On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 3:04 PM, Shawn Walker<swalker at opensolaris.org> wrote: > Mike Gerdts wrote: >> >> On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 2:30 PM, Shawn Walker<swalker at opensolaris.org> >> wrote: >>> >>> Michael Sichler wrote: >>>> >>>> Glen, >>>> >>>> Thanks for the quick response. >>>> >>>> I'm not sure I am aware of 'repo-on-dvd.' ?Is this were one would >>>> download >>>> the ISO repository image and install it as a local repository? >>> >>> Hi, the 'repository on dvd' is the media product mentioned to you >>> previously, found here: >>> >>> http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=108575&tstart=15 >>> http://blogs.sun.com/observatory/entry/repo_on_a_stick >>> http://blogs.sun.com/observatory/entry/local_repository_mirror >>> >>> While for practical reasons, it is more suitable to put it on a USB flash >>> device, you can also use suitable DVD media if you have the appropriate >>> hardware. >> >> If the repo is already on a DVD (or USB) drive, it would seem to be >> "no big deal" (TM) to make the DVD bootable, fire up a pkg server >> listening on localhost then kick off the text-based installer. ?Big >> bonus points if the media could be used to boot sparc and x86. > > The current installer projects don't currently support package-based > installs; only 'cpio-based' installs as far as I know (which means a > pre-installed image).
I thought that the text-based installer handled this differently. AI certainly does, but you've already corrected your statement on that point. > Even if they did/will support package-based installs, the remaining issue is > that the structure of the repository itself is gigantic (around 350K > directories currently) and would provide very poor performance if installing > from bootable optical media. ?Although it would probably be fine for flash > media. Agreed. I rarely write an iso to optical media - it is typically presented as a virtual CD/DVD through a hypervisor or lofi mounted. > Finally, remember that each media product requires additional resources, > testing, time, review, processing, etc. ?Since the repository images are > needed regardless of what happens with the installation media, there are > still additional costs in to providing additional media options such as > 'DVD'. Certainly. I'm not sure that it is terribly practical to distribute such media. What is actually more intriguing is being able to easily build a custom auto-install DVD image (again to present through a hypervisor usually) that installs the system properly including the various agents that are specific to my environment to meet security and manageability requirements. > Also note that that the number of available packages is expanding, and I > sincerely doubt that (in the near future) that it would be possible, even if > you limited a DVD to x86 or SPARC files only, to fit every possible package > on a single disc of 4.x GiB optical media. Agreed. But a single DVD image (or USB drive) that I can use with any platform would make it so that those that feel the need to carry one around to fix really broken systems or install new systems would only need to have one. My guess is that a CD image would be big enough to hold the miniroot for x86 and sparc and a large enough repo to install systems that look kinda like SUNWCrnet plus required management agents. Such media would just be the bootstraps to let the enterprise management tools take over to configure the system the way it really needs to be configured. I completely get that the team is strapped and am not expecting any rabbits to be pulled out of a hat. Unfortunately my time to contribute code has been rather constrained as of late. -- Mike Gerdts http://mgerdts.blogspot.com/
