David Huff wrote:
Jeroen van Meeuwen wrote:
Basil Mohamed Gohar wrote:
On Tue, 2009-01-20 at 10:10 +0100, Jeroen van Meeuwen wrote:
While I'm not disagreeing, why not create "single CD install media" with an option (in the isolinux.cfg menu) to have the minimum (working) set of packages be installed, and the rest of the installation menu interactive (partitioning, root password)?
Bearing in mind that the Fedora Project already releases CDs, and that I've fixed package ordering, the simplest win would be to add the menu entry to the isolinux.cfg, and include one kickstart file on the disk with just a %packages section.
A user would still be able to run the normal installation procedure, or supply a different kickstart on the cmdline (including the %packages kickstart on the cdrom?) for full automation.
I agree that this would be a good scenario, however what I am looking for is ideas on what should be included in that %package section and how can we deliver this. If we can get a good minimal package set defined and accepted by the community this could be used for many different applications, ie appliances, bare metal servers, or as you suggested at install time.
My experience has been that @core will not cut it because for our application we also need selinux, dns, and yum, and @core also pulls in a lot of stuff that is not needed. Using core and adding kernel, dnsclient, yum, and lokkit pulls in 156 packages and used 439M. There has go to be a better way to get a minimal package set....
I think we're talking about two different things here; an Appliance OS, and a Server Spin.
An Appliance OS first of all should not even be built using a yum install; A real appliance would rebuild packages removing dependencies not needed by said appliance, and tweaking options building it for the hardware it's going to run on. Also, the AOS is a running system or live spin based on the idea it has to be minimal, which of course has it's benefits but differs fundamentally nonetheless.
Second is the Server Spin, which should just give you a server you can then turn into a full-blown Fedora 10 Desktop Server if you want; starting out with the absolute minimum packages doesn't make sense here, but what you'd want is 1) the installation to complete as fast as possible, 2) the overhead of installing then updating to be as small as possible, 3) simple media for the cheap CD-ROM drive you're only going to use once or twice, while not having to exchange discs, and 4) the system to be in a running state ready to be used after installation (including sshd running and a root password set which cannot be done with a live spin released by the Fedora Project). The fundamental difference is the Server Spin (on installation media) would just help you take the first stab at installing a system without going through the package selection dialog, maybe strip down the packages yet still have a fully functioning system (instead of a system designed to do one specific thing like an appliance).
Also how do we deliver it? Should this just be a kisckstart snippet with only a %package section? If so this could possible be included in the kickstart pool. or should this be a new comps group?
Kickstart is for package selection, comps for grouping packages. You can see how one complements the other, but not vice-versa.
I have also included a package list of all the packages that are installed using @core and including adding kernel, dnsclient, yum, and lokkit
I'm not sure which of these packages you would want to strip off. If yum, then again that brings out a fundamental difference between an Appliance OS and a Server Spin (on installation media).
Kind regards,
Jeroen van Meeuwen -kanarip