Re: 24MB bootable CD install image
On Tue, 29 Feb 2000, Mark Horn wrote:
> Anne,
>
> Thanks for your response. I have a few comments.
>
> On Tue, Feb 29, 2000 at 03:39:23PM +0100, J.A. Bezemer wrote:
> >However, for things to be "adopted" by debian-cd, experience shows that you've
> >got to do a little bit more. It would be very nice if there was a simple shell
> >script that would just do everything without intervention. Should be called
> >for example:
> >
> > make-netinstcd /path/to/debian potato /tmp/workdir /tmp/netinstcd.iso
>
> I will be happy to do this. It should not be too hard.
>
> However, what I was suggesting for adoption was that the results of the
> 'make-netinstcd' be an ISO image that is downloadable.
That's the ultimate goal I had in mind, too. But with "adoption" I mean
inclusion of "something" in the debian-cd scripts collection, so that with a
`make all' also the netinstcd is made. We don't want to bother you for every
subrelease when we can make things ourselves ;-)
> What I've done can be done in two different sizes, 10MB or 24MB,
> depending on whether or not the base2_2.tgz file is available on the
> CD or needs to be downloaded at install time. To me, these are both
> reasonable sizes to put up an ISO.
I'd vote for only the 24MB variant. That's what people ask for. And that way
they only have to bother about apt (_after_ install), and not about the
location of "some weird base file" (_during_ install). And for the size: 1) it
doesn't matter because you have to get base*.tgz anyway, and 2) you don't have
to download base*.tgz again if the first install went wrong. So you either
don't waste bandwidth/time or even preserve bandwidth/time, depending on the
experience of the user ;-)
>
> My goal is to resolve what I perceive to be a need in for Debian:
> a downloadable ISO for people who are window shopping for a distro.
> If the window shoppers have to download a script, then download the boot
> floppies, then run the script, then burn the image, that's not achieving
> my goal. It's just replacing one complicated mechanism of getting
> an install CD (i.e. rsync) with a different complicated mechansim.
> I don't think the window shopping community wants that. I think they
> want ISO images.
Got your point, I think we'll make those tiny .iso's available by standard
HTTP/FTP for everyone. They shouldn't cause too much bandwidth usage for the
mirrors.
But note that the NetInst .iso's are targeted at a different audience than the
full .iso's. NetInst is meant for computers with a fast/cheap Internet
connection, while the full .iso's (with accompanying Pseudo-Image Kit) are
meant for computers with no/slow/expensive connection. (Of course in the
latter case, there should be _another_ computer with fast/cheap Internet to
download the .iso's with.)
>
> >It would be very wise to also use `mkhybrid' as the rest of the debiancd
> >package does.
>
> Ok. I've never used mkhybrid, but I'll look into it and incorporate it
> into the make-netinstcd. Can you give me some idea of what mkhybrid does
> differently than mkisofs? In other words, why has "the rest of debiancd"
> decided to use it over mkisofs? Just curious.
Some historical reasons; mkhybrid was the first (AFAIK) to generate Joliet
extensions. But also today it's the only one that does HFS (Apple, useful for
m68k, ppc). And there's a Debian-specific patch to mkhybrid that makes it
flatten symlinks that point outside the directory structure.
Basically, using mkisofs wouldn't be a big problem, only then the debian-cd
script collection would have to depend on both mkhybrid and mkisofs, and,
well, that doesn't look nice.
> >Also, instead of creating only an .iso image, you could also think of using
> >mkdosfs (?) to put the thing on a (bootable) ZIP disk or LS120 floppy.
> >Either let the script create both (simplest) or make two scripts (other e.g.
> >make-netinstzip).
>
> I'm not sure that I'm qualified to tackle that project. Primarily because
> I'm no expert in DOS device drivers, and in order to do this, I'd need
> to be able to manage a device driver for a ZIP disk, LS120 and/or a CDROM.
>
> Additionally, it strikes me as particularly odd to depend on DOS to
> install Linux. Politically, it rubs me the wrong way. Kinda like asking
> the devil to give you a ride to church. Even though the end goal is good,
> you're probably better off walking.
I didn't mean that there should be some version of *DOS involved, only the
filesystem. Just like the current rescue (boot) disks, that use syslinux to
boot the kernel. Hmmm.. basically you would be building one big rescue
floppy. That's pretty difficult and would possibly require some specific
support in the boot-floppies code... "Don't touch that!" ;-)
> >And if you already happen to have such an .iso downloadable somewhere, I'd
> >really like to take a look at it. If you have a slink version, we can put it
> >up on cdimage.debian.org.
>
> I will be happy to temporarily give you access to a downloadable copy
> in a private email. But I don't have enough bandwidth to publish this
> to the list, and have everyone download it.
I've put it on
http://130.161.157.155/~costar/netinstcd/netinstcd_2.2.7-2000-02-13-1.iso
This is on a shared 10 Mbit link that spans half a department at our Univ. So
PLEASE DOWNLOAD ONLY between 19:00 and 07:00 CET.
> One final question. The official 2.1 CD has a number of README files and
> other sundry documentation in the root of the CD. Is there any set of
> files that I need to keep in the root of the CD in order to properly
> represent this as a Debian CD?
README.mirrors.txt/html and README.non-US, and probably also
README.CD-manufacture. And you could write your own README.1ST that explains
what/why this NetInst CD is/does, and how you should proceed when the system
is installed (maybe some references to disks/doc/ are enough).
Regards,
Anne Bezemer
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