Hi,
over the time, the current live-initramfs has shown that new features
cannot be added without ugly hacks and that it needs to be rewritten in
a more modern, modular way.
As a first step, I'd like to gather a list of features (not their
implementation!, that's a step later) that you need/want/like/use/miss
from live-initramfs. So please also list things that the current
live-initramfs does. If possible, please send in your list until the
weekend. Here is mine[0]:
---snipp----
Boot methods
------------
* Optical media (cd, dvd, bd) and nested images
* Mass storage (usb-zip, usb-hdd) and nested images
* Network filesystems (nfs, smb/cifs, afs) and nested images
* Network protocols (http, ftp, rsync)
* Network devices (nbd, aoe, iscsi)
* Local filesystems (ext2-4 etc.), as image and plain.
* Allow to include system completely in initrd.img (like debirf).
* Allow tunneling (ssh, openvpn, ike) when network is needed to access
the root filesystem.
Boot process
------------
* One time argument handling (with proper respect of live.conf,
also from /live/live.conf)
* One time function handling
* Split out late user space to dedicated package (live-initscripts)
* Distributor specific mode for overloading of functions
* Release specific compatibility/legacy handling during package
build-time
* i18n/l10n support during early userspace (gettext, po4a)
* Splash support (plymouth, splashy)
* Use initramfs keyb functions, rather than re-implenting wheels
Features
--------
* Redo persistency from scratch
* Allow to clear persistency (by reformating the partition) through
live-initramfs (for the firmware trick: factory reset).
* cryptsetup for persistency layer
* persistency layer on network shares, global and per user.
* Improved toram (awk progressbar or something like that)
*
* Redo login manager support (kdm, gdm, nodm, plain startx on tty1)
Bugs
----
* (Almost) whatever is listed in the BTS :)
General
-------
* Document stuff properly, both the actual implementation and its
customization
* Use sane coding style consistently
* Optimize sh calls for speed and simplicity
* Drop unused, overly complicated features
* Synchronise and unify boot parameters
---snap---
Once we have that, i'll sort them by priority and create some sort of
overview page that will show (later) the progress, and beginning next
week I'll continue by making thoughs about the implementation (with a
next RFC mail to the list).
Regards,
Daniel
[0] this list (and the later updated one) is currently stored in a git
repo at http://live.debian.net/gitweb/?p=tmp.git
it can be directly commited to by anyone using the same key as
for the manual, see
http://live.debian.net/manual/html/meta.html#contributing