Hi,
I'm wondering whether Debian could change the format of the distributed
.bin files in the installation floppies. Currently, it seems that the
.bin files are custom made and the program for creating them is not
openly available. I'm thinking that if the installation files are put in
the floppies using ext2 filesystem, things are going to be easier. I
mean, currently, once you have downloaded all the floppy images, you
have to stick to floppies to do the installation; even if you have put
them in your harddisks. Meaning, if you want to install, you have to
prepare a pile of floppies and copy the images into the floppies and
then do the installation.
Imagine that the the floppies are in ext2 format; in the first install
(right after you download the images) you definitely should use the
floppies. But after you have a system up and running, you could build
(cat) all the distribution files that exist in the floppies into a
single file (it's supposed to be base2_2.tgz, I suppose) by mounting the
floppy one by one and copying the contents into a directory (which the
files can be cat'ed into a single file later).
Or, better yet, if you have some Linux already running, you could
download the images and then mount each file using the "loop" option
(like in: mount -t ext2 -o loop /tmp/floppy1_bin /mnt) and then do the
cat'ing). By dong this, you need no floppy at all (but it seems that the
installation scripts need to be changed somewhat; I don't know the
innards).
Just some ideas that might be useful ('cause I'm tired of formatting all
those floppies when doing installation).
Oki
