Re: Rebuilding minimal install iso RHEL 4 (U1)

[Tom Diehl <tdiehl rogueind com>]

On Tue, 4 Oct 2005, Jay Lee wrote:

> Michael Stiller wrote:
> > I want to do unattended RHEL 4 U1 (ES) installations via 
> > kickstart. Unfortunately this is not possible, cause
> > the installer wants me to change cd-roms twice. 
> > This is not acceptable for an unattended install. The installation
> > itself is a minimal install with some more unneeded packages removed
> > (mgetty, some serial stuff e.g.) 
> > (actually about 220 packages are installed)
> > A DVD image is not an option because not all machines
> > are DVD-Rom equipped.
> > 
> > Any clues on howto-rebuild the installation cd images 
> > for a really "minimal" install which doesn't need that
> > braindead cd changes. I tried to follow 
> > 
> > http://www.techonthenet.com/linux/centos4_update.php
> > 
> > but with no success so far. 
> > 
> > I'm not really amused about this. The minimal install
> > is also bloated as hell. And this crap is called 
> > *enterprise* linux after all. 
> > 
> > Any clues on the rebuild image issue?
> 
> Have you considered using PXE booting?  It's a bit of a pain to setup 
> the first time but once you have it, you'll not remember how you lived 
> without it.  There's nothing better than doing a "nothing but net" 
> install in front of someone who's never seen one before to impress them. 
>   And not having to go searching for boot media all the time is nice too.

Jay is right. PXE and nfs are a wonderful thing. Even if you have old
machines that will not PXE boot, all you have to do is burn the boot.iso
image to a cd and use that to start the install.

Rebuilding an iso, for the most part is more trouble than it is worth.

Regards,

Tom Diehl		tdiehl rogueind com		Spamtrap address mtd123 rogueind com