Public bug reported:
Binary package hint: ubiquity
[Feature Request. Noticed this while installing Karmic alphas and betas
and dailies.]
Disk drives are huge these days. Distro media are very small by
comparison. There should be a really simple way to put a full copy of
the install media onto the disk drive of the just-installed system. And
apt should be configured to use it for subsequent package installs.
This would burn maybe 1-2% of the disk drive, but would provide a
complete set of validated and checksummed packages that can be used on
the system (without any network access) to upgrade or repair a damaged
machine -- or to install a second machine.
There's no reason to go out to the net to download packages that are
unchanged since the distro ISO image was cut -- but that's what Ubuntu's
apt-get and Package Manager does today. Instead, put the ISO image into
the system at e.g. /usr/share/linux-images/ubuntu-9.04-dvd-i386.iso, and
set up apt and/or fstab so that this distro image is accessible for
installing later packages.
I regularly copy the ISO image onto the target system manually, but apt
makes it hard to use such an image for package installs. (apt-cdrom
really assumes you need/have a CDROM drive; it should be possible to
just point it at one or several ISO images and be done!)
If you want to get really fun, then support doing Live CD's and installs from
an ISO image over the network (using a simple boot USB key) -- and copy the
image onto the target system. Most people download an ISO image, then have to
burn it to a throwaway CD/DVD, then physically move that disc to the target
system, etc. How much better to just download the image,
use a standard boot-my-image-over-the-net boot disc or USB key, and do the
LiveCD or install over the Ethernet from the machine you just downloaded the
ISO image to?
Another possible simplification would be to fix the USB images so that
they contain the full ISO image (as a file), plus a small amount of boot
code outside of it. Currently, you can't check a bootable USB install
-- it has no checksum that works. If your USB key is flakey, you get
odd errors that you can't reproduce after remaking the USB key and
trying again.
** Affects: ubiquity (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
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Ubiquity should put install image onto target disk for apt's use
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/455167
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