| ▲ | imoverclocked 2 hours ago |
| > CD-ROM media Wow, I just learned that I can still buy a pack of new CD-RW discs. This is an almost 30 year old format that is still published for! Long live ATAPI! Seriously though, why still publish CD formats when a usb-stick is far more ubiquitous and much easier to actually write. Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still? |
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| ▲ | Narishma 44 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| NetBSD even supports installing from floppies on old systems if you don´t have a CD-ROM drive. |
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| ▲ | bilegeek 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still? New x64 systems? Probably not. But since it still supports x86 and a whole slew of other architectures[1] still that don't always, it probably wouldn't make sense to stop. [1]https://www.netbsd.org/ports/ |
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| ▲ | bpye 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | NetBSD supposedly supports 486, I don't think you're going to have much luck with USB there. | | |
| ▲ | accrual an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | There are some ISA USB cards with custom drivers to support them and present them as normal drives under MS-DOS. Never tried it myself, but they exist and seem to work! Other commenter is correct, there are some late 486 boards with PCI support that would allow USB 1.0 or even 2.0 cards to be installed and used. Probably slow, but should work. On the topic of modernizing a 486-class machine, there also exist a few with native PS/2 mouse support, and certain Matrox PCI cards have digital out, so it'd be possible to build a 486-class machine with USB 1.1, DVI/HDMI, and PS/2. Since some Logitech wireless mice support PS/2, one could connect a 486 rig to a crisp digital LCD, use a wireless mouse, and plug in USB flash drives, sound, 10/100 network, NT 4.0, etc. -- all supported. Can make a fairly "modern" machine out of a pre-Pentium chip. | |
| ▲ | AAAAaccountAAAA 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Some higher-end 486 boards[1] were made with PCI slots, so retrofitting them with an USB controller shouldn't be difficult? You'll still need a boot floppy to actually boot from an USB drive, I think? 1. https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/asus-pvi-486sp3 |
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| ▲ | Retr0id an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| One thing ISOs are useful for is installation under a hypervisor, or BMC. You can usually do the exact same thing with USB images, but a lot of the UI/workflows are oriented around .iso files. |
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| ▲ | thisislife2 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I am guessing, but many of us still use CDs / DVDs (/BluRays?) to make backups. It's cheap. Lasts long. |
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| ▲ | sellmesoap 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Write once has some security benefits as well! | |
| ▲ | alt227 an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Lasts long My CD backups lasted about 10-12 years before the silver started peeling off the discs :( | | |
| ▲ | thisislife2 36 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, learnt the hard way to have backups in multiple medias and that you have to refresh / re-copy your backups every 4-5 years. Wish we had consumer tape drives so that it could be once every 10 years or so. |
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| ▲ | cosmic_cheese an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Flash storage can’t sit on the shelf without bitrot as long as CD-R and DVD-R can, even though writable optical media itself isn’t the best for durability. CD-RW/DVD+RW on the other hand are also even worse than flash in that regard and decay very quickly in my experience. |
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| ▲ | 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | jmclnx 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| >Are there systems that can boot CD-ROM interfaces that don't have USB boot capability still? Old Systems. I have one such system that will is in line to move to 11.0 from 9.3. To do that I will boot from CDROM. It does not have any USB ports. NetBSD is probably the only UN*X Type OS that can run on many of these 32 bit systems. Plus the NetBSD team is doing their best to support these old systems. That saves me $ and helps the environment a little bit :) |
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| ▲ | imoverclocked 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > That saves me $ and helps the environment a little bit :) Seems like a tradeoff with power though. Even emulating hardware from that era is more power efficient than actually running it. Of course, if you have custom ISA cards or something then you are likely stuck :) | | |
| ▲ | sellmesoap an hour ago | parent [-] | | I don't know about the progression of PSU efficiency, but 32bit desktops were rocking 250-400w PSUs and modern desktops would be hard to find one less then 650w so sure maybe we're more efficient for the amount of compute/W but running flat out will still hit your pocketbook harder on a modern system. | | |
| ▲ | cosmic_cheese 42 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I’m in favor of repurposing old machines, but for a lot of the use cases they serve would be more than adequately filled by those little mobile CPU mini-PCs and Mac Mini’s which can go as low as 2-15W and top out somewhere around 60-110W. |
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| ▲ | bitwize 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Blit the iso to a usb stick and boot it. If your PC is recent (made in the past 15-20 years or so), it'll understand it just fine. |
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| ▲ | imoverclocked 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > If you are using flash-based media (e.g. a USB drive), please use the .img files rather than the .iso images. I have done that in the past but there are already .img files specifically for USB. Seems redundant. | | |
| ▲ | Narishma 39 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Both are needed for different use cases. That they overlap for some use cases doesn't make them redundant. |
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