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David Whedon wrote:
>
> Sat, Jan 20, 2001 at 08:53:47PM +1100 wrote:
> >
> > selectdevice is a binary that depends in libkdetect and cdebconf, it
> > just gets a list of devices that your system has, once a device is
> > selected an operation can be selected to perform, e.g. display
> > partitions, add partition etc.
> >
> > There will likely be a few small udebs like selectdevice
> > (selectpartition, createpartition, createfilesystem, mountpartition etc
> > etc) to basically be the interface between main-menu and the binaries
> > that actually do the work.
> I have a different vision here (just discussing, not arguing). I would suggest
> that the partitioning udeb detect all candidate devices (via kdetect),
> prompt for the the device to partition, and then do whatever to the device. I
> think that combines 3 of the udebs you describe above into one. I've written
> partkit to do all except offer a choice of devices which you do in selectdevice.
> I suggest partkit and selectdevice should be merged.
>
Yea, i was (probably still am) a bit confused as to when its best to use
main-menu and when to use debconf directly, i was thinking that having
lots of little udebs would allow us more flexibility with regard to
virtual packages automatically fetching packages as needed and making
the menu. I guess we can do all that directly ourselves though, i am a
little confused.
I (in my curent frame of thinking) agree with you, the partitioning
should all be merged into one udeb and get rid of the library as well,
put it with the binaries.
> >
> > So on i386 we should be able to determine what functionality the user
> > want through main-menu with these sorts of questions and call libparted
> > (or mkfs.ext2, or other mkfs.otherfilesystem, or other partitionign
> > tools where libparted wont work) noniniteractively.
>
> Maybe I'm going to describe exactly what you are talking about, we'll see :-)
>
> If we want to call the partitioning udeb non-interactively we can, we just use
> debconf. An auto partitioner would still use the partitioning udeb I have
> described above, but it would pre-set all the answers and set the 'seen' flags
> to true, here's the sort of thing I'm talking about, a shell script that is run
> as part of the autopartitioning udeb:
>
> # This creates a partition on /dev/hdb from 0 to 256
> db_set partkit/choose_dev /dev/hdb
> db_fset partkit/choose_dev seen true
>
> db_set partkit/choose_operation create
> db_fset partkit/choose_operation seen true
>
> db_set partkit/create_start 0
> db_fset partkit/choose_start seen true
>
> db_set partkit/create_end 256
> db_fset partkit/choose_end seen true
>
> db_set partkit/create_confirm true
> db_fset partkit/choose_confirm seen true
>
> This has the bonus of allowing us to automate and replicate installs using the
> same techniques.
>
Yep, cool, we are thinking along the same lines.
> >
> > Being able to call these tools noninteractively means we should be able
> > have heaps of fun with autopartitioning which will make partitioning for
> > mass installs easy and customisable. For auto partitioning we could have
> > deferent "profiles" as udebs that dictate the rules (or guidlines) to
> > how the partitioning is done. End users could build there own profiles
> > to suit there needs or use probuilt ones that we make. But thats a way
> > of, we have to get manual operation working first.
>
> I agree, that will be great!
>
> By the way. I finally had the guts to try out partkit. It wasn't happy because
> we have no /dev/. I went to create /dev/ and found that /sbin/MAKEDEV needs
> 'tr' from busybox, we'll need that, right?
>
I have a (nearly complete) binary makedev i was working on, it was only
13KB, i think its still around, dunno if we will need it though, devfs
is nice and simple, im not sure of the space overheads ivolved though.
I havent actually tried selectdevice, i havent been able to get the demo
working (as you know).
Ive been distracted today, thinking about subpackaging and how it
relates to udebs and debs... but thats another story.
Glenn
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