Re: Possibility of accepting a network-based installer of Ubuntu as an official flavor?
I tested https://cdimages.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-mini-iso/daily-live/current/lunar-mini-iso-amd64.iso and it currently displays Ubuntu Desktop and Server 22.04.2 and 22.10 I believe it currently loads releases from https://releases.ubuntu.com/streams/v1/ so it will automatically include 23.04 once it is officially released and 22.10 will be removed once that release goes End of Life. Will the mini ISO be released as an official product for 23.04? I think it could be helpful to have a variant of the mini ISO to help with ISO testing especially for milestones. It can be convenient to not have to repeatedly write different ISOs to a USB stick to test on real hardware. This sounds like a good project for 23.10. It looks like Issues are disabled at https://github.com/canonical/mini-iso-tools Where should issues be reported? Thank you, Jeremy Bicha -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
Re: Possibility of accepting a network-based installer of Ubuntu as an official flavor?
On 2/24/23 11:51, Dan Bungert wrote: On Fri, 24 Feb 2023 at 04:54, Aaron Rainbolt wrote: I've seen more than one person annoyed by the fact that the mini.iso netinstaller is no more. The "flavor" would be able to be held in a very small ISO file (preferably CD sized), and it would download and install all of the packages that make up the Ubuntu system at runtime. This would allow a user to install Ubuntu or any desired flavor thereof using a single installation medium, rather than having to flash an ISO every time they want to make a drive install a different flavor. The new installation would be entirely up-to-date from the get-go, and it would enable the use of existing small storage media for those users who don't have sufficiently sized optical discs or flash drives. Hi Aaron, As Lukasz mentioned, I've been looking at relevant things, and expect that we can have the first version of ubuntu-mini-iso running this cycle. I missed feature freeze, so I'll be filing that exception :). Lukasz wrote a perfect summary of the work so far, so I'll quote it here: The ubuntu-mini-iso is a small bootable iso that can be either downloaded and used on a CD/USB-drive or even via UEFI HTTP that brings up a dynamic TUI menu of what Ubuntu images you want to download/install to your target system. It uses simplestreams to select which images, so it'll be quite customizable regarding the selection. The difference is that it then downloads the iso-of-interest into memory and chain-boots into it, allowing the installation of any image as one would normally do. This has some limitations of course, since it needs sufficiently enough RAM. So I think that will address much of what you were aiming for. Size: the bootleg builds I'm doing of this are around 140 MiB, I expect the official builds to produce a similar answer. It could potentially be smaller, the size today is dominated by use of the existing Ubuntu initrd with a few things added on top. (compare to the size of /boot/initrd.img) Download at runtime: ubuntu-mini-iso achieves this by presenting a menu of ISOs that we could download, then with the user selection, reserving some memory, downloading that ISO, and then kexecing to it. ISOs in the menu: there is a casper hook that downloads simplestream json data and hands it to the menu application, a small ncurses app that analyzes the json, finds what ISOs to offer, and does so. The user chooses an entry from the menu, that info is handed back to the casper scripts, which download it and we chain boot. That menu could be extended for Flavors support, perhaps conceptually similar to how flavors are shown today on https://releases.ubuntu.com/. The relevant code is at: https://github.com/canonical/mini-iso-tools It's not necessary to build an ISO to start playing with the menu, if you download that, get the dependencies installed, `make run`, and you can see what the menu looks like. If I actually wanted to build the ISO to test my changes "live", how would I do that? I assume there are docs somewhere for building an ISO from scratch but I don't know where I would look for those, and I'm not sure if the mini iso would require different instructions If you're interested to help, Aaron, a good starting point would be to add entries to https://github.com/canonical/mini-iso-tools/blob/main/json.c#L27 to teach the menu how to read the simplestreams for the flavors. The existing menu can fit on a single screen, so if we start adding flavors I think it will need some nested menu support, but that's achievable. Sounds like a good starting point, I'm thinking about looking into this pretty soon. I know a bit of C, so I might be able to help implement that, hopefully. I have done a hacked test run of having this new mini-iso chainboot to lubuntu 22.04.2 and it all works fine. -Dan -- Aaron Rainbolt Lubuntu Developer https://github.com/ArrayBolt3 https://launchpad.net/~arraybolt3 @arraybolt3:lubuntu.me on Matrix, arraybolt3 on irc.libera.chat OpenPGP_0x6169B9B4248C0464.asc Description: OpenPGP public key OpenPGP_signature Description: OpenPGP digital signature -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
Re: Possibility of accepting a network-based installer of Ubuntu as an official flavor?
