Pat, The only problem I see with this is the amount of software required for each approach. I think approach 2 would be the more preferred way since it requires a basic Linux configuration plus one app. This could easily fit on a floppy. Approach 3 requires Xwindows as well as Wine. It would require more than 1 floppy or a CD.
Jason -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Patrick J. LoPresti Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2003 11:18 AM To: Pablo Manzanera Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Unattended] Linux boot rather than DOS? It sounds like people are fond of the Linux idea. Here are my musings. There are three basic approaches we can use. For any of these, we would start by booting a diskless Linux system and using it to partition and format the hard drive, including a FAT (or FAT32) partition as required. We would use Perl code similar to what we have now to generate the unattend.txt file. Approach 1: Copy the installation tree (e.g., winxp/i386) to the master partition, configure it to boot to DOS, and create a trivial autoexec.bat to launch winnt.exe. The advantage of this approach is its simplicity. We would just be using Linux to create unattend.txt and to copy the installation tree to the hard drive. From there, it would work a lot like the current system, but with the installation tree on the hard drive instead of on the network, and with the unattend.txt file already present; so the DOS portion would need no networking and no Perl. We would still need to use an original FAT or FAT32 partition, because winnt.exe would still be running from DOS. Now for the disadvantages. First, the installation tree would take up space on the drive, although we could remove it once the installation finished. Second, every file would ultimately be copied three times: Once from Linux onto the hard drive, once by winnt.exe, and once by the real OS installation. (Contrast this to the present system, which only has winnt.exe and the real OS installation pushing data around.) Incidentally, someone wrote me off-list to describe an approach like this which he is already using at his site. So this would definitely work, and it would clearly be the easiest thing to get running. Approach 2: Use dosemu to run winnt.exe under Linux. This approach avoids the triple-copy of the first approach. I am pretty sure it will work, because I tried it last summer. (Well, it did not work at first, but I sent a bug report to the dosemu folks and they pushed through a kernel patch to fix it.) If we let dosemu access the raw disk hardware, then this approach would still require a FAT/FAT32 partition. A more interesting approach would be to try running winnt.exe on an "lredir" drive. This should allow winnt.exe to write to an NTFS partition using the Linux NTFS driver. I am not sure what would happen after the reboot, however... Pablo Manzanera <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I would love to find a way to emulate the syspart process with a > Linux boot disk doing most of the preliminary legwork along with the > unattended perl scripts. > > Syspart is a little different than a normal unattended install by > preparing the setup to run on the NEXT reboot. It just puts the > files where they need to go, copies the setup disk binaries to the > boot sector, and marks the partition as active. I had never heard of syspart until just now. It is very interesting; thank you! (See <http://www.google.com/search?q=syspart+winnt32> if you have not heard of it, either.) This leads naturally to my last idea. Approach 3: Use Wine to run "winnt32.exe /syspart" under Linux. I have no idea whether this would work. The docs for winnt32.exe is say it runs under Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, and XP, so it might be possible to make it work under Wine. The disadvantage is that this will take some effort, most likely including some patches to Wine itself. But on the bright side, this would avoid DOS completely, it would require no FAT partitions, and most of all, it would be way, way cool. OK, back to my day job. Thoughts? - Pat ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by:Crypto Challenge is now open! Get cracking and register here for some mind boggling fun and the chance of winning an Apple iPod: http://ads.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/redirect.pl?thaw0031en _______________________________________________ unattended-info mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/unattended-info
