Re: Cross-Installation for Target Machines

[Geert Stappers <Geert.Stappers@xs4all.nl>]

At 9:23 +0200 9/29/02, Junichi Uekawa wrote:
>Christoph Plattner <christoph.plattner@gmx.at> immo vero scripsit:
>
>Hi,
>
>> Example: I have a intel/AMD PC running as host and
>> boot server. I have a net bootable kernel for SPARC
>> and I want to create a valid "woody" basic installation
>> on a NFS-ROOT exported file system, example
>> `/export/rootfs/<hostname>/woody' (= root fs).
>
>It is rather difficult as of current state, because
>debootstrap would need to run the "postinst" scripts inside
>the chroot, which requires that the host arch=target arch.
>
>However, if debootstrap creates the chroot by
>extracting the debs only, possibly running the "sid" script to
>only up to "x_feign_install dpkg", and
>possibly hacking a /sbin/init that has:
>#!/bin/sh
>exec /post-install.sh
>
>and creating a shell script /post-install.sh which
>runs the rest of install_debs() from debootstrap natively,
>it sounds like it could be done.
>

debootstrap has options to take
the 'which requires that the host arch=target arch' hurdle

SYNOPSIS
       debootstrap [OPTION]...  SUITE TARGET [MIRROR [SCRIPT]]

DESCRIPTION
       debootstrap bootstraps a basic Debian system of SUITE into
       TARGET from MIRROR by running SCRIPT.  MIRROR  can  be  an
       http:// URL or a file:/ URL.

OPTIONS
       --arch ARCH
              Set  the  target  architecture  (use  if dpkg isn't
              installed)


       --download-only
              Download packages, but don't perform installation


>
>Sounds like a pretty interesting/exciting idea,
>although it is not currently implemented,
>it should be doable.

yes, it is interesting/exciting
and it looks like there are parts already implemented


Geert St