Re: I want to help.
Christian Hammers <ch@lathspell.westend.com> writes:
> Hello
>
> Since boot-floppies causes us so much delay I want to help.
> I have about 4-5h a week that I could spent and a leased line at
> work. Sadly the only spare hard disc capacity is about 200M.
>
> What can I do ?
Well, that's not much time per week. Perhaps documentation would be
most suitable to that low-level committment.
See the attached todo if anything else excites your fancy.
--
.....Adam Di Carlo....adam@onShore.com.....<URL:http://www.onShore.com/>
ToDo List for the Boot Floppies Package
URGENT TASKS
------------
- [10/30/1998, ezanard, joey] Modify on boxes.c so that the dialog
boxes resize themselves. As the messages have different lenghts
for the different translations, this is a must-have for the
translated floppies. Also take care of the current screen size
(start linux with vga=ask and use 132x44 for example).
(PARTIALLY DONE on boot-floppies_2.1.1. It still assumes a 80x25
screen size).
- [09/15/1999, aph] apt-get sources.list configurator ? Adam queried
the deity list. Joey Hess provided a partial configurator in the
October list archives which uses debconf (not yet in base).
- [09/15/1999, aph] Write a replacement task selector system using new
task "metapackage" system from "Martin Bialasinski"
<martin@internet-treff.uni-koeln.de>. Task packages are any packge
starting with the string 'task-*' and likewise with profiles.
Matt Porter has started working on a perl/newt version, but feels
he must implement it in C (using whiptail?)
NORMAL TASKS
------------
- [10/30/1998, ezanard] Implement an "install base system from a
HTTP server" option". Perhaps also FTP and TFTP... (hint: what
about using ftplib?) Marcel was working on this but is rather
busy now....
- [10/20/1998, wichert] BOOTP and DHCP support (Bug#48088, probably others)
- [10/30/1998, joey] The user should only be queried once for the
cd-rom path if the path that was provided at the first place
matches the need at the second place, too. Ditto for other media.
Is the /dev/cdrom link created now?
- [10/30/1998, ezanard] Implement an "install on a loop filesystem"
option. UPDATE 01/10/1999: dbootstrap recognizes a mounted loop fs, and
we can use it as the target filesystem. Support for swap files,
creating/mounting loop filesystems from the UI, and creating/modifying
initramdisk from the UI is still missing.
- [10/30/1998, ezanard] Read more data from the boot prompt
(keyboard language, source medium, network config, ... eventually
everything may be provided from the boot prompt. That makes an
unattended installation trivial, one just write the proper
syslinux.cfg file and there it goes...)
UPDATE: The boot command line is limited to 256 bytes. We'll have to
use a config file instead.
- [10/30/1998, joey] Provide easy targets for boot floppies in
non-english languages. Currently 'es' is ready, 'de' is on the
way.[1]
- [11/20/1998, ezanard] PLIP support
- [03/06/1999, ezanard] Add a "wizard-like" tool for disk
partitioning/formatting.
- [05/09/1999, joey] Provide 2nd SCSI CD-ROM as well when prompting
for various CD-ROM drives.
- [04/27/1998, wichert] The search for the base system should be
smarter. When using an NFS mounted directory, it takes several
minutes to find it. It will even display base systems for m68k,
powerpc, alpha etc. The goal is to a) use the <architecture> which
is hardcoded and b) use a more specific search path if possible,
e.g. after `/debian' `/dists/{stable,frozen,unstable}/main/disks-<arch>'
and `/local'. (Bug#2177)
LONG TERM TASKS
---------------
- [10/30/1998, joey] Provide a debug program for each and every
dialog box - can also be used to provide screen shots of the
installation. This includes some fiddling with internal
settings. (long term todo) (PARTIALLY DONE on boot-floppies_2.1.1.
There are some debug programs missing. Check
utilities/dbootstrap/Makefile for the details)
- [11/18/1998, ezanard] Extract the config steps (kbdconfig, tzconfig,
netconfig, pcmcia-config, ...) into stand-alone tools. Move them to
the proper packages (kbdconfig -> kbd, tzconfig -> timezones, ...)
or create new packages for them, so that they are available anytime,
not only at installation time.
- [11/17/1998, kop] support for zip and ls-120 medias
- [11/17/1998, kop] graphical setup with framebuffer / X11
The new framebuffer concept from linux-2.2 does not support
only X11, with the ggi-lib it is also possible to have
'svgalib'-compatibility on all architectures
- [12/2/1998, ezanard] modconf is a shell script that uses sed in many
places. If we rewrite it to remove that dependency, we may remove sed
from the rootdisk, freeing 40KB. Update: sed is not on the rootdisk,
but on the drivers floppy, inside modconf.tgz.
- [01/10/1999, ezanard] Remove liloconfig code from dbootstrap. Jast call
the new "liloconfig" script on the LILO package (Run it from the base
system. "chrooted" perhaps?).
- [02/19/1999, ezanard] Add Tom Lees' PnP support.
- [02/19/1999, ezanard] (following a suggestion by Vincent Renardias).
The "fsresize" package can be used to defragment and resize FAT
partitions. What about using that on the boot-floppies?
[1] If you want to translate the system into another language, read the
README-Translators file. If you still has doubts, ask on
debian-boot@lists.debian.org, or get in touch with err... Hartmut
Koptein (hee hee) or me (Martin Schulze). I would prefer Hartmut while
I'm sure that he would prefer to contact me... You chose.
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