Re: Hurd CDs

[Ivan Malone <ivanmalone@myossdev.com>]

On Sat, 2009-08-29 at 18:02 +0200, Michael Banck wrote:



> Unfortunately, it looks like nobody currently has the time or motivation
> to look into d-i, maybe identifying the major issues would be a good
> first step as well.  Also note that d-i got ported to Debian
> GNU/kFreeBSD recently (no public release of that yet, I think), so
> porting to the Hurd might be easier now.
> 
> 
> Michael
> 
> 

I'm betting my Business on Hurd. I've got the time and the motivation
(been able to eat at the end of the week and 3 other staff that need
paying)


Previous to 2 months ago our approach to installing Hurd was by hand and
from source - this helped to facilitate learning how Hurd actually works
from that end. After quite a few mistakes we eventually got it
repeatable and stable enough. 

The next stage is to modify Deb installer to Install Hurd. So, its Linux
installing Hurd. Perhaps from a snapshot of crosshurd 

We're doing this for a few reasons

A - As a fast approach to creating a Hurd installation medium
B - Debian Installer is already well tested so any problems we run into
is most likely going to be hurd related or related to our changes. 
C - If we port debian installer now I feel we'll run into more problems
than is necessary (portage issues + whatever issues we have installing
hurd to begin with)

Plus, its not as simple as just porting debian installer - there is lots
of dependent stuff that need to be considered too. Plus we have to look
at it in the context of something we can use commercially. It is going
to have to support LiveCD's for example, we'll have to look into RamFS
for hurd before we can make that happen.

We're attempting a huge project, just the 4 of us here, on a small grant
and it _will_ take time to gain some momentum but we are going to be
working full-time on it for at least the next two years, beyond that -
it'll depend on how well we do and how well its recieved by others as a
whole. 

I'm away on holidays atm but when I get back I'll be putting up our work
done thus far.