Huh. TIL. That's awesome. On 2/24/23 14:33, Steve Langasek wrote: On Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 02:20:25PM -0600, Aaron Rainbolt wrote: This makes good sense to me. The concern I'm noticing here is that Secure Boot activates a kernel lockdown mode that prohibits kexec. Incorrect. It disables the old kexec syscall which doesn't have an interface for doing signature verification of the payload. It does not disable the use of kexec as a feature. -- Aaron Rainbolt Lubuntu Developer https://github.com/ArrayBolt3 https://launchpad.net/~arraybolt3 @arraybolt3:lubuntu.me on Matrix, arraybolt3 on irc.libera.chat OpenPGP_0x6169B9B4248C0464.asc Description: OpenPGP public key OpenPGP_signature Description: OpenPGP digital signature -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
Re: Possibility of accepting a network-based installer of Ubuntu as an official flavor?
On Fri, Feb 24, 2023 at 02:20:25PM -0600, Aaron Rainbolt wrote: > This makes good sense to me. The concern I'm noticing here is that Secure > Boot activates a kernel lockdown mode that prohibits kexec. Incorrect. It disables the old kexec syscall which doesn't have an interface for doing signature verification of the payload. It does not disable the use of kexec as a feature. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer https://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org signature.asc Description: PGP signature -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
Re: Possibility of accepting a network-based installer of Ubuntu as an official flavor?
Secureboot allows kexec, when using the recentish kexec_file_load syscall which performs kernel image signature verification. All of this just works under secureboot. On Fri, 24 Feb 2023, 20:20 Aaron Rainbolt, wrote: > > On 2/24/23 11:51, Dan Bungert wrote: > >>> On Fri, 24 Feb 2023 at 04:54, Aaron Rainbolt > wrote: > I've seen more than one person annoyed by the fact that the mini.iso > netinstaller is no more. > The "flavor" would be able to be held in a > very small ISO file (preferably CD sized), and it would download and > install all of the packages that make up the Ubuntu system at runtime. > This would allow a user to install Ubuntu or any desired flavor > thereof > using a single installation medium, rather than having to flash an ISO > every time they want to make a drive install a different flavor. The > new > installation would be entirely up-to-date from the get-go, and it > would > enable the use of existing small storage media for those users who > don't > have sufficiently sized optical discs or flash drives. > > Hi Aaron, > > > > As Lukasz mentioned, I've been looking at relevant things, and expect > that we > > can have the first version of ubuntu-mini-iso running this cycle. I > missed > > feature freeze, so I'll be filing that exception :). > > > > Lukasz wrote a perfect summary of the work so far, so I'll quote it here: > >>> The ubuntu-mini-iso is a small bootable iso that can be either > >>> downloaded and used on a CD/USB-drive or even via UEFI HTTP that > >>> brings up a dynamic TUI menu of what Ubuntu images you want to > >>> download/install to your target system. It uses simplestreams to > >>> select which images, so it'll be quite customizable regarding the > >>> selection. The difference is that it then downloads the > >>> iso-of-interest into memory and chain-boots into it, allowing the > >>> installation of any image as one would normally do. This has some > >>> limitations of course, since it needs sufficiently enough RAM. > > So I think that will address much of what you were aiming for. > > > > Size: the bootleg builds I'm doing of this are around 140 MiB, I expect > the > > official builds to produce a similar answer. It could potentially be > smaller, > > the size today is dominated by use of the existing Ubuntu initrd with a > few > > things added on top. (compare to the size of /boot/initrd.img) > > > > Download at runtime: ubuntu-mini-iso achieves this by presenting a menu > of ISOs > > that we could download, then with the user selection, reserving some > memory, > > downloading that ISO, and then kexecing to it. > > This makes good sense to me. The concern I'm noticing here is that > Secure Boot activates a kernel lockdown mode that prohibits kexec. One > workaround may be to have the user choose the release of Ubuntu to > install at a GRUB menu so that a pre-existing kernel and initrd can be > loaded, but this