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Re: Live File System



On Tue, Feb 22, 2000 at 03:11:29PM +0100, J.A. Bezemer wrote:
> > I'm interested in contributing to the developement of the installation 
> > of Debian GNU/Linux. When this was discussed in debian-devel I came to 
> > think that I could work with live file system. A bootable CD with a
> > bootable floppy for those systems that cannot boot from a CD. It would 
> > be a good thing for fixing systems and for installing Debian.
> > 
> > It was pointed out that this has been discussed before, probably six
> > months earlier, and that I should ask from debian-cd.
> > 
> > So, is someone working with this? If yes, I'd be willing to help, if
> > not I'd be interested to start working with it.
> 
> AFAIK, there's no one working on this at the moment, but we would welcome any
> kind of contribution.

I have start for over 1-2 year's, But I stop and remove the work (it
was not a lot). 

> There are, as I see it, several possibilities for a "live" filesystem. The
> first thing would be to decide what's our best option, and work from there.
> I think of two possible (orthogonal) categories:
> 
>                            read-only           read/write
>                     +-----------------------------------------
>       size:  small  | current rescue disk
>             medium  |
>              large  |
> 
> This is about the functionality as seen from the user, _not_ yet how to
> achieve it.
> 
> Size:  small: barely enough tools to do some basic system administration;
>               intended to be single-user (namely root)
>       medium: basic multi-user without fancy stuff, no X etc. Something
>               like the current base system (probably a little bit larger)
>        large: Full-featured system, with X, mp3-player(!! ;-), gimp, gnome
>               etc. Something like on the Corel CD (well, I've only seen the
>               directory listing ;-)
> 
> Writable: no: Users can take a look, but not change anything big. Some
>               pre-defined limited number of config files (hostname, X config,
>               etc) copied at startup from DOS/Win partition; /home mounted
>               from DOS/Win partition (UMSDOS or ext2 loopback)
>          yes: Users can change anything they want, (un)install packages
>               etc.
> 
> To me, a relatively large read/write system seems the best option. Allows new
> users to fully exploit Debian's possibilities without repartitioning and
> installing. When they want to use the system "for real", repartitioning and
> copying is all that's needed.

Oh. This was not my work and my intention.

The best option is  a larger boot/recovery disk. 
I (zip-) disk with all editors, with Dokumentatio, with
recovery-tools,  ...
This disk start with a normal boot-disk and boot /usr  from the
live-filesystem on the disk. Not a lot of work and usefull.


If we have this, we can use it for a new Boot-CD for woody. This
boot-CD can has multi languages, ...


And after this, we can make a Debian-Demo-disk. Not for real Work, but
we eye-catchers. Insert it in a Computer, boot and say: "This is
Debian GNU/Linux, play with it". 

The next step is, your Live-CD with the upgrade possibility to a
normal Distribution.


>  - Use an Overlay filesystem, details on
>    http://home.att.net/~artnaseef/ovlfs/ovlfs.html

Oh. I nice link. Thanks.

Gruss
Grisu
-- 
Michael Bramer  -  a Debian Linux Developer http://www.debian.org
PGP: finger grisu@master.debian.org  -- Linux Sysadmin   -- Use Debian Linux
Linux - the choice of a GNU generation


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