Text 7884, 122 rader
Skriven 2006-11-08 22:54:34 av Maurice Kinal (1:140/13.1)
   Kommentar till text 7872 av James Bradley (1:134/77.0)
Ärende: ttylinux
================
Hey James!

Nov 08 04:37 06, James Bradley wrote to Maurice Kinal:

 JB> over-engineered case, engineered just for the sake of keeping the 
 JB> 'layman' out...

I've seen ones like you speak of but not for awhile now.

 JB> Cousin Ken - Olga's son - says IBM is the only company to build a 
 JB> reliable laptop, and the only survivor in the torture tests magazine 
 JB> staff runs once a year.

I've run across a few of those.  One where the mini-pci caused it to be
unbootable but once that was disabled it was a nice little system.  The only
thing I saw for that interface was certain wireless cards which I see aren't
being manufactured anymore.  Probably just as well.

 JB> Right, that you fire off the iso to the USB interface, then move the 
 JB> subject drive to the target computer.

No iso, but an image instead.  It could become an iso though but so far I
haven't seen a need.  Still working on packaging and installation scripts.  Got
most of it cased but still have a bit of tweaking to do.  For sure it works
great for either flash or regular drives, usb or otherwise.  Ran into a slight
problem with a sata drive but have that cased now.  The same could be applied
to CD's or DVD's but then that would require special programs which are
considered abandonware in my particular case.  For my targets stuff like dd,
lilo, cat etc. are mission critical apps rather then cdrecord, mkisofs,
syslinux, etc.  However the same images/rootdisks/kernels could be applied to
the iso ideology if one cares about that.  It should work.

 JB> But it *does* require that the IDE drive bay, *not* be buried in a 
 JB> mire of complexity. I can see the ease, if the patient is already 
 JB> opened - hence my penchant for power tools.

I could see that happening here.

 MK>> No reverse engineering whatsoever.  I use the same utils as 
 MK>> I use for everything else.

 JB> Not in the logic department, but the physical one.

Yes but those also work on the targets even if not bootable.  They are
externalized and are not mission critical.

 JB> See, if I have a 'drive' inserted without a bootable partition 
 JB> available, it keeps looking for that, until a partition arrives to 
 JB> satisfy that equation, or you remove the ones that do not.

Right.  Same situation here.  However over the years I worked towards ridding
the need for internal devices offboard.  I am not the only one and have seen a
few really expensive systems that aren't all that much different then from the
way I do things, except of course I don't have their budget and am forced to be
more creative and cheaper.  Same basic idea though.

 JB> does have three USB channels available, (along with some of the worst 
 JB> documentation I have seen,) so I suspect at least one of those 
 JB> bridges wouldn't intercept the call for an OS.

Doesn't have to as long as the main boot system can mount and use whatever is
put on those interfaces, even a CD and/or DVD.

 MK>> Gigabyte's bios where I could hit f12 on bootup and it 

 JB> That could save LOTS of time. The <Del> - BIOS tweek - reboot Waltz 
 JB> can be a slow, drawn out dance.

For sure!  Nice board and the price was right.  It could also properly boot usb
flash disks (pen drives, whatever the kids these days call them).  Personally I
give the Intel one overall higher marks but did really like the F12 boot choice
on the Gigabyte.  Works excellent too.

 JB> I don't know the difference between "Plug" and "Swap".

I am not positive.  I call them all hotswap as long as it can be done on the
fly (no reboot).

 JB> controllers are HW RAID, "Passive Backplane Array" type systems, so 
 JB> I'm sure they could burn my toast if I worked on 'em enough. The 
 JB> software to run the pig, is run on an M$ product, and meant to occupy 
 JB> hda1, so I toasted it after my first attempt at lilo installation 
 JB> proved fruitless.

Hm.  I haven't tried those ... yet.  I did have a sata one hotswapping and may
have to do that again soon.  So far it hasn't been an issue.  IDE's still are
and usb takes care of that at the moment.

 JB> Now, on to that G3 I tripped over this afternoon... O-8*

Heh, heh.  Haven't touched one of those ... yet.  I am not sure I really want
to either.  Maybe but I doubt it.

 JB> Again, with this language - was leading me on, that you were using 
 JB> bootable USB devices exclusivly. THe USBs' roll was not defined 
 JB> earlier.

Not exclusively but it has replaced the need for floppy, CD and DVD drives and
especially burners (CD and DVD) so I figure I am now ahead.  Floppies I got rid
of AGES ago and never did shed a tear over those going MIA. 

 MK>> Right.  It used to be Mandrake not that long ago but I 
 MK>> don't hear as much from those people much these days.  

 JB> Because they changed their name? <G+D>

They did?  News to me.  Who are they now?

 MK>> No.  Microwaves are for popcorn.

 JB> That, and long distance, non-satellite, high bandwidth 
 JB> communications. I wonder how many relays are still done through 
 JB> microwaves across the hills between us.

There is one not too far from here on the Point.  Both the neighbour and I have
speculated on what would be needed to hack into it, not that we would.  ;-)

Life is good,
Maurice

--- Msged/LNX 6.2.0
 * Origin: The Pointy Stick Society XXV - Almost there (1:140/13.1)