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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.cs.su.oz.au!inferno.mpx.com.au!goliath.apana.org.au!news.syd.connect.com.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!paladin.american.edu!news.jhu.edu!aplcenmp!netnews.jhuapl.edu!uunet!in2.uu.net!news.sprintlink.net!new-news.sprintlink.net!helena.MT.net!nate From: nate@trout.sri.MT.net (Nate Williams) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.development.system,comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Historic Opportunity facing Free Unix (was Re: The Lai/Baker paper, benchmarks, and the world of free UNIX) Date: 17 Apr 1996 15:45:00 GMT Organization: SRI Intl. - Montana Operations Lines: 42 Message-ID: <4l33ls$416@helena.MT.net> References: <4ki055$60l@Radon.Stanford.EDU> <31702487.420C2193@lambert.org> <yfg3f67giw7.fsf@time.cdrom.com> <31718ED3.555EB900@lambert.org> Reply-To: "Nate Williams" <nate@sneezy.sri.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: trout.sri.mt.net Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.development.system:21730 comp.unix.bsd.386bsd.misc:681 comp.unix.bsd.bsdi.misc:3312 comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc:3148 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:17640 comp.os.linux.advocacy:46189 In article <31718ED3.555EB900@lambert.org>, Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> wrote: >] Now let's talk about "magic install images". Such an image is >] a non-memory-overcommit (fd's are not strictly recoverable for >] executables) APM save image of a sytem "just about to be >] installed". >] >] I'd need to see a prototype of this before I could even begin to >] believe there weren't 500 different "gotchas" still waiting to spring >] on the unwary implementor. > >Nate Williams already has a prototype. It's called the APM code >from the "BSD Nomads" group in Japan, and his own contributions >to the APM code and source integration. > >Fundamentally, there is no difference betwen restoring machine >state from a disk image of saved state of the same machine, and >that of a different machine. Umm, just to let everyone know (Terry and I already had this discussion in private email), the code I wrote plus the code from the Nomad doesn't contain any way of restoring the 'state' of the system from a disk image. Some laptops have this feature (an older IBM ThinkPad does, and my newer NEC Versa doesn't), but it's not part of the 'official' APM specification. IBM provides a driver to do this under DOS/Windows 3.1, but no such driver exists for WNT/Win95, so this isn't possible w/out manufacturer support under other OS's. >Not having looked at the APM code, I can only say that from past >experience with Nate's code, I find it highly unlikely that he >has built his state-recovery code to be machine specific. While I appreciate the flattery, no such code exists, and I don't see myself writing any of it, machine specific and/or independant. Nate -- nate@sneezy.sri.com | Research Engineer, SRI Intl. - Montana Operations nate@trout.sri.MT.net | Loving life in God's country, the great state of work #: (406) 449-7662 | Montana. home #: (406) 443-7063 | A fly pole and a 4x4 Chevy truck = Heaven on Earth