[Fedora-livecd-list] livecd-creator problems/questions

[Chris Hubick]

On Mon, 17 Sep 2007, Jeremy Katz wrote:

> dmc just sent a patch for this and I pulled it in, so this should be
> resolved in the next release.

Thanks to you and DMC! :)

> > 3) Is there any way to find out the final list of packages for a kickstart
> > file after dependency resolution against a given set of repositories?
>
> Not right now -- it could be relatively easily added, but that brings to
> mind questions for me of how you present it.  Presenting the list of
> ~850 packages isn't going to be something which you can easily scroll
> through and say "yes, this is good".  And size is also tricky as finding
> the final size really requires the install + compression pass.
>
> We could potentially give an estimate of the installed size minus the
> compression.  But then I wonder if you want a prompt or a
> --dont-do-if-larger-than=size-MiB debug option.

I don't mind seeing a big huge package list (incl arch) dump if I ask for
it.  You could put them all on one line and let terminal wrapping take
care of it, to at least minimize the output size.


> > 4) How do I build a LiveCD based on a specific (stableish) test release
> > (7.91)?  Given two repos:
>
> Given that we don't do the "everything" tree for test releases, it's a
> bit tricky, unfortunately :(

Ok, well, I guess I will just have to live dangerously :)  I don't know if
this kind of thing is a suitable use case for providing an "everything"
tree.

> > 5) /usr/share/livecd-tools/livecd-fedora-desktop.ks has a directive:
> > %include livecd-fedora-base-desktop.ks
> >
> > Where is that include file located?  With the Fedora 7 setup examples,
> > everything is in the one kickstart file, and easy to reference, but I have
> > no idea how to find that information now?
>
> It was (mistakenly) not installed by the Makefile.  You can grab it from
> git[1] or it'll be in the next build.

Excellent, thanks!

> > 7) Is there any easy way to tell what is being downloaded and how fast?
> > As it stands now, I have to browse into the tmpdir with Nautilus and
> > watch.
>
> What's being downloaded will be shown as of the next livecd-tools build
> thanks to a patch from Colin.  Not sure if we can really get rate from
> urlgrabber easily.

Excellent, thanks!  Does the output print the size of the package being
downloaded?  That way I could use mental/gut-feel rate monitoring to know
if I have a sucky/overloaded mirror.

> > 8) I waited hours while it downloaded my packages, and then finally I came
> > back to see this error:
> [snip]
>
> This means there isn't enough space in the root filesystem.  The default
> rootfs is 4 gigs.  If you want larger (or smaller), you can add a line
>   part / --size 8192
> or whatever to your config.  I just committed a change to make this more
> explicit in the config.

Ahh! Ok, thanks!

My first thought is to wonder if setting the default to a size which is
closer in alignment to a DVD would be better.  But then I start wondering
about dual-layer, etc, and think probably not.

Another thought - if you integrate the functionality to build directly to
a usb-thumb-drive or other such filesystem, it could then examine
that device to provide more sensible defaults for this, as well as more
intelligable errors if your package selections are too large.

> > 9) It deleted everything it downloaded!  Gah!  How do I stop this?
>
> You can now pass a cachedir to use with --cachedir=/path/to/my/cache and
> it won't get deleted.  That said, you'll want to be extremely careful in
> doing so as multiple runs can stomp over each other as there's no
> locking of the cache.

Oooh!  Most excellent, thanks! :)

And I don't think too many 'ordinary' users such as myself would have
multiple simultaneous runs happening.

---
Chris Hubick
mailto:chris at hubick.com
http://www.hubick.com/