I was around back then, you know... [LWN.net]

I was around back then, you know...

Posted Dec 10, 2011 7:08 UTC (Sat) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: This is sheer fantasy... by drag
Parent article: Distribution quote of the week

Back when the easiest way to get your PC running Linux was to first boot your PC into Windows and use Window's "device manager" to take notes on your hardware configuration so that you could then get a working kernel config going.

I'm pretty sure back then you had no need for anything is /sbin to boot your system: you only needed files in /boot (well, initially they were placed in the root of the filesystem) and one program (initially sash, later busybox) on a floppy drive. I'm pretty sure you can do the same today and even with Fedora's "grand unification" it should still be possible. Except for a floppy drive: often contemporary systems just don't include the necessary hardware...

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I was around back then, you know...

Posted Dec 10, 2011 8:05 UTC (Sat) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

> I'm pretty sure back then you had no need for anything is /sbin to boot your system: you only needed files in /boot (well, initially they were placed in the root of the filesystem) and one program (initially sash, later busybox) on a floppy drive. I'm pretty sure you can do the same today and even with Fedora's "grand unification" it should still be possible. Except for a floppy drive: often contemporary systems just don't include the necessary hardware...

That seems to agree with the reasoning to get rid of /sbin /bin, etc in modern times.

The initrd will have everything you need to mount a remote /usr/ directory. You can use busybox with initrds, for example.