On Wed, Jun 01, 2011 at 03:36:47PM +0100, Wookey wrote: > +++ Arnd Bergmann [2011-06-01 16:11 +0200]: > > On Wednesday 01 June 2011, Wookey wrote: > > > I absolutely agree that we should consequently think beyond image > > generation, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a CD image > > to perform an unattended installation is a better answer. > > > > My main question to this is "install from where?". > > I'd say the default case (at least for current hardware) is booting > from SD or USB stick and installing from the network. (Which is how I > install PCs these days too - it's a very long time since I got a CD > out :-)). > > All sorts of things are possible (and a well-designed installer will > be flexible about sources and sinks, as the existing Debian one is), > but if we only supported the above option I think that would cover > most of what we want to support. (ARM servers might want different > boot media?) > > > but that doesn't necessarily mean that a CD image > > to perform an unattended installation is a better answer > > I'm not sure I follow you here. Are you suggesting that there is some > third way between a locally-bootable installer image and pre-built > images? (In which case what - I don't see this), or just that CDs are > no longer the default media (agreed).
A basic pre-built image with network and packager functionality is arguably almost an installer anyway. Anrdoid aside, if any of our images is not just an "apt-get install" command away from nano, we should be asking ourselves why not. Separate question how big is Debian-installer, in terms of filesystem and RAM footprint? If we can move the entire installation system to a ramfs on boot, we can unmount and free up the boot device, allowing the system to be installed in-place. This might also require Linux's idea of which devices are "removable" to be overridden though, so that they can be repartitioned without a reboot. I think the kernel hard-codes this for some of our boards currently; i.e., the boot SD slot may be considered non- removable. I don't know how easy it is do get around this. Cheers ---Dave _______________________________________________ linaro-dev mailing list linaro-dev@lists.linaro.org http://lists.linaro.org/mailman/listinfo/linaro-dev