would bloat the ISO and complicate its use. > > Another possible solution might be to use mokutil to disable Secure Boot > verification in the shim (essentially turning Secure Boot off without > needing to get the BIOS involved), then rebooting the system. Then > Secure Boot can be re-enabled with mokutil and then the ISO downloaded > and kexec'd. When the user finishes installation and reboots, Secure > Boot will be active again. This might complicate things with third-party > drivers though. > > Perhaps we just live with no Secure Boot support? > > > ISOs in the menu: there is a casper hook that downloads simplestream > json data > > and hands it to the menu application, a small ncurses app that analyzes > the > > json, finds what ISOs to offer, and does so. The user chooses an entry > from > > the menu, that info is handed back to the casper scripts, which download > it and > > we chain boot. > > > > That menu could be extended for Flavors support, perhaps conceptually > similar > > to how flavors are shown today on https://releases.ubuntu.com/. The > relevant > > code is at: https://github.com/canonical/mini-iso-tools > > It's not necessary to build an ISO to start playing with the menu, if you > > download that, get the dependencies installed, `make run`, and you can > see what > > the menu looks like. > > > > If you're interested to help, Aaron, a good starting point would be to > add > > entries to > https://github.com/canonical/mini-iso-tools/blob/main/json.c#L27 to > > teach the menu how to read the simplestreams for the flavors. > > > > The existing menu can fit on a single screen, so if we start adding > flavors I > > think it will need some nested menu support, but that's achievable. > > > > I have done a hacked test run of having this new mini-iso chainboot to > lubuntu > > 22.04.2 and it all works fine. > Nice, sounds awesome. Thank you for the info, and I'll see if I can hack > on this at some point! > > -Dan > > -- > Aaron Rainbolt > Lubuntu Developer > https://github.com/ArrayBo
Re: Possibility of accepting a network-based installer of Ubuntu as an official flavor?
On 2/24/23 11:51, Dan Bungert wrote: On Fri, 24 Feb 2023 at 04:54, Aaron Rainbolt wrote: I've seen more than one person annoyed by the fact that the mini.iso netinstaller is no more. The "flavor" would be able to be held in a very small ISO file (preferably CD sized), and it would download and install all of the packages that make up the Ubuntu system at runtime. This would allow a user to install Ubuntu or any desired flavor thereof using a single installation medium, rather than having to flash an ISO every time they want to make a drive install a different flavor. The new installation would be entirely up-to-date from the get-go, and it would enable the use of existing small storage media for those users who don't have sufficiently sized optical discs or flash drives. Hi Aaron, As Lukasz mentioned, I've been looking at relevant things, and expect that we can have the first version of ubuntu-mini-iso running this cycle. I missed feature freeze, so I'll be filing that exception :). Lukasz wrote a perfect summary of the work so far, so I'll quote it here: The ubuntu-mini-iso is a small bootable iso that can be either downloaded and used on a CD/USB-drive or even via UEFI HTTP that brings up a dynamic TUI menu of what Ubuntu images you want to download/install to your target system. It uses simplestreams to select which images, so it'll be quite customizable regarding the selection. The difference is that it then downloads the iso-of-interest into memory and chain-boots into it, allowing the installation of any image as one would normally do. This has some limitations of course, since it needs sufficiently enough RAM. So I think that will address much of what you were aiming for. Size: the bootleg builds I'm doing of this are around 140 MiB, I expect the official builds to produce a similar answer. It could potentially be smaller, the size today is dominated by use of the existing Ubuntu initrd with a few things added on top. (compare to the size of /boot/initrd.img) Download at runtime: ubuntu-mini-iso achieves this by presenting a menu of ISOs that we could download, then with the user selection, reserving some memory, downloading that ISO, and then kexecing to it. This makes good sense to me. The concern I'm noticing here is that Secure Boot activates a kernel lockdown mode that prohibits kexec. One workaround may be to