Ian Brown wrote:
Hello Anaconda List:
My post was not finished; really sorry about it , here is the full one:
I want your advice.
I need to write an installer for Linux and I wonder if you can give
me some advice.
These are the requirements from this installer:
It should install from CD/DVD (**not** from FTP,NET,USB or anything else)
What I want to install is a Linux which was made from LinuxFromScratch.
I had made such LinuxFromScratch partition according to the LFS book and
I do succesfully boot it on my machine. (the size of the LFS partition
is about 4GB).
This installer is for a dedicated HW : there is one platform configuration
on which it should install. This installation CD is for sys admins,
for known purposes,
not for home desktop users )
(my machine and the target machines have exactly the same HW)
I don't want to have any GUI for this installatiion for this
install, if possible.
The installer should take in account that the whole content of the HD
will be erased for this install.
There will be a default Static IP and a default hostname, and the admin
will be responsible for setting them after install.
I assume that I should use eltorito to boot from a CD;
I assume that I should create a RamDisk and use it for the install
scripts,fdisk, etc.
I had tried to look at Anaconda but it is quite complex.
Should I try to learn how Anaconda is built and then try to write
something based on it ?
Or is there something which is maybe simpler ?
It's about a day's work with shell scripts.
You need enough kernel to drive your mininum hardware, enough /linuxrc
to find the install image and target drive, to pipe some simple commands
into fdisk to partition the drive, and then a cp to copy a precreated
filesystem to the partition, or mke2fs (or equivalent), mount and tar to
unpack a tarball. Finally, you need to install and set up a boot loader.
busybox has all the commands you need (including a shell), and doing
this is entirely in the spirit of LFS.
All your install tools can be in the initrd.
You don't have to reboot, if your install kernel is sufficient you can
change / to the target system, spit out the CD (to wake uo the
administrator) and get on with configureing the system. Read up on
dialog for that. It's basic but usable.
Probably, further disussion should be on LFS: writing a new installer is
off-topic for here:-)
--
Cheers
John
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