Hi,
i have to provide a simpler install for a specialized distribution that I
work on. And I'm using Debian. I'd like to use this opportunity to
contribute to debian-installer.
The requirements I have (i386 arch only) :
- CDROM install
- localized in french
- simple install (the fewer questions, the better)
- install on a windows computer (ie resizing fat partition and double
boot)
So I'll try to contribute the necessary udebs and the required
modifications to be able to build the installer corresponding to that. If
some people want to help, that'd be appreciated anyway (choosing
debian-installer so soon is a difficult choice for me).
So here are the preliminary plans and the first remarks, feel free to
comment.
I want to build a detect-cdrom udeb that would be responsible to detect
the CDROM readers. I'll probably use the discover utility from progeny
(which uses libdetect) (if I find the sources of discover, they aren't
in installer-1.0.tar.gz) to detect the more current CDROMs (IDE & SCSI).
If I can't find a cdrom, i'll probably ask to choose a cdrom module
(with the possibility to provide options for the insmod command line).
They'd also have to provide the device name (like /dev/mcd) in that case.
This udeb would probably depend on modules-cdrom-udeb and
modules-scsi-udeb (they don't exist yet, any good reason to that ?).
[ ccing Herbert just for information about this ]
It would also need libdetect0-udeb but I'm worried by the actual
description of it:
| This library package contains only the symbols needed to detect the
| hardware that the debian-installer is interested in: ethernet cards.
Is it really not usable to detect CDROM and SCSI cards ? Would it
take much to change that ?
[ ccing Dan Helfman about this ]
Then I'll need a cdrom-retriever, this would probably just do symlinks.
And the first time it is invoked it'll probably have to mount the CDROM
unless I mount it right in detect-cdrom. I don't know yet which is the
best.
One of the most difficult part is about partitionning. Here I'd like
to have a nice UI but I have no idea about how to do it. We'll have to use
parted for sure, but I don't know anything more (yet). I've seen
the tools/partkit stuff but I haven't tested it yet (I tested nothing
yet).
For the rest, I have not yet thought about it however here are various
preliminary ideas :
- I want to be able to provide default values for various questions that
may be asked through the debconf interface (like keyboard and language).
It would be convenient if it could be decided through parameters at the
syslinux stage.
I see 2 possibilities :
- a debconf database is setup using parameters from syslinux
- several debconf databases are available (in a configuration udeb for
exemple) and a default configuration can be selected with a syslinux
parameter
Other possibilities exists but they are of no interest for me right now :
- downloading the database (file) from the network
- having a debconf server (request for each question)
- the setup after reboot should be configurable, ie each udeb should be
able to provide a script that would be launched at the first boot.
In that way the traditionnal setup could easily be replaced by an
automatic install of packages for example (skipping tasksel).
And here are some open questions, can I programmatically control the flow
of udeb modules ? I mean, actually it's controlled by
XBC-Installer-Menu-Item and the depends. But I'd like for example to
do an automatic partitioning when the disk is empty and let the user decide
of his partitionning when there's a FAT partition taking all the room.
Suppose that the automatic partionner and the manual partitionner are not
in the same udeb, can I do something like that ? My first idea is
that i'd have to have a partition-method-chooser that'd depend on
automatic-partitioner and manual-partitioner and that would launch the
corresponding program depending on its decision.
Ok, enough for today, i'm waiting your comments :)
Cheers,
--
Raphaël Hertzog -+- http://strasbourg.linuxfr.org/~raphael/
Le bouche à oreille du Net : http://www.beetell.com
Naviguer sans se fatiguer à chercher : http://www.deenoo.com
Formation Linux et logiciel libre : http://www.logidee.com
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