Re: NFS-root install on Multia ??
Bart-Jan Vrielink <bartjan@vrielink.net> writes:
> Goswin Brederlow wrote:
...
> > You will need a harddisk, but you don't have to write to it. You will
> > need a partition wich has type linux, which you can mount as root. But
...
> Strange, because a harddisk isn't needed to run Debian. Before my
> attempts with this Multia, I already tried to install Slink on a
> notebook with a broken harddisk. Even using a ramdisk wouldn't help.
The installscript won't let you install, unless you have a partition
of type linux mounted at /target and mounted by the install
script. Once you have that you can select "install drivers" and
remount a nfs drive before telling the installscript where to get the
driver and rescue disk from. Same for installing base. You need a
harddisk to make the script happy. You actually never have to write
anything to it.
> I think it's a nice feature to have, a more generic idea of a "disk" in
> the Debian installation system. Who knows what other devices users want
> to install Debian on. Even /dev/ram? would have helped me.
Have a look at the script. If you erase the parts that test for a
valid root partition and replace them with more flexible once, you can
easily install on /dev/ram. Of cause you need to recompile your kernel
with a bigger ramdisk or give the boot parameter for it.
I had a linux in a 32 MB ramdisk including X, which I could boot via
bootdisk on the universities NT systems (using dosntfs and
c:\temp\ramdisk :).
...
> OK, then I'll need to do that. Well, I happen to have a raid5 array that
> can miss a disk :)
Oh, oh. Just when you formated the drive, another one from the raid
will fail :) Murphys law.
...
> I already thought that would be problematic, but why does the Linux
> filesystem standards say that directories like /usr/share can be shared
> between different architectures, but using the .deb system breaks that.
> Does this mean that the .deb system needs to be modified to be FHS
> compliant ??
Write a bug (and a fix) for dpkg to be fhs compliant. I have usr
shared for several systems. They all have the same root filesystem and
I don't deinstall packages on them. Works great, but updating is
painfull. Updating means that I update one system and then synchronise
all others root partition to that, except the host specific files.
MfG,
Goswin
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