On Tue, Oct 21, 2003 at 05:32:42AM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote: > Hi, > > debian-installer currently needs a lot of ram to install all the udebs > on the cdrom. That was one reason for me to suggest mixing debix and > debian-installer together into a live-cd install. > > So here is how it could work: > ----------------------------- > > 1. A small initrd is booted with enough stuff on it to find and mount > the cdrom. > > 2. On the cdrom a huge initrd image is stored with all the udebs > installed that anna would pull in of a cdrom anyway. > > 3. The huge initrd is loopback mounted and a lvm snapshot device is > set over that with a ramdisk/tmpfs as copy-on-write storage. > > 4. mount the lvm snapshot on /mnt > > 5. transfere debconf database and other state files to /mnt > > 6. pivot-root over to the lvm snapshot and exec+chroot main-menu > > 7. continue as normal > > > What have we won? > ----------------- > > The 20-40 MB ramdisk that would normaly be used will be kept on cdrom > and only changes to that get stored to ramdisk on a block-by-block > basis. No additional udebs would be installed into ram by anna unless > choosen manually. The only big file left would be the Packages file > which can probably also be preseeded on the cdrom. > > Apart from the ram, time is also saved. Installing all the udebs from > cdrom takes a while on low-mem systems. Consider that an extra bonus. > > > What needs to be changed for this? > ---------------------------------- > > - The device-mapper patch (kernel-patch-device-mapper.deb) would have > to be included in a kernel image and the device-mapper tools (dmsetup) > packaged as udeb. > > - When using tmpfs as storage 2.4.22 is the minimum kernel version. > The benefit of tmpfs would be swapping capabilities once swap is > initialized. Given this is for low-mem that might be nice. Using a > ramdisk the lowest version is 2.4.19 I think. > > - rootskel-low-mem and busybox-low-mem versions would be needed > > - A pkglist and medialist per architecture. Two if there should be a > cdrom wth and without base debs. But they would be just the > cdrom-udebs/cdrom-base lists with the important udebs moved into the > initrd. Could even be generated by the Makefile so only one list has to > be changed in future. > > > > Think about it and let me know what you think. Try an d-i install with > 64MB, 32MB or even 16 MB ram.
This sounds like a great idea to me. I am adding a low-memory test to my list, to see how the current installer does. There are a lot of older machines out there that we're leaving behind if we require 32MB. -- Debian GNU/Linux Operating System By the People, For the People Chris Tillman (a people instance) toff one at cox dot net -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
