At 16:47 08/31/2005 -0700, Ralph Shumaker wrote: [snip] >>On a side note there's likely a checkbox in the program you're using to burn >>the CD that says "verify CD contents after burn" or something along those >>lines (maybe not), but even so I would say you could have installed Fedora a >>few times over the last couple days by now and would just know. It's never >>been a problem before........ >> >> > >"and would just know"? How would I know that there is not some gotcha >that is just waiting to be stepped on. Not everything starts running >and cordially reporting errors right after installation is complete. It >could be that a portion of the "ls" code is never actually run until a >specific switch is used, at which time the glitch (not caught by the >media test) decides that there is nothing important on my HD. How would >you "just know"?
The rpm packaging system is fairly robust. When an installation is created, the system is initialized by creating partitions, and a default directory layout is created. Then an empty rpm database is created. Using the package list that either is the default for the installation you chose (desktop, workstation, server) or custom package selection, installation proceeds by actually installing the packages. The rpm package contains metadata, the files themselves as a cpio archive, and scripts. Pretty much at any point in the installation of a package, if there is something wrong with it (i.e. file corruption) rpm will barf. The probability of getting through an installtion without throwing errors all over the place using bad packages is small enough it is reasonble to use a system that says it completed installation normally. I can't quantify the probability for you, but having done dozens of installs myself plus helping at installfests and teaching class (I teach Linux at UCSD) I have a high level of confidence in systems that had a sucessful install. James Keeline can add to this since he teaches also and has seen probably hundreds of installs. Gus -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
