Hi Glynn, Thank you for your comments. Please see my responses below.
Glynn Foster wrote: > Peter Tribble wrote: > >>> * From a GUI, the user should be able to select a list of packages >>> to >>> be included to build a custom distro. >>> >> Selecting packages is likely to prove tedious. While selection at the >> individual >> package level is necessary, I believe that something like package clusters >> would be a more useful unit of selection. (And I have tried to build a >> jumpstart >> profile builder, which isn't that different in concept.) >> > > I think unfortunately you'd probably want the best of both worlds - while a > lot > of people probably wouldn't care much beyond a package cluster level, I > imagine > there would be those that would want a finer level of control. I haven't seen > any Linux distribution do the finer control well though, so it would be > interesting to see what can be done here. > > It is our plan to allow users to select package "groups", or select individual packages. We do not have any implementation details at this time. When we do, we will post our proposal for everyone to review and comment. >>> * From the command line, user provide the Distro Constructor (DC) >>> with >>> a list of packages. The DC will pull in all other necessary >>> packages >>> to create a self-consistent installation image. >>> >>> * Given an existing distribution, the DC will create a new >>> distribution >>> based on addition or subtraction of contents as specified by the >>> user. >>> >> How does subtraction work? In particular, does the distribution description >> know which packages were specified, and which were added to satisfy >> dependencies? And if a package were subtracted, what happens to those >> other packages that were only added in order to satisfy the dependencies >> of the now removed package? >> > > I took this to mean, here's a distribution that I'm running, with an installed > package set. Go make a distribution from it (though this doesn't migrate > configuration). > Actually, what we have planned is slightly different than what you mentioned above. The distribution should not have been installed on a system. The "given distribution" can be an valid configuration file that can be used as input to creating a distribution. The "given distribution" can also be an image that has already been created. At this time, we are not considering a system that has been installed, and running. Even though we can figure out the list of packages that are installed on the system, we will not be able to find out other modifications that are made to the system if they are not done by adding/removing packages. The input distribution we want to use in this case is something that we can reliably find out the list of packages included. >>> * The DC release will come with a few predefined "useful" >>> configurations, which can be helpful to users who want to create >>> their >>> custom distribution with some minor modification. >>> >> I would like to see specific examples of the sort of configurations under >> consideration . >> > > Similarly. Would specifying the target size be an option in the interface, so > that you would immediately know whether the resulting distribution could fit > on > a CD/DVD/USB. It would be interesting (though I'm not sure how useful) if we > could specific the compressed size *and* the installed size. > > > We don't have this feature planned at this time, but it certainly sounds like a good suggestion. We include it in our desired feature list, and see whether it can be included in the Spring 2008 release. If not, it can certainly be done at a later release. Thanks, --Karen > Glynn > _______________________________________________ > caiman-discuss mailing list > caiman-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/caiman-discuss >
