[Fedora-livecd-list] [RFC/PATCH] livecd rebootless installer

[Douglas McClendon]

Jeroen van Meeuwen wrote:
> Douglas McClendon wrote:
>> Jeroen van Meeuwen wrote:
> 
>   The essence of why liveCDs are cool(==useful?) in the
>> first place, is because they allow users to try out the complete system,
>> without the traditionally complex and problematic process of installing
>> and configuring a linux system.  I'm not sure if in 2001 I or Mr.
>> Knopper could really have foreseen the plethora of use-cases for liveCDs
>> as they are used today.
> 
> On the other hand, installing Linux isn't that difficult at all,
> nowadays. I'm sure though this use case (if any) has not seen the day of
> light in the old knoppix days ;-)

I would disagree, though perhaps by making a slightly different point-  The key 
livecd use case is when the user *isn't sure* if they want to install.  I.e. 
installing linux absolutely is still a massive pain in the ass - on some 
hardware configurations.  Perhaps the quintessential livecd use case is 
verifying that a particular version of a particular distribution fully supports 
your particular hardware configuration, without guru-level 
patching/driver-updating/sysadmin knowledge.  This has nothing to do with the 
rebootless installer idea, but I think it counters your criticism of the use 
case I mentioned.

> 
>> In a similar vein, I would say that, perhaps this feature, which I'm
>> just working on out of pure spite for "unnecessary reboots" will spark
>> someone else's imagination, and use-cases will become more evident in
>> the future.  Don't even get me started about seeing setroubleshoot
>> suggesting that I reboot my system to fix a problem...
>>
> 
> I'm sure there's /a/ use-case for this technical advancement. Besides
> that, I'm all for any technical advancement -whether it has actual
> use-cases or not.


/The/ use case is simple.  It does what it does.  It is what it is.  Whether or 
not it is well received once it is an available option, remains to be seen. 
Note, that it is trivial to enhance the existing patch such that things only 
happen differently than normal if you pass 'support_rebootless' on the kernel 
commandline.

Also note that it is fairly trivial to add an option so that the user can chose 
whether to live-migrate the cdrom+ram_overlay onto the destination volume, or 
just the cdrom.  In the latter case, the user could still eject the cdrom when 
installation is complete and continue working in the live system, though on 
reboot it would forget all the live-session modifications and give you a fresh 
start.

-dmc/jdog