Re: Booting from USB floppy?

["H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>]

Followup to:  <E15VlgK-0005GO-00@trixia.ai.mit.edu>
By author:    Chris Hanson <cph@zurich.ai.mit.edu>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
> I have been trying to build Debian 2.2 boot/root floppies for the HP
> OmniBook 500 laptop, which (in some configurations) has only a USB
> floppy drive.  I've been unable to get the kernel to load the root
> floppy.  These tests were done using Linux 2.4.6.
> 
> At this point, I think this isn't possible without some real work in
> the kernel.  I'd like to get some feedback about whether this is a
> correct deduction.  To that end, here is my analysis.
> 

Basically, this is yet another reason why THE FLOPPY DRIVE MAGIC
STUFF IN THE KERNEL IS OBSOLETE AND BROKEN.  There is absolutely no
sane reason to keep that crap around; the only sane way is to have an
initrd or similar thing (like viro's initramfs) set up a ramfs
initialized from whatever; the floppy stuff in the kernel should just
be nuked.

	-hpa
-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt	<amsp@zytor.com>