Baslinux mailing list

["David Moberg" <davidjmoberg AT lycos.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "sindi keesan" <keesan AT sdf.lonestar.org>
 
> What is NFS and why would I need it?

NFS is a filesystem which works over a network. So you can set
up a server on one PC, and then mount the filesystem which is
hosted. You can write to it, run programs from it, and even use
it (perhaps with loopback or another gimmick) as a root filesystem.

I see that you have a different solution in mind, which would not
require NFS.

> I have photopc, which is 60K and works in linux to transfer files 
> via serial cable.  If I had a 1-floppy linux could I use it to set 
> up a 10MB RAMdisk on a computer and then transfer linux to the 
> RAMdisk using photopc?

Yes. That would take a long time. Maybe half an hour or an hour?
It depends on the baud rate used. Serial ports are slow.

> We also have a CF parallel port card reader that comes with DOS 
> software, which would transfer files somewhat faster (faster than 
> the parport zip drive?).

No. I believe that the limit is the parallel port. Parallel ports
are not very fast, either.

> The kernel would need recompiling to give a larger RAMdisk size.

Can someone else please try the ramdisk_size option? It does work,
and allow a larger ramdisk, at least with the Slackware kernels.
I wonder if it is a kernel option?

> There is no particular advantage I can see to using one floppy disk 
> plus one camera or parport memory card reader rather than two 
> floppy disks, but this is interesting in theory.
> 
> The PCMCIA approach sounds more practical.  The card in the PCMCIA 
> adaptor seems to be accessed as fast as a hard drive so no need for 
> a RAMdisk.

That's a good idea.

> The newer memory cards are much larger than fs.img for BL3.  Can 
> you boot from a memory card on a new computer?

Probably not directly. I have seen BIOSes which boot from:

IDE (cdroms, too)
floppy
SCSI
USB
Network

But nothing else. You'll still need another method to initially boot.

An IDE-CF adapter could boot.

David

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