On Thursday 22 February 2001 16:56, you wrote:
> I recently decided to explore the cooker and all it's wonders but have
> been stumped about how to set up a system. The instructions on the
> Mandrake pages explain how to set up a mirror of the cooker on your
> own system but there is no reference of how to set up an actual
> system. It seems to me that there must be a way to install a fully
> functional cooker system and update it daily (?) to synchronize all
> changed files. A hint on how to do this or a pointer to a how-to would
> greatly be appreciated.
The easiest is to get a semi-recent copy of the Cooker ISO image and use that
to do a fresh install. Once you've done that, grab an rsync utility like
what I"m including below:
[ewilts@linux1 ewilts]$ cat /usr/local/bin/rsync-no-cooker
#!/bin/sh
startdate=`date`
rsync -ltrvz --partial --progress --stats --delete \
sunsite.uio.no::Mandrake-devel/cooker /home/
enddate=`date`
echo "Started at $startdate"
echo "Finished at $enddate"
This will mirror the entire cooker tree and you do can do regular updates
from there with an rpm -Fvh.
Note that you will be getting LOTS of updates. I usually rsync every day or
two and keep my copies up to date, but I do not have my rsync in my crontab,
simply because if I'm not going to freshen my running copies, there's no
point in burning network bandwidth transferring files that I won't use.
Even the kernel gets updated every day or two, so my procedure is usually to
manually update the kernel (freshen the source, headers, and doc rpms), keep
at least one backup copy of the kernel installed, delete the oldest, install
the newest, edit /boot/grub/menu.lst, /boot/grub/install.sh so that I've
always got the newest kernel and one I know works). Once the kernel is done,
I then do an rpm -Fvh on all the packages and fix whatever pops up (like cups
disabling itself on every update).
In the cooker/misc directory, you'll find mkcd.pl. I use it on a
semi-regular basis to create new Cooker ISO images. I keep those as a handy
backup in case I get a bad rpm that screws me up, like the recent network
snafu that prevented my network from starting. Just mount the cooker iso on
the loopback device, install an older version that works, and you're back up
and running and can get a fixed rpm in a day or two.
Holler if you need more help than this. Actually, if you can't understand
the approach, maybe cooker isn't for you :-)
Remember ALL THE TIME that cooker is alpha software. There will likely be
times when you install a package that will cause you serious grief (like the
net kit I mentioned above), including rendering your system unbootable. You
should be prepared to learn how to recover from these kind of situations
without complaining out loud (grumbling and cussing to yourself is expected!).
Happy cooking!
.../Ed
--
Ed Wilts, Mounds View, MN, USA
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