have the user choose the release of Ubuntu to install at a GRUB menu so that a pre-existing kernel and initrd can be loaded, but this would bloat the ISO and complicate its use. Another possible solution might be to use mokutil to disable Secure Boot verification in the shim (essentially turning Secure Boot off without needing to get the BIOS involved), then rebooting the system. Then Secure Boot can be re-enabled with mokutil and then the ISO downloaded and kexec'd. When the user finishes installation and reboots, Secure Boot will be active again. This might complicate things with third-party drivers though. Perhaps we just live with no Secure Boot support? ISOs in the menu: there is a casper hook that downloads simplestream json data and hands it to the menu application, a small ncurses app that analyzes the json, finds what ISOs to offer, and does so. The user chooses an entry from the menu, that info is handed back to the casper scripts, which download it and we chain boot. That menu could be extended for Flavors support, perhaps conceptually similar to how flavors are shown today on https://releases.ubuntu.com/. The relevant code is at: https://github.com/canonical/mini-iso-tools It's not necessary to build an ISO to start playing with the menu, if you download that, get the dependencies installed, `make run`, and you can see what the menu looks like. If you're interested to help, Aaron, a good starting point would be to add entries to https://github.com/canonical/mini-iso-tools/blob/main/json.c#L27 to teach the menu how to read the simplestreams for the flavors. The existing menu can fit on a single screen, so if we start adding flavors I think it will need some nested menu support, but that's achievable. I have done a hacked test run of having this new mini-iso chainboot to lubuntu 22.04.2 and it all works fine. Nice, sounds awesome. Thank you for the info, and I'll see if I can hack on this at some point! -Dan -- Aaron Rainbolt Lubuntu Developer https://github.com/ArrayBolt3 https://launchpad.net/~arraybolt3 @arraybolt3:lubuntu.me on Matrix, arraybolt3 on irc.libera.chat OpenPGP_0x6169B9B4248C0464.asc Description: OpenPGP public key OpenPGP_signature Description: OpenPGP digital signature -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
Re: Possibility of accepting a network-based installer of Ubuntu as an official flavor?
Hi Aaron, Łukasz and Dan have covered the details of the work in progress, so just a couple of notes: On Thu, Feb 23, 2023 at 09:53:16PM -0600, Aaron Rainbolt wrote: > My idea is to either write my own installer or use a customized version of > the existing Debian installer, and package it into a "flavor" of its own, debian-installer is a no-go for future Ubuntu development. It has impact on the maintenance of a large number of core packages, most significantly the kernel, and we have made changes to dpkg in Ubuntu to categorically skip building udebs. mini.iso dropped out of the archive as part of an explicit decision to discontinue support for d-i/udebs. Fortunately, we've identified a path forward for addressing these use cases that doesn't require this. > which would be capable of installing any supported version of any official > flavor of Ubuntu. The "flavor" would be able to be held in a very small ISO > file (preferably CD sized), and it would download and install all of the > packages that make up the Ubuntu system at runtime. I would not consider this a "flavor", any more than the previous mini.iso was a flavor. It's more flavor*less* and thus I don't see it as requiring to go through the community flavor approval process as it's not intended to be a version of Ubuntu, merely an artifact that is used to install Ubuntu. That said, unlike the previous mini.iso, we fully intend that this be a supported and tested image! And crucially, unlike the mini.iso which bypassed all of the installer logic in favor of raw package selection and therefore gave a different - unsupported - install result vs the installer on our full flavor images, this new mini iso will boot the actual flavor installer and so any divergences in the installed system would simply be a bug. Cheers, -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer https://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org signature.asc Description: PGP signature -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
Re: Possibility of accepting a network-based installer of Ubuntu as an official flavor?
