On Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:24:38 +0200 Alexander Rødseth <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi, > > 2012/7/27 Jeremiah Dodds <[email protected]>: > > I find the "configuration bundles" idea interesting, but I wonder how > > much of it is needed on a per-machine basis. I haven't run into many > > machine-specific issues, but then again I'm sure they exist. > > I've encountered a lot of machine-specific issues, setting up (Arch) > Linux on several computers. Especially laptops often need extra > modules loaded to make the sound card, network card or video camera to > work, possibly with a couple of firmware-packages thrown into the mix. > Specifying all it takes to set up a machine in a single, easy to read, > text file, shared among Arch Linux users in the same fashion as > AUR-packages is shared, would be an improvement, IMO. there's a bunch of configuration management tools written for this use case already. like chef, puppet, ansible. many of these concerns are relatively easy to abstract for multiple distributions, so writting a new tool that only targets Arch is not a good idea imho. > > The end-result I'm working toward is providing a service that allows > > people to generate linux live and install images that have what they > > want on them already -- I've written a proof-of-concept webapp that > > installs a package on a live and install cd that I intend to start a > > kickstarter with[1]. My goal is to allow college kids and newer linux > > users to create something that will give them access to the system > > they need or want in case of failure or circumstance, and allow it to > > perform (if desired) unattended installs. an installation of any system should put only the basic system in place (incl. a config management tool), everything else should be done by configuration management. this makes it easier to alter the configuration of a machine long after it has been installed. > In either case: no matter the approach and no matter the authors, I'm > looking forward to the next generation of installers. configuration management should not be tied to only the installation process.
