Re: redesigning the debian installer

[Paulo Henrique Baptista de Oliveira]

        We interviewed Google employee last week and he says that Google
installs 80 servers at once with RedHat an some tools that he will not open to
the world. :)
        If Debian supporte quick installations...
Quoting Michael S. Fischer ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
> I rather wish I'd seen the beginning of this thread so I could gain
> some context.  I'll see if I can find it at the archive so I can be
> better educated, but for now I'll try to offer my comments as is.
> 
> I should introduce myself first.  I am the operations team lead for
> AuctionWatch.com (the .signature is for my side project; I have
> interests in Debian besides those of my employer's, but they don't
> necessarily conflict).
> 
> Currently we're using Red Hat Linux because of its kickstart
> installation process.  I'm not terribly thrilled with Red Hat for many
> other reasons, but I am quite fond of Debian.  However, with Red Hat I
> can install 100 search servers in under 15 minutes.  Currently there
> is no easy way to accomplish the same feat with Debian; it is my
> intent to help offer advice and comments that hopefully will lead to
> an unattended installation process for the next release of Debian.
> 
> On Tue, Sep 12, 2000 at 05:24:41PM -0700, Joey Hess wrote:
> 
> > > Which UI: Text, fb, X11 or all selectable ?
> > 
> > Whatever UI is being used. (Not sure I understand the question.)
> 
> Serial console redirection needs to be available.  We have hundreds of
> servers (with Intel L440GX+ motherboards with serial BIOS support)
> attached to Portmasters.  These are headless boxes.
> 
> > > "It might also include language selection"  ??  Not might, it is a must.
> > 
> > I meant that it may or may not make sense to do this as part of UI
> > configuration. It may turn out that it makes sense to do it as a
> > seperate step if the code can be shared amoung all UI's.
> 
> This should be settable in the installation profile for an unattended
> installation.
> 
> > > >   - Reboot the system
> > > 
> > >   We will avoid system reboot. 
> > 
> > We may provide an _option_ to skip the system reboot.
> 
> This sounds like a more reasonable option.  In an unattended
> installation it's best to stick in a floppy, watch it read for 90
> seconds, eject and go.  The system should be capable of being rebooted
> immediately after installation into production mode (provided, of
> course, that the installation and configuration profile was correct).
> 
> > > Another important point is an hardware detection database.
> > 
> > This is left up to the modules that provide support for the various
> > hardware. We need to pick a good hardware detection library for those
> > modules to use, that's for sure. There are several. libdetect0 is
> > already in Debian (but it's 155k! Urk!).
> 
> I think that hardware detection should be optional.  In our case, we
> have hundreds of servers, all the same hardware, and we know pretty
> darned well what's in them and that's not going to change for awhile.
> In the case of mass installation it's probably better that it just be
> manually specified and not risk breakage due to a possibly incorrect
> detection mechanism.
> 
> -- 
> Michael S. Fischer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, AKA Otterley          
> Lead Hacketeer, Dynamine Consulting, Silicon Valley, CA               
> Phone: +1 650 533 4684 | AIM: IsThisOtterley | ICQ: 4218323
> PGP key fingerprint: 53BD 4179 C3C6 DF0F A8D6  10E6 E1D9 7091 D330 F08D
> "From the bricks of shame is built the hope"--Alan Wilder
> 
> 
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