> > On Fri, 24 Feb 2023 at 04:54, Aaron Rainbolt wrote: > > > I've seen more than one person annoyed by the fact that the mini.iso > > > netinstaller is no more. > > > The "flavor" would be able to be held in a > > > very small ISO file (preferably CD sized), and it would download and > > > install all of the packages that make up the Ubuntu system at runtime. > > > This would allow a user to install Ubuntu or any desired flavor thereof > > > using a single installation medium, rather than having to flash an ISO > > > every time they want to make a drive install a different flavor. The new > > > installation would be entirely up-to-date from the get-go, and it would > > > enable the use of existing small storage media for those users who don't > > > have sufficiently sized optical discs or flash drives. Hi Aaron, As Lukasz mentioned, I've been looking at relevant things, and expect that we can have the first version of ubuntu-mini-iso running this cycle. I missed feature freeze, so I'll be filing that exception :). Lukasz wrote a perfect summary of the work so far, so I'll quote it here: > > The ubuntu-mini-iso is a small bootable iso that can be either > > downloaded and used on a CD/USB-drive or even via UEFI HTTP that > > brings up a dynamic TUI menu of what Ubuntu images you want to > > download/install to your target system. It uses simplestreams to > > select which images, so it'll be quite customizable regarding the > > selection. The difference is that it then downloads the > > iso-of-interest into memory and chain-boots into it, allowing the > > installation of any image as one would normally do. This has some > > limitations of course, since it needs sufficiently enough RAM. So I think that will address much of what you were aiming for. Size: the bootleg builds I'm doing of this are around 140 MiB, I expect the official builds to produce a similar answer. It could potentially be smaller, the size today is dominated by use of the existing Ubuntu initrd with a few things added on top. (compare to the size of /boot/initrd.img) Download at runtime: ubuntu-mini-iso achieves this by presenting a menu of ISOs that we could download, then with the user selection, reserving some memory, downloading that ISO, and then kexecing to it. ISOs in the menu: there is a casper hook that downloads simplestream json data and hands it to the menu application, a small ncurses app that analyzes the json, finds what ISOs to offer, and does so. The user chooses an entry from the menu, that info is handed back to the casper scripts, which download it and we chain boot. That menu could be extended for Flavors support, perhaps conceptually similar to how flavors are shown today on https://releases.ubuntu.com/. The relevant code is at: https://github.com/canonical/mini-iso-tools It's not necessary to build an ISO to start playing with the menu, if you download that, get the dependencies installed, `make run`, and you can see what the menu looks like. If you're interested to help, Aaron, a good starting point would be to add entries to https://github.com/canonical/mini-iso-tools/blob/main/json.c#L27 to teach the menu how to read the simplestreams for the flavors. The existing menu can fit on a single screen, so if we start adding flavors I think it will need some nested menu support, but that's achievable. I have done a hacked test run of having this new mini-iso chainboot to lubuntu 22.04.2 and it all works fine. -Dan -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
Re: Possibility of accepting a network-based installer of Ubuntu as an official flavor?
On 2/24/23 02:55, Lukasz Zemczak wrote: Hey Aaron! Actually, this is the one thing that sucks when we don't publish our team's roadmaps to the public (which I'm trying our team to start doing, but it's so busy recently that we didn't manage to yet): there is work ongoing on something like this - and actually this cycle! The MPs for that are still in flight, but Dan Bungert, the maintainer of subiquity, is working on a project called ubuntu-mini-iso. We already had a prototype done and tested, but now we're trying to land all of that to be built by the official infrastructure. The idea is a bit similar to what you described, but with a small difference on how the system-to-install is being downloaded for installation. The ubuntu-mini-iso is a small bootable iso that can be either downloaded and used on a CD/USB-drive or even via UEFI HTTP that brings up a dynamic TUI menu of what Ubuntu images you want to download/install to your target system. It uses simplestreams to select which images, so it'll be quite customizable regarding the selection. The difference is that it then downloads the iso-of-interest into memory and chain-boots into it, allowing the installation of any image as one would normally do. This has some limitations of course, since it needs sufficiently enough RAM. I'm pretty sure Dan can give more details about this when he's up and running. We expect this to be part of lunar in the next weeks. Cheers, That's awesome! I'll be watching for this, and if it's welcome, possibly trying to contribute to it eventually. Thanks for letting me know! On Fri, 24 Feb 2023 at 04:54, Aaron Rainbolt wrote: Note, I'm asking this *very* early. I don't have the project I have in mind even started yet. I'm not even sure what I want to name this project. This is more of a "testing the waters" to see if this kind of thing is even a possibility before