Well, the answer to all of these concerns, is the copy that would be on the Novell server, is trimmed to only be a FTP server.
i.e. You download the IPL decks. Do a FTP install using NOVELLs ftp site. When it comes up, it may have a script to FTP from the Novell site, the ISO images and mount the images on your local server. Now, any local and customized installs will be from your site. Novell would always have the ISO images available, for any of use that have our own "installation" method. But this would be a great help for that first one. When I first started with zLinux, I didn't know all the different Windows based FTP servers available, and what the differences were. Initially, under Win/98, mounting my CD drive seemed to work. The FTP server I tried to use didn't work well. When I tried the next release of Linux, I was on XP. Window shares didn't seem to work. Eventually I found an FTP server that did work. Apparently, some FTP servers for Windows, didn't support long filenames and long directory names. Now if I was on a formal project, I would have gotten help from the Business Partner or other local IBM types. Off and on, I spend months on LINUX-390, trying to figure out why things didn't work. All that, just to start. Everything else has been rather easy. Of course, your idea of a DDRCMS image, perhaps tailored to be an FTP server, would be just as good. But I was thinking of more of a small shop (MP3000 without a lot of extra disk), that my method would allow installation on smaller drives (several quarter packs or model 1 drives, perhaps 3380s also). Back in my first installs, I was always "hunting" for disk space. (Now I have 3 of my 4 TBs idle.) It just seems like it would take less people time, for Novell to setup a single FTP server, and mount the first ISO CD image. The DDRCMS solution would seem to be do an install and then backup. And to do this for each Version they come out with (and perhaps one for each of the service packs). Anyway, either way, a good "jump-start" method would really help. Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting (RIP Goldie, a great cat and my buddy for 15 years) >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/28/2006 3:19 PM >>> > What would be even easier.... > Have Novell mount the images on an FTP server. > Right? During install, I can specify the IP address of the FTP > server. > What are the problems in Novell mounting the ISO images and serving > them up? 1) Bandwidth -- who pays for transferring that many bits? Multiply n CDs times number of licensees x number of installs x number of idiots who won't set up a local repository == a LOT of bandwidth. That goes directly to the price of the distribution. 2) Reliability -- Novell doesn't control the public Internet (thank heavens). Nobody does. You have to rely on every ISP and telco between you and them to get it right and supply sufficient capacity to support bulk transfer. Would you want your revenue stream dependent on something you don't control? You could distribute images via some service like Akamai to minimize the connectivity issue, but that isn't free. 3) What happens every time they release a new Intel version -- their FTP site gets clobbered for days at a time. What happens if you desperately need to do an install during that period? You could distribute images via some service like Akamai to minimize the congestion issue, but that isn't free. > Make it a subset, if worried about abuse, that is sufficient to setup > your own FTP server and then retrieve the ISO images, and mount them for > your own "custom" install. You can already get that. Heck, *we* supply a cheap install server in CMSDDR format that works equally well for Debian or RH/SuSE. If there's interest enough for just enough of a server appliance to do installs with, and people would chip in as little as $25 to support the development and test time, we'd be happy to provide one. > I've been trying to get Novell to make their Novell SuSE distribution > available in CMSDDR format. They'd have to develop CMS skills. They're having enough problems just testing the Linux stuff. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
