>> Except, of course, that swap slices aren't a required
>> part of the
>> system.
>
>No, they aren't but in that particular scenario, they would be, just like they
>were if one wanted
to install IRIX. No swap slice meant no IRIX, plain and simple, because
miniroot couldn't be copied
into it. But, considering they used an exact same mechanism for a 1991 IRIS
Indigo @100MHz and a 1
,024 CPU Origin 3900 supercomputer, they've done a hell of a good job with
their miniroot installer
Or they never changed any code.
Older SunOS releases were installed in pretty much the same way, but the
method has one serious drawback: you need to configure the disks *before*
you start the installer.
That is, you *cannot* move the slice used for the miniroot once install
has started.
I'm not sure how this is solved for IRIX, but I remember that this wasn't
fun in SunOS.
Boot standalone format from tape.
Format/Partition disk
Boot standalone copy from tape
Copy miniroot to swap space
Reboot system to start the install.
Three boots before you even got the installer; if you aborted the installer
you generally had to do all three steps again.
Having said that, I think that a lot can be gained by using a "Live DVD/CD"
scenario which does not use a whole lot of memory backed storage and still
has some performance by optimizing hsfs reads as Moniak did.
It's the huge miniroot (180MB), unpacking of X, Java and soon GNOME
which push the installer requirements up. It's is *not* the size of
the programs running in it.
Apart from all the largely unused bits copied, you should also note that
each and every running programming is in effect in memory *twice* in
this scenario: once in the "on-disk" ramdisk memory or virtual swap and
once in the actual running programs.
A live CD scenario would easily half that size.....
Casper
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