Ok, so you're installing Debian on a bunch of computers in a student
computer lab.
You boot one of them with the boot CD, and spend an hour...
Installing the "template" system... Perhaps a server is already up
and running, maybe over there, next to the paperwaster. You give
configuration input as you go, the first time around. When it's
ready, you take a floppy or the CD around to each of the other 35 or
40 workstations, and boot them to an installer setup.
You tell each of them where the template system is as you go, then
walk back to the template box with the CD, put it back in the drive,
and click a Debian swirl embellished magic button. The template box
signals the others... and in orderly fashion, they report their NIC
addresses and say tell me who I am. DHCP magic happens, they get
IP's.
You go around to each workstation in turn, and tell it its name.
The template box broadcasts the install to the workstations, they
install the software, and save their questions for later.
The questions are asked of the template; the template consolidates
them in some way, and you get a form to fill out...
That form might be a template? Hmmm...
(mapc #'(lambda (hostname)
(some function here that does the right configs))
'(a list of hostnames)
I guess there's always going to be a few things that will differ from
workstation to workstation that you'll have to fill out using a
keyboard.
There perhaps ought to be provision for those workstations mounting
most softare via NFS or AFS... ala FHS. They need only the very
basics; enough on them to offload processing from the swerver.
Like Apple did it.