getting started. I've seen more than one person annoyed by the fact that the mini.iso netinstaller is no more. It was never officially supported anyway, but apparently people got use out of it, so it seems like something that would be handy if it still existed. I'm sure we're not going to start producing it again, so I got the idea of making something that could act somewhat similar to it. I asked people about this idea on Mastodon and the response seemed fairly positive. My idea is to either write my own installer or use a customized version of the existing Debian installer, and package it into a "flavor" of its own, which would be capable of installing any supported version of any official flavor of Ubuntu. The "flavor" would be able to be held in a very small ISO file (preferably CD sized), and it would download and install all of the packages that make up the Ubuntu system at runtime. This would allow a user to install Ubuntu or any desired flavor thereof using a single installation medium, rather than having to flash an ISO every time they want to make a drive install a different flavor. The new installation would be entirely up-to-date from the get-go, and it would enable the use of existing small storage media for those users who don't have sufficiently sized optical discs or flash drives. I would eventually aim to make this into an official flavor of Ubuntu, however it would differ from all existing flavors in several significant ways: * It would be the first flavor that could not be installed onto a target system by itself. * It would be the first flavor that could install other flavors onto a target system by design. * It would be the first flavor that could install versions of Ubuntu other than the one it is based on. * It would have a different installer than any existing flavor of Ubuntu most likely, and would not be able to make use of existing official installers in any meaningful way without large changes to one of them. Because of these differences, I'm not sure if such a project could ever become an official flavor, and I may end up simply maintaining it as an unofficial installer by myself should I end up doing it. Is this kind of project a possible candidate for becoming an official Ubuntu Flavor, or is this enough info to declare it as not a possible candidate? Thanks for your time. -- Aaron Rainbolt Lubuntu Developer https://github.com/ArrayBolt3 https://launchpad.net/~arraybolt3 @arraybolt3:lubuntu.me on Matrix, arraybolt3 on irc.libera.chat -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel -- Aaron Rainbolt Lubuntu Developer https://github.com/ArrayBolt3 https://launchpad.net/~arraybolt3 @arraybolt3:lubuntu.me on Matrix, arraybolt3 on irc.libera.chat OpenPGP_0x6169B9B4248C0464.asc Description: OpenPGP public key OpenPGP_signature Description: OpenPGP digital signature -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-de
Re: Possibility of accepting a network-based installer of Ubuntu as an official flavor?
Hey Aaron! Actually, this is the one thing that sucks when we don't publish our team's roadmaps to the public (which I'm trying our team to start doing, but it's so busy recently that we didn't manage to yet): there is work ongoing on something like this - and actually this cycle! The MPs for that are still in flight, but Dan Bungert, the maintainer of subiquity, is working on a project called ubuntu-mini-iso. We already had a prototype done and tested, but now we're trying to land all of that to be built by the official infrastructure. The idea is a bit similar to what you described, but with a small difference on how the system-to-install is being downloaded for installation. The ubuntu-mini-iso is a small bootable iso that can be either downloaded and used on a CD/USB-drive or even via UEFI HTTP that brings up a dynamic TUI menu of what Ubuntu images you want to download/install to your target system. It uses simplestreams to select which images, so it'll be quite customizable regarding the selection. The difference is that it then downloads the iso-of-interest into memory and chain-boots into it, allowing the installation of any image as one would normally do. This has some limitations of course, since it needs sufficiently enough RAM. I'm pretty sure Dan can give more details about this when he's up and running. We expect this to be part of lunar in the next weeks. Cheers, On Fri, 24 Feb 2023 at 04:54, Aaron Rainbolt wrote: > > Note, I'm asking this *very* early. I don't have the project I have in > mind even started yet. I'm not even sure what I want to name this > project. This is more of a "testing the waters" to see if this kind of > thing is even a possibility before getting started. > > I've seen more than one person annoyed by the fact that the mini.iso > netinstaller is no more. It was never officially supported anyway, but > apparently people got use out of it, so it seems like something that > would be handy if it still existed. I'm sure we're not going to start > producing it again, so I got the idea of making something that could act > somewhat similar to it. I asked people about this idea on Mastodon and > the response seemed fairly positive. > > My idea is to either write my own installer or use a customized version > of the existing Debian installer, and package it into a "flavor" of its > own, which would be capable of installing any supported version of any > official flavor of Ubuntu. The "flavor" would be able to be held in