Suggestions for the Installer (regarding network installs)

[Janina Sajka]

I should think that one of the chief issues to resolve with network
installations should be the ability to resume. I've done many net
installs over my lan, and have even run into this issue there--as with a
portable going to sleep for some reason. So, if it can crop up in a
local environment, it should be even more important over the Internet,
imho.

Jeremy Katz writes:
> From: Jeremy Katz <katzj at redhat.com>
> 
> On Sun, 2003-10-12 at 05:12, Stephan Windischmann wrote:
> > It seems as if the netinstall function is only there as an afterthought
> > (or maybe I'm just used to Debian).
> > Instead of a 4MB boot CD that has to download the installer itself, a
> > dedicated Fedora Netinstall CD (~100-150MB) that has the graphical
> > installer and perhaps a minimal file system on it would be really
> > helpful for those that don't want to get all 3 CD's.
> 
> Actually, the rescuecd.iso can also be used for kicking off an install
> and has all of the second stage.  Installing packages from FTP/HTTP with
> the graphical installer is a new feature -- I'm guessing using the
> rescuecd.iso to kick off an install will get more popular in the future
> :-)  Graphical network installs in the past have been restricted to NFS
> where you just loopback mount the second stage off the NFS mount and
> don't have to do the large download.
> 
> > Having to enter the FTP mirror details by hand isn't especially user
> > friendly either, and it doesn't really fit together with the rest of the
> > Fedora installer, which is excellent.
> 
> The problem with this (historically) is the lack of an updated, reliable
> mirror list in a location with the bandwidth to support being probed
> during install.  There's also a slight problem with correlating what
> your boot media matches to where to install from, but that's probably a
> solvable technical problem if there was movement on the first.
> 
> > Also, would it be possible to do a netinstall of rawhide directly,
> > instead of having to first install the latest beta/release and then
> > upgrading to it? I'm a software version junky. ;)
> 
> We're looking at turning on installer images for rawhide.  I've been
> reluctant to do so just because there are nights when things are broken
> because of typos that don't catch them until the next day and then
> having people file bugs for three days could be annoying, but we'll come
> up with some way of dealing with that when it starts to become a problem
> ;-)
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Jeremy
> 
> 
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-- 
	
Janina Sajka
Email: janina at rednote.net		
Phone: (202) 408-8175

Director, Technology Research and Development
American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
http://www.afb.org

Chair, Accessibility Work Group
Free Standards Group
http://accessibility.freestandards.org