On Mon, Apr 19, 2004 at 10:00:27AM -0400, Patrick J. LoPresti wrote: > Most distributions I looked at are not designed for what we want to > do. We need to keep some stuff on the boot disk (like network > drivers) but other stuff on the network (like mass storage drivers). > And we want to be able to shuffle things from one to the other; e.g., > if we ever want to support DVD-ROM instead of a network share.
I noticed that there's a split between the two areas - which makes it a bit harder, but which I doubt is insurmountable. One way of getting around it is to follow the convention of bootstrap startup (root partition) -> complete system (/usr). You can shuffle things around in the system image to ensure that happens. > Also, the distributions I checked are way behind on some software, > like Linux 2.6, which has facilities we need. You're probably always going to have to build a custom kernel image, because none of the distros are going to be "sensitive" to your needs. Most distros (at least their development branches) are up to date enough to support a 2.6 kernel, if not ship the absolute latest version. > Mostly, though, I decided it would be fun to roll my own Linux > distribution. :-) I think we've all thought that at some stage. The fun wears off pretty quickly, especially when you've got whiny pricks like me asking for new software left and right. <grin> > > Debian has a nice command called debootstrap, which basically has a > > list of "base" packages which you can add to and remove from to > > create your own image. So, with something as simple as "debootstrap > > --include=libdbd-mysql-perl,dosemu --exclude=lilo sid /installimage" > > and then copying the unattended-specific scripts and kernel image > > files in, we'd have a nice debian system pretty much ready to go. > > Wouldn't that make the image itself huge? Not particularly. I think a base image is only about 20MB compressed. > > Patrick/Shad: do you have any interest in this? If so, I'm happy to > > supply some time and Debian-specific knowledge on what needs to be > > done to make this happen. > > Well, our own boot disk has served us well so far. I actually managed > to get a Linux kernel patch in for 2.6.5 which we now rely upon... > > On the other hand, we certainly do not have a good answer for people > who want to add their own "packages" to the boot disk. > > In short, I have mixed feeling. So the question is, how much effort > are you willing to put in without a guarantee that we will be > interested? Well, I'm actually starting to think about a slightly different concept in Unattended installs, which is unlikely to displace the current Linux bootdisk, but which would suit me very well in my current environment -- NFS root mounted installs. It means that the entire installation filesystem is modifyable (except the boot disk, which can at least be a floppy). It also happens to be what my other favourite automatic installation system, FAI, uses. If I've got a common boot disk for all my machines, changing which image they boot with, and hence which OS they install (Windows vs Linux), is simply a matter of changing which NFS root image they use in IRM (which exports to the DHCP server). Hopefully, all that'll be required is to rewrite /etc/master for the new hardware environment and integrate the 2.6.5 kernel Unattended is using, and she'll all be apples. Whether it ends up being an official part of Unattended is a question for the future, but it would certainly make for semi-infinite flexibility in software available for initial installation. - Matt ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by: IBM Linux Tutorials Free Linux tutorial presented by Daniel Robbins, President and CEO of GenToo technologies. Learn everything from fundamentals to system administration.http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=1470&alloc_id=3638&op=click _______________________________________________ unattended-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-devel