a > very small ISO file (preferably CD sized), and it would download and > install all of the packages that make up the Ubuntu system at runtime. > This would allow a user to install Ubuntu or any desired flavor thereof > using a single installation medium, rather than having to flash an ISO > every time they want to make a drive install a different flavor. The new > installation would be entirely up-to-date from the get-go, and it would > enable the use of existing small storage media for those users who don't > have sufficiently sized optical discs or flash drives. > > I would eventually aim to make this into an official flavor of Ubuntu, > however it would differ from all existing flavors in several significant > ways: > > * It would be the first flavor that could not be installed onto a target > system by itself. > * It would be the first flavor that could install other flavors onto a > target system by design. > * It would be the first flavor that could install versions of Ubuntu > other than the one it is based on. > * It would have a different installer than any existing flavor of Ubuntu > most likely, and would not be able to make use of existing official > installers in any meaningful way without large changes to one of them. > > Because of these differences, I'm not sure if such a project could ever > become an official flavor, and I may end up simply maintaining it as an > unofficial installer by myself should I end up doing it. > > Is this kind of project a possible candidate for becoming an official > Ubuntu Flavor, or is this enough info to declare it as not a possible > candidate? > > Thanks for your time. > > -- > Aaron Rainbolt > Lubuntu Developer > https://github.com/ArrayBolt3 > https://launchpad.net/~arraybolt3 > @arraybolt3:lubuntu.me on Matrix, arraybolt3 on irc.libera.chat > > -- > ubuntu-devel mailing list > ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com > Modify settings or unsubscribe at: > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel -- Łukasz 'sil2100' Zemczak Foundations Team Tools Squad Interim Engineering Manager lukasz.zemc...@canonical.com www.canonical.com -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
Re: Possibility of accepting a network-based installer of Ubuntu as an official flavor?
On Fri, Feb 24, 2023, 04:54 Aaron Rainbolt wrote: > Note, I'm asking this *very* early. I don't have the project I have in > mind even started yet. I'm not even sure what I want to name this > project. This is more of a "testing the waters" to see if this kind of > thing is even a possibility before getting started. > > I've seen more than one person annoyed by the fact that the mini.iso > netinstaller is no more. It was never officially supported anyway, but > apparently people got use out of it, so it seems like something that > would be handy if it still existed. I'm sure we're not going to start > producing it again, so I got the idea of making something that could act > somewhat similar to it. I asked people about this idea on Mastodon and > the response seemed fairly positive. > > My idea is to either write my own installer or use a customized version > of the existing Debian installer, and package it into a "flavor" of its > own, which would be capable of installing any supported version of any > official flavor of Ubuntu. The "flavor" would be able to be held in a > very small ISO file (preferably CD sized), and it would download and > install all of the packages that make up the Ubuntu system at runtime. > This would allow a user to install Ubuntu or any desired flavor thereof > using a single installation medium, rather than having to flash an ISO > every time they want to make a drive install a different flavor. The new > installation would be entirely up-to-date from the get-go, and it would > enable the use of existing small storage media for those users who don't > have sufficiently sized optical discs or flash drives. > > I would eventually aim to make this into an official flavor of Ubuntu, > however it would differ from all existing flavors in several significant > ways: > > * It would be the first flavor that could not be installed onto a target > system by itself. > * It would be the first flavor that could install other flavors onto a > target system by design. > * It would be the first flavor that could install versions of Ubuntu > other than the one it is based on. > * It would have a different installer than any existing flavor of Ubuntu > most likely, and would not be able to make use of existing official > installers in any meaningful way without large changes to one of them. > > Because of these differences, I'm not sure if such a project could ever > become an official flavor, and I may end up simply maintaining it as an > unofficial installer by myself should I end up doing it. > > Is this kind of project a possible candidate for becoming an official > Ubuntu Flavor, or is this enough info to declare it as not a possible > candidate? > > Thanks for your time. > > -- > Aaron Rainbolt > Lubuntu Developer > https://github.com/ArrayBolt3 > https://launchpad.net/~arraybolt3 > @arraybolt3:lubuntu.me on Matrix, arraybolt3 on irc.libera.chat > > -- > ubuntu-devel mailing list > ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com > Modify settings or unsubscribe at: > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel > -- ubuntu-devel mailing list ubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-devel
