slink_cd: still waiting on final boot/install setup
[ Apologies again for the major cross-post; things are getting tight and
we're still missing bits. ]
STATUS
======
Slink_cd 1.07 is out as of last night; I've made tiny changes that can
become 1.08 very soon. The state of play for release is:
We have working beta i386 CD images available (thanks Phil). These have
been tested already, check cdimage.debian.org for more info and mirror
locations.
The sparc boot/install stuff is apprently sorted now, and the work needed
for this went into slink_cd yesterday. Thanks Steve, Eric and others. Can
somebody write a README.1ST.sparc on similar lines to the i386/m68k
versions please?
I've been sent docs and I know there are sets of boot disks with the m68k
people, but there's still no slink_cd support for them yet.
On the alpha front, I've seen/heard _nothing_ about boot/install stuff. Is
anything happening out there? If we're going to get a chance to get this
stuff done we need it _now_.
LAYOUTS
=======
The official CD layouts will be quite simple:
CD 1: main binary section 1, bootable where possible . Will work
standalone, dependencies are being checked to make sure of this.
CD 2: main binary section 2, bootable where possible. Also contains
contrib section (binary and source). These 2 discs should work as
they are, no unmet dependencies for main section, maybe some contrib
-> non-free. Non-US is _not_ going on the official disks.
CD 3: main source section 1, arch-independent
CD 4: main source section 2, arch-independent
The official CD set should contain all of the above. Complete binary sets
for each architecture will work, using CDs 1 and 2. And single disk
versions may be made, using just CD 1. The multicd method will cope with
these without complaint, using a simple hack in slink_cd: the Packages.cd
files on each CD will only know about the packages on itself and any prior
CDs:
CD 1 is standalone
CD 2 knows about CD 1, CD 2.
(optional, non-official non-free) CD 5 will know about CD 1, CD 2, CD 5.
The end user just needs to be told to insert the _last_ binary CD first
when running dselect update.
I can see we'll need 2 binary CDs for each of 4 arches, plus 2 source CDs,
making 10 images in total. As the images are ~550-650 MB each, I'd
guesstimate we need approx. 6 GB of archive space for them all on mirrors.
The option of having a single CD that will install and work alone is IMHO
quite important - it can make life easier/cheaper for distributors, and
for us at shows when we give them out etc...
TODO
====
slink_cd 1.08 is ready to go as a final version; I just need some
instructions/patches/docs from certain groups, especially the alpha team.
I'm hoping to get slink_cd itself into the archive in time to make the
slink release - it's all architecture-independent and is already tested,
so there should be no problems there I hope. But of course, it'll have to
be in contrib as always because it depends on unzip/lha etc... <sigh>
--
Steve McIntyre, Allstor Software smcintyr@allstor-sw.co.uk
<a href=http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~stevem/comp/>My PC page</a>
"Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky,
"Tongue-tied & twisted, Just an earth-bound misfit, I..."
Reply to: