1:25 p.m.
I'm Greg DeK. You should all know me by this point, as I've likely
contacted each one of you about your interest in an official "Fedora Live
CD" project.
Why? Aren't there plenty of Live CDs out there already? Well, yes, there
are -- and even some that are based on Fedora. But we think that
Fedora-branded Live CDs are still important for a few reasons:
1. Everyone else has one. :)
2. It's an ideal low-risk strategy to allow people to find out what Fedora
is all about.
3. It's an ideal place for community contribution and development; the
technical barriers are well-understood, and the community has already
taken the lead in creating Fedora-based Live CDs. And in this
collaboration, we at Red Hat have an opportunity to grow closer to the
folks who dig our stuff.
===
So. To get the ball rolling, how about some introductions? I'll start.
I'm Greg DeK, community relations manager for Red Hat. I work on the
Fedora Extras project, act as legal go-between for the Fedora project, and
do a bunch of other stuff.
Some of my goals for this project:
* Build robust tools for building Fedora-based Live CDs, and putting
these tools into Fedora Extras.
* Create Live CDs from these tools, based entirely upon content in
Fedora Core and Fedora Extras, for official "blessing".
* Distribute these blessed Live CDs far and wide, through whatever
clever means we can come up with.
--g
_____________________ ____________________________________________
Greg DeKoenigsberg ] [ the future masters of technology will have
Community Relations ] [ to be lighthearted and intelligent. the
Red Hat ] [ machine easily masters the grim and the
] [ dumb. --mcluhan
Red Hat Summit ] [
New Orleans ] [ Learn. Network. Experience Open Source.
June 1/2/3 2005 ] [ (And Make Your Boss Pay For It.)
[ http://www.redhat.com/promo/summit/
1:54 p.m.
On Thursday 31 March 2005 14:25, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
So. To get the ball rolling, how about some introductions? I'll
start.
Hello,
I work on SE Linux and the auditing framework for Red Hat. But before I joined
Red Hat, I was building a distribution for use in an ISP setting. I had taken
FC2.5 and applied 200+ patches and wrote a build system. I was struggling
with the idea of how to do the installation - I wasn't a fan of anaconda
since its in python and I don't write python code.
I hit upon the idea of distributing the build as a Live CD. This way if
someone hacks our machine, we just hit the reset button. Upgrading the
machine to a new OS just means ejecting the CD and rebooting to the new
media.
I searched around the internet and ran across Basilisk Live CD. I did a little
work with Dirk Westfal to get the Live CD creation process documented in a
script. This way it is reproducible. I created the Live CD's for that ISP's
linux distribution and it all worked.
I have recently integrated the scripts with the Rookery Build system so that
people can create Live CD's easily. The Live CD kit can be found at:
www.web-insights.net/rookery. You can use pre-built rpms such as Fedora's. I
am actively working on the scripts to make them better. If no one else has
Live CD creation scripts available, I'd like to offer this as a starting
point.
My goals is to help with the technical side and help nail the issues down.
That's about the extent of it.
-Steve Grubb
3:02 a.m.
On Thu, 2005-03-31 at 14:54 -0500, Steve Grubb wrote:
I have recently integrated the scripts with the Rookery Build system
so that
people can create Live CD's easily. The Live CD kit can be found at:
www.web-insights.net/rookery. You can use pre-built rpms such as Fedora's. I
am actively working on the scripts to make them better. If no one else has
Live CD creation scripts available, I'd like to offer this as a starting
point.
A while ago I worked on the stateless linux project, and as part of this
i wrote the mklivecd script in the readonly-root package. Its pretty
simple as live cds go, it just creates a bootable zisofs image from a
stateless linux root. The actual work to make a livecd work was part of
the standard stateless linux work were everything runs with a readonly
filesystem.
I don't currently work on this anymore, but I'll hang around here and
see if there is anything i can do to help out.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Alexander Larsson Red Hat, Inc
alexl(a)redhat.com alla(a)lysator.liu.se
He's a world-famous flyboy astronaut who hides his scarred face behind a mask.
She's a mentally unstable wisecracking detective who dreams of becoming Elvis.
They fight crime!
3:02 a.m.
Hi,
On Thu, 2005-03-31 at 14:25 -0500, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
So. To get the ball rolling, how about some introductions? I'll start.
I'm in the slightly strange position of being a Red Hat contractor who
does various odd jobs (mostly relating to GFS, since I worked for
Sistina in the past). When I'm not working for Red Hat, my main job is
running ChyGwyn, better known as The Linux Emporium, a well known
supplier of all things Linux related but most famous for supplying
various distributions on cheap CDs. As such I'm always keen to see
another distribution made available for me to duplicate and sell :-)
Also, this year the UKUUG Linux conference comes to Swansea, UK which is
where I'm based. I'm considering doing a tutorial on Linux networking
and a Live CD would provide a very useful basis for this I think. I
wrote most of the kernel side of the Linux DECnet networking code, so
this remains an area of interest for me.
My main constraint is the time I can spend on this project bearing in
mind my other commitments.
I am a python programmer (amoung other things) and its the one scripting
language which has tempted me away from C and kernel development, but
I'm still not so keen on the internals of anaconda :-) I don't think it
would be of great help for a Live CD anyway and the initscripts are an
area I think would need a number of changes compared with