Re: floppy with 5.5 stopped at the Loading ROM image stage.

I should have said this earlier:

Etherboot 5.5 is barely working right now, and basically is a rewrite 
of Etherboot, which is a significant effort.  We are making some 
low-level changes that require significant changes in parts of the 
code.  Of course, when you're dealing with something this low-level, 
most changes are significant.

I have not put 5.5 on rom-o-matic.net for this reason, nor is there 
likely to be a formal SourceForge release of 5.5 for some time.

The good news is that when it does work, it will work much better.  
Michael is committed to working on it, and I am committed to doing what 
I can to help.  This includes hacking, feature selection, testing, 
debugging, and moral support.

One of the things I think is most important is that we who can hack 
study the code and understand it.  Personally, I am excited to be able 
to work with people who are better than I am at something so that I can 
learn from them.

My strongest contributions currently are project management, debugging, 
testing, and hacking.  Other people will have their own strengths, but 
also things that they want to get better at.

In my own case, I want to get better at low-level programming 
(Etherboot core), which means I need to be better at x86 assembly, and 
more comfortable in Bochs and other debugging environments.  I also 
need to understand BIOS internals better, and low-level TCP and UDP 
implementation issues.

This I am doing.  I want to get better at my craft, because I very much 
like being a programmer, and really understanding things makes me 
happy.

I also want Etherboot code quality and robustness to be excellent.  
This means that we must be somewhat particular about what we put into 
the codebase.  These decisions are not easy, but together we can find 
our way.

I have said all of this so people will understand where we're going.  
It is vitally important that more people understand the low-level parts 
of Etherboot, and the build system, and the tool dependencies so that 
we are able to continue to fix and improve Etherboot for another 10 
years.

I look forward to this challenge.  I hope there are others who do as 
well.  If you've ever really wanted to understand how computers work, 
here's your chance!

Carpe Diem,

Marty



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