>>>>> On Tue, 19 Dec 2023 13:15:53 +0100, Philip Hands <p...@hands.com> said:
> This makes me think that we may be able to publish an image with a
> filesystem already appended to it, so that a blend could then create
> such a thing including a preseed file that configures their preferred
> selection of tasks.
> Is that possible with your approach?
Hi Phil
yes, after calling mk-data-partition an empty filesystem of a certain
size (specifiy with -s) is available in the ISO.
But the blends should take the original Deian ISO (without this file
system) and they should call mk-data-partition and add their content,
because they know which size it needs.
> BTW if one did that, would it still be possible to read the filesystem
> if one were to burn it to a physical CD rather than write it to a USB
> stick?
Nope. A quick test with qemu showed that booting the ISO as CD does
not show the additional file system.
> (just wondering -- don't really see much need to do that these
> days) -- I guess it should be, even if some loop mount with offset was
> required to make it work.
Yes, I also guess some offset would help. But I also think that booting
a CD not that important.
> Another advantage of having a pre-existing FS appended is that we could
> have examples in place so that people could apply common tweaks by
> simply un-commenting a line in the example preseed.cfg, but it introduces
> the complication of resizing things (or deleting & recreating), if the
> default size is too small for one's needs.
The scenario should not invole editing lines in a config file.
This additional file system could help blends or companies to add
their software to the Debian installer and maybe to easily add a
selection menu. A they will now which size is needed.
--
regards Thomas
