about hardware information

[Kam Leo]

On 9/27/07, Mikkel L. Ellertson <mikkel at infinity-ltd.com> wrote:
> Kam Leo wrote:
> > On 9/27/07, Aldo Foot <lunixer at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> The only CD I ever use is the boot cd, I've never used an actual DVD to
> >> install.
> >>
> >> ~Aldo.
> >
> > Works when you have the networking bandwidth, i.e. high download quota
> > (10s of GB per month) and speed megabits vs. Hz.
> >
> If you are installing a single system, it should not make a
> difference in the download quote, and may even help, because you
> will not be downloading packages you are not going to install, as
> you most likely would if you downloaded the DVD and installed from
> that. On the other hand, if you have more then one Linux box, you
> should consider having one host the DVD image, and a local repo with
> the updates, and install from the local network. I have not measured
> it, but it feels like a network install from a local server is
> faster then a DVD install. Things like network speed, and server
> load, or DVD drive speed would have an effect on the install speed.
>

With the exception of creating a local repository I've used the above
installation methods (previous releases and other distros). For me the
biggest advantages of using a network install are avoidance of CD/DVD
drive compatibility issues and disc shuffling.

> The fastest, if you are deploying several identical machines, would
> be to do a full install on the first one, and then clone the drive.

For Windows machines Ghost and similar utilities allow you to clone to
different sized drives and/or partitions. Can the open software
counterpart(s) do the same?

> There is some interesting software to let you clone over the network...

The corporate version of Ghost already does that. Have not tried using
it on a ext3 partition.

> Mikkel