On Tue, 13 Aug 2002 11:45, allen wrote:
> On Monday 12 August 2002 09:05 pm, Ryan Little wrote:
>>> 1. Say CD1 is a minimal installer and a file system, rudimentary,
>>> ready to go. ( And yes, I've actually created such a thing on contract
>>> for a company in the Northwest so I know this pretty well... )
>>> 2. You do the "install" and partition, and format, and BLLLLLAAAAMMMM !
>> The only problem I could see with not having it in an RPM is if for some
>> reason it needed to be upgraded (i.e. a release upgrade on which the fs
>> changed, or a bug fix.) It's much easier to upgrade things with RPM (If
>> it's done correctly).
> Are you assuming there would be no rpm database of what is on the base
> file system IN the base file system ?
If I did it that way (or the following way), I'd install a minimal amount of
RPM information on/from the CD and nice -19 rebuild the indexes and stuff
after the install.
What I'd _really_ like to see is a CD that boots like Knoppix, autodetects
everything in sight, asks enough questions to get a user up and your LAN etc
running (and/or filches it from an existing Windows or Linux system), and
then you just start using it.
When the system's been idle for a few seconds, it starts (niced) partitioning
and copying stuff across from the running filesystem on the CD. If the user
hits a key, moves the mouse, or has a busy app, the copying process is
SIGSTOPped until shortly after all falls quiet again.
Maybe it also caches reads from the CD onto the HDD so that as you pull your
most-used stuff off the CD in the course of actually using it, it makes it to
the HDD and doesn't need re-reading next time.
This could easily be done with a temporary bitmap file on the HDD so it
survives a reboot. When `stealth installation' is complete, the HDD
partitions are remounted, pivotrooted or whatever so that the system is now
running from the HDD, and the CD is ejected.
Knoppix is already useful for offices wherein the entire place has been
trashed with a virus. If Mandrake could install this way, you could walk in
with a Mandrake CD and have people up and running within minutes, and
permanently Mandrake'd within the hour.
Another useful feature would be to nominate a machine as Keeper of the
Install, so after it's installed and up (or before!) it offers an RO NFS
share with an image of the CD on it, asks for each RPM CD in turn, and adds
them to its collection. Then individual machines could be booted from a CD,
remounted pretty much instantly on the NFS share, startup/install continues
on NFS as from the CD, and the CD is ejected for use in the next machine. The
RPMs are then available to both the `server' and newborn workstations for
adding packages as required.
This could be done as a separate project to the `standard' Mandrake CD sets,
released a month or two after 9.0, and take the world by storm.
+-----------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Do you like me enough to keep me? |
| |
| [ install ] [ nag later ] [ i'll call you ] |
| |
+-----------------------------------------------------+
Additional wishlist items:
* Ability to configure a single workstation and use its RPM selection
for all following.
* Ability to deduce network card drivers from their ARP signature or
MAC address, and either offer boot images for them to do all of the
above, or make boot floppies to do same in case they don't have PXE
or EtherBoot ROMs. As well as simplifying installation, you could
make a whole trashed office functional (LTSP style RO from your
server, with the option of making it permanent) in about ten
minutes. (-:
Imagery: power up virussed Windows box. 30 seconds later it is a
working Mandrake machine. Walk to next machine, power it up. By the
time you've powered up the 20th machine, the first is a fully
installed standalone workstation.
How say you? The perfect time to bring this up? <G/D/R>
Cheers; Leon
