Re: Bug#746394: Please consider shipping pre-built images in Debian packages
Le Wed, May 07, 2014 at 06:26:04PM +1000, Chris Fordham a écrit :
> Packer is not debian specific and it has a community.
> I think the question should be flipped and ask why did we need to make our
> own bespoke project to build machine images?...
> Building images is not something specific to Debian nor 'Debian Cloud'.
> Shouldn't we adopt some kind of framework that is more globally supported?
> Additionally, reading the name, it doesn't appear to be about images, but
> rather bootstrapping something in virtualization.
Hi Chris and everybody,
debootstrap and cdebootstrap, which are the workhorses of installers and image
builders, have 101 open bugs in total. I think that these are the global
framework that we should spend more time supporting. There is also
Debian-Installer itself, that brings customisation with its preseed system, and
that would definitely benefit from receiving more contributions.
One reason why bootstrap-vz exists is that broader frameworks such as
Debian-Installer have more constraints and are harder to learn and maintain.
In particular, Debian-Installer does not run as a simple command that prepares
a tarball on a user's hard drive; it is a minimal Debian system that runs
by itself.
But I think that attempts to build larger frameworks than bootstrap-vz will end
up re-inventing an installer for Debian. So for a Grand Unification I
recommend to work on Debian-Installer directly.
In the meantime, I think that it is great to have boostrap-vz, that has a clear
scope and is simple for people to understand and send patches.
Have a nice day,
--
Charles Plessy
Tsurumi, Kanagawa, Japan
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