Re: Problems with Redhat 9

On Fri, Apr 11, 2003 at 12:24:15PM -0400, Jef Spaleta told me:
> foobar in the distro 2)why didn't redhat package the isos so that I only
> need the first iso to do the install i want to do.

So I am just finishing up with the installer. It has 4 purposes, and builds
from the same OS RPMS that would be installed on your system.

You throw your systems level RPMS into several directories (ie. RPMS.base,
RPMS.extras, RPMS.devel, etc...) in a manner so all of their dependencies are
internally handled, then the installer creates the ISO. It installs the
RPMS.base and RPMS.extra (easily modifyable which package group you want to
use) into a chroot'ed image, and then builds a compressed loopback filesystem 
from that. It then makes the CDROM bootable with LILO, and builds the initrd.

You end up with an installer disk that can do 4 things:

   1) Install the base system off of the first CDROM
   2) Gives you a rescue disk similar in concept to LNX-BBC
   3) Serves as a demo disk of the actual system you will install (like
      Knopix)
   4) Allows one to create temporary Linux workstations

When you actually boot it, it boots right into init5 (Gnome2 environment with
X framebuffer support at 791) and has a button on the desktop that will allow 
you to launch the installer. For the graphically challenged, it can also do 
text based by booting into init 3 without framebuffer.

It still needs a lot of tweaking and coding of the actual installer scripts
but the base is working great! Now I am rebuilding the RedHat base RPMS, and
starting to build in the latest GNOME2 support.

It has the potential of supporting any filsystem and any underlying 
distribution!

Sorry for the length. The point I was thinking of was that the disk 1 will
install a base system, and the following disks can install the apps (or they
can be (GRAB|Apt|Yum)'ed from the net.

I really should start up the mailing list for the project... Hope nobody
minds the No GRAB Content (NGC).
-- 
/* Greg Kurtzer, Open Source Developer
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