Adjust notes to describe new boot floppy scheme.

1 files changed, 42 insertions, 40 deletions

diff --git a/release/texts/FLOPPIES.TXT b/release/texts/FLOPPIES.TXT
index c817d8c..7e5e861 100644
--- a/release/texts/FLOPPIES.TXT
+++ b/release/texts/FLOPPIES.TXT
@@ -1,57 +1,59 @@
-For a normal CDROM or network installation, all you need to copy onto an
-actual floppy from this directory is the boot.flp image (for 1.44MB floppies).
-
-If you're on the ALPHA then the boot.flp image is probably larger
-than any kind of floppy you have available and you will need to
-either netboot it, load it from some other type of media (such
-as a jaz drive) or use the kern.flp image described below.
-
-This release still uses only one installation floppy, the boot.flp
-image. For convenience (and for the DEC ALPHA architecture, on which
-binaries are quite a bit larger), however, we also provide the
-functionality of boot.flp now "decoupled" into a kern.flp image,
-which contains just the boot kernel, and mfsroot.flp, which contains
-the compressed MFS root image that is normally stored as part of
-the kernel itself on the boot.flp image.  This allows you to boot
-from kern.flp, which will fit on a 1.44MB floppy even on the alpha,
-and then use mfsroot.flp from a 2nd floppy.  This also allows you
-to easily make your own boot or MFS floppies should you need to customize
-some aspect of the installation process.  As long as the kernel is compiled
-with ``options MFS'' and ``options MFS_ROOT'', it will properly look for
-and boot an mfsroot.flp image when run.  The mfsroot.flp image is simply
-a gzip'd filesystem image, something which can be made rather
-easily using vnconfig(8).  If none of this makes any sense to you,
-don't worry about it - just use the boot.flp image as always; nothing
-has changed there.
-
-
-NOTE: The *.flp images are NOT DOS files!  You cannot simply copy them
-to a DOS or UFS floppy as regular files, you need to *image* copy them
-to the floppy with fdimage.exe under DOS or `dd' under UNIX.
+For a normal CDROM or network installation, all you need to copy onto
+actual floppies from this directory are the kern.flp and mfsroot.flp
+images (for 1.44MB floppies).
+
+Get two blank, freshly formatted floppies and image copy kern.flp
+onto one and mfsroot.flp onto the other.  These images are NOT DOS
+files!  You cannot simply copy them to a DOS or UFS floppy as
+regular files, you need to "image" copy them to the floppy with
+fdimage.exe under DOS (see the tools/ directory on your CDROM or
+FreeBSD FTP mirror) or the `dd' command in UNIX.
 
 For example:
 
-To create the boot floppy image from DOS, you'd do something like
+To create the kern floppy image from DOS, you'd do something like
 this:
 
-C> fdimage boot.flp a:
-
-Assuming that you'd copied fdimage.exe and boot.flp into a directory
-somewhere.  If you were doing this from the base of a CD distribution,
-then the *exact* command would be:
-
-E> tools\fdimage floppies\boot.flp a:
+C> fdimage kern.flp a:
 
+Assuming that you'd copied fdimage.exe and kern.flp into a directory
+somewhere.  You would do the same for mfsroot.flp, of course.
 
 If you're creating the boot floppy from a UNIX machine, you may find
 that:
 
-        dd if=floppies/boot.flp of=/dev/rfd0
+        dd if=floppies/kern.flp of=/dev/rfd0
 
 or
 
-        dd if=floppies/boot.flp of=/dev/floppy
+        dd if=floppies/kern.flp of=/dev/floppy
 
 work well, depending on your hardware and operating system environment
 (different versions of UNIX have totally different names for the
 floppy drive - neat, huh? :-).
+
+If you're on an ALPHA machine which netboots its floppy images or
+you have a 2.88MB or LS-120 floppy capable of taking a 2.88MB image
+on an x86 machine, you may still wish to use the older (but now
+twice as large) boot.flp image which we also provide.  That contains
+the contents of kern.flp and mfsroot.flp on a single floppy,
+essentially, and can be used in all of the above scenarios as well
+as a handy boot image for those mastering "El Torito" bootable CD
+images.  See the mkisofs(1) command for more information.
+
+Going to two installation boot floppies is a step we definitely
+would have rather avoided but we simply no longer could due to
+general code bloat and FreeBSD's many new device drivers in GENERIC.
+
+One positive side-effect of this new organizational scheme, however,
+is that it also allows one to easily make one's own kern or MFS
+floppies should a need to customize some aspect of the installation
+process or use a custom kernel for an otherwise unsupported piece of
+hardware arise.  As long as the kernel is compiled with
+``options MFS'' and ``options MFS_ROOT'', it will properly look for
+and boot an mfsroot.flp image in memory when run (see how the
+/boot/loader.rc file in kern.flp does its thing).  The mfsroot.flp
+image is also just a gzip'd filesystem image which is used as root,
+something which can be made rather easily using vnconfig(8).
+If none of that makes any sense to you then don't worry about it -
+just use the kern.flp and mfsroot.flp images as described above.