb? Find > that number and set that as the max size for a LEAF distro. > > FWIW > > Ken > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 12:35, Dillabough, Dave > <dave.dillabo...@bcgeu.ca>wrote: > >> Ken, >> >> >> >> Is the fact that you can write protect the floppy a consideration (and do >> you do this) or is it just the convenience of having one around >> >> >> >> Dave >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> *From:* Ken Gentle [mailto:jkennethgen...@gmail.com] >> *Sent:* Friday, August 07, 2009 8:51 AM >> *To:* Dillabough, Dave >> *Cc:* Erich Titl; leaf-user@lists.sourceforge.net >> >> *Subject:* Re: [leaf-user] Project Admin >> >> >> >> I still use floppies for config files. It is the easiest configuration >> for a software geek to mangle together - take a floppy off an old system, >> plug in the IDE cable and you're in business. My earliest LEAF systems >> (Dachstein and uClibc Bering) ran completely off of the floppy (on a 486DX w >> 16Mb of RAM) >> >> >> >> I'm interested in the CF media or moving off old PC platforms to something >> like the Alix platform. But that is a lot of hardware/low level software >> learning curve. >> >> >> >> Having said all that, I do boot my current systems from CD and just save >> configuration to floppy. I believe that would work nicely with a 2.6 >> kernel. >> >> >> Ken >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> >> On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 18:39, Dillabough, Dave <dave.dillabo...@bcgeu.ca> >> wrote: >> >> Hi Erich, >> >> How much of an issue is having write protection? I can understand that it >> is better in theory but I can't think of a commercial firewall product >> (Cisco PIX, Linksys, DLink etc) that does not use flash and that has any >> sort of write protection. If having boot from R/O media is an issue you >> could boot from CD and save to a floppy. You could also write protect CF >> media with a hardware hack to the cable. With USB/CF systems I always keep a >> backup of the boot media. It's not as simple as a power cycle but I can >> always get back to a known state if I need to although this has yet to be an >> issue for me. So from my perspective this would seem to be a non issue for >> most users and that for those few where it is an issue there are ways around >> it with some extra work. >> >> Obviously I don't have your perspective on the issue and I may be in the >> minority here and while I don't need 2.6 features yet it does seem to me >> that there must be quite a lot of development work that goes into squeezing >> a working system onto a floppy. It would be a shame if this is being done to >> no purpose. >> >> Does anyone on the list boot a system from floppy disk or save config >> files to floppy disk? >> >> >> I will take a look at the 2.6 CVS. >> >> >> Dave >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Erich Titl [mailto:erich.t...@think.ch] >> >> Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 2:40 PM >> To: Dillabough, Dave >> Cc: leaf-user@lists.sourceforge.net >> Subject: Re: [leaf-user] Project Admin >> >> Dave >> >> Dillabough, Dave wrote: >> > I'm wondering how much of an issue it is to have a system that will fit >> on a floppy. I would think that being able to boot off of a USB drive or a >> CD/USB combo would be more pertinent today given as few machines even come >> with a floppy as standard equipment anymore. USB booting would eliminate >> the futzing around with non standard disk sizes and would be a lot more >> reliable and as well. I have been running some variant of LRP/LEAF since the >> 2.x days both at home and for various work related uses and the most common >> failure is mechanical i.e. drives or fans. I switched to booting off of CF >> cards and fanless power supplies a couple of years ago and am much closer to >> my goal of having a solid state appliance that I can install and ignore. >> Even buying the smallest CF cards available I still need only a small >> fraction of the card to boot LEAF. The world has moved on from the floppy >> drive and I think trying to keep future versions of LEAF small enough to >> boot from a floppy is l >> argely an artificial constraint now. If for some reason the use of a >> floppy is required then older versions of LEAF are still available. >> >> do not misinterpret me, I wrote an early HOWTO about using secure flash >> disks for leaf :-( and yes, I agree, I live easily with the flash memory >> world. >> >> There are 2 main things that are different from a floppy >> >> - size >> - write protection >> >> In my eyes, the write protection is the more important factor. There >> have been multiple attempts to solve this, amongst it unloading the >> device driver. >> >> There has been a experimental 2.6 release on CVS which was hardly used >> by anyone, hey, this is an open source project, get your hands dirty. >> >> cheers >> >> Erich >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 >> 30-Day >> trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus >> on >> what you do best, core application coding. Discover what's new with >> Crystal Reports now. http://p.sf.net/sfu/bobj-july >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> leaf-user mailing list: leaf-user@lists.sourceforge.net >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/leaf-user >> Support Request -- http://leaf-project.org/ >> >> >> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Let Crystal Reports handle the reporting - Free Crystal Reports 2008 30-Day trial. Simplify your report design, integration and deployment - and focus on what you do best, core application coding. 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