Re: RFE: a "testcd" (a la knoppix) option for the debian DVD?

[Albretch Mueller <lbrtchx@gmail.com>]

 anything "ephemeral" and having a(n apparently) "simple" only way of
doing things play into their games.

 They are using javascript to get into and mess with people's
computers/life. They can change both the link to the installation file
to be downloaded and to the signatures of the files on the fly when
they notice you are trying to get out of "your jail" ...

 If you have the signatures right on the DVD as knoppix does and that
write-once media you can test off line, that would make things much
harder for them. One of the "technical" problems with such bs is that
you have to have total contral and people have no minds for it to be
truly effective.

 The initial installation disk I am using ("d-live 9.4.0 kd amd64")
contains only 704 files:
~
_SDIR="/media/cdrom0"

ls -l "${_SDIR}"

_DT=$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)

_LOG_PRFX=$(basename "${_SDIR}")_${_DT}
echo "// __ \$_LOG_PRFX: |$_LOG_PRFX|"

_TMPFL="${_LOG_PRFX}_$(mktemp ${_DT}.XXXXXX)_temp.ls"
echo "// __ \$_TMPFL: |${_TMPFL}|"

_OFL="${_LOG_PRFX}_find_sort.ls"
echo "// __ \$_OFL: |${_OFL}|"

_ERRS_FL="${_LOG_PRFX}_find_errors.log"
echo "// __ \$_ERRS_FL: |${_ERRS_FL}|"

time( find "${_SDIR}" -type f -printf '%s|%d|%P\n' > "${_TMPFL}" 2>
"${_ERRS_FL}" ) 2>> "${_ERRS_FL}"

ls -l "${_ERRS_FL}"
wc -l "${_ERRS_FL}"

tail -n 10 "${_ERRS_FL}"

kwrite "${_ERRS_FL}" &

env LC_COLLATE=C sort  --field-separator="|" -V --key 2,2 --key 3,3
"${_TMPFL}" > "${_OFL}"

rm --force --verbose "${_TMPFL}"

ls -l "${_OFL}"
wc -l "${_OFL}"

kwrite "${_OFL}" &
~
_TEST_FL="${_SDIR}/pool/main/u/util-linux/libblkid1-udeb_2.29.2-1_amd64.udeb"

time md5sum -b "${_TEST_FL}"
time sha256sum -b "${_TEST_FL}"

$ time md5sum -b "${_TEST_FL}"
616f56c4e1bc5a28e5e9efe8b765e4f0
*/media/cdrom0/pool/main/u/util-linux/libblkid1-udeb_2.29.2-1_amd64.udeb

real    0m2.812s
user    0m0.008s
sys     0m0.000s

$ time sha256sum -b "${_TEST_FL}"
cdf76fd21df8fef5ce2bef79319d545e782822a55b5a8d7fd3d6ae1eb85043ee
*/media/cdrom0/pool/main/u/util-linux/libblkid1-udeb_2.29.2-1_amd64.udeb

real    0m0.061s
user    0m0.004s
sys     0m0.000s
$
~
 so, roughly 700 * (32 + 64) = 66Kb of uncompressed data for the
md5sum and sha256sum signatures of the files. That figure would be
greater for blends but I think it would be very small anyway and very
worthy. those 66Kb could be made even smaller if the paths in the fs
description file with the signatures is turned into tree based on
indexes.

 Debian could even make it better than knoppix (in addition to
including a memtest option right on the DVD ;-)) it could give the
options to:

 1) decrypt transfer data from backups once the installation is finished
 2) reset/reinstall just one set of applications (libreoffice) or a
single application (say firefox, or writer)

 I don't think that implementing that should be that difficult and if
a "toram" option is included right on the live option of the
installation DVD, that would make Debian closer to being "better than
sex" ;-).

 That was only a suggestion, rough "proof of concept" I am sure the
maintainers will find better ways of doing what I described.

 lbrtchx