He's a little off base regarding how CD's actually work, but what do you guys think about the NFS support issues?
--- Begin Message ---> > Hey, as you may know we're removing all non-apt acquisition methods > from the boot-floppies, now that apt can handle them all better > (except perhaps for wierd proxy ftp gateways). IMHO apt is missing an important feature, the ability to download packages from an nfs server, which is however supported by the slink boot floppies. Obviously we can mount manually the remote directory and use a file: url, but having this handled automatically by apt would be a great simplification. In my bootfloppy I translate the cdrom lines of sources.list into the appropriate file: lines and create a script that mounts partitions or nfs directories on automatically created mount points under /var/mnt/apt. It would be nice if apt could handle the same source type supported by the bootfloppy and mount them automatically: deb nfs://server/path ... deb device://device/path ... The advantage of using nfs over http or ftp is that you can use the same source specification of the bootfloppy and you don't need any extra disk space for downloading all the files before installing them. > I'm wondering if there's going to be any sort of way that we could > ease the configurability of apt for newbies. The [A]ccess action from > dselect triggers one current system, which is inadequate. The [A]ccess and [U]pdate actions can be totally skipped if you use the same access method used from the bootfloppies: cdrom -> cdrom: (should have all cdrom lists on 1st cd) nfs -> file: (or nfs: when implemented) mounted -> file: partition -> file: When you select an access method for the base installation the same method can be used also to install the packages and is a very silly idea to prompt the user for a different method to access the same media it this can be done automatically by the installer program. > Here would be my critical list of features: > > * runs in console This is mandatory in my optinion. I have installed (automatically) debian on machines with 256K of graphic memory, where any graphical installation tool would be totally unusable. > * allows easy selection of CDROMs as well as http, ftp, etc, walking the > user thru multi-cd scans if necessary The multi-cd scan can be avoided if the first cdrom contains the packages lists and identification of all cd's used by the distribution: <cd_root> --- install --- apt --- sources.list cdroms.list lists --- <cd_label>_Packages lists --- <cd_label>_Release I haven't still tried this but my automatic installer should be able to handle it in the same way it handles partitions or nfs. > * could be run from within dselect or not > > Here is my very very important list: > > * i18n and l10n We can live without these for the moment... > * can autodetect debian official CDs and respond accordingly It would be better to define a standard common method which could be used to describe any distribution on cd, file, nfs or http, for example: # <source>/install/dist.conf # # Configuration file for dz distribution. # # Distribution identification DISTRIBUTION="dz" DISTRIBUTION_NAME="Debian/DZ" # # Base files INSTALL_BASE="dists/dz/disks-i386/2.1.8-1999-02-22/base2_1.tgz" INSTALL_RESCUE="dists/dz/disks-i386/2.1.8-1999-02-22/resc1440.bin" INSTALL_DRIVERS="dists/dz/disks-i386/2.1.8-1999-02-22/drv1440.bin" INSTALL_EXTRA="dists/dz/disks-i386/2.1.8-1999-02-22/extra.tgz" INSTALL_KERNEL="dists/dz/disks-i386/2.1.8-1999-02-22/linux" INSTALL_INITRD="dists/dz/disks-i386/2.1.8-1999-02-22/initrd.gz" INSTALL_CONFIGS="dists/dz/install/configs.tgz" # # Apt configuration SOURCES_LIST="dists/dz/install/apt/sources.list" CD_LABEL="Debian/DZ" CD_ID="Debian_DZ" # # Cdrom description, required only for cdroms # CD_HASH="e9e9173bdfba2ce769ba37e0d744ddee" # CDROM_LIST="dists/dz/install/apt/cdrom.list" # CDROM_LISTS="dists/dz/install/apt/lists/" # PACKAGES_CD="dists/dz/main/binary-i386/Packages.cd" The installer should prepend to the paths an appropriate source prefix depending on the access method used from the bootdisk. In my automatic installed I translate a cdrom: sources.list into a file: sources.list. Not very elegant but it works for nfs and partititions, and it should also work for cd's. This could be used for any cd or network based distribution, official Debian or custom made, and is much better than any automagic detection of the cd. > * doesn't select non-free automatically (?!) > > Here is my "would be nice list": > > * has a list of standard debian mirrors, allows user to select that for > http and ftp -- Massimo Dal Zotto +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Massimo Dal Zotto email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Via Marconi, 141 phone: ++39-0461534251 | | 38057 Pergine Valsugana (TN) www: http://www.cs.unitn.it/~dz/ | | Italy pgp: finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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-- -- .....Adam Di [EMAIL PROTECTED]<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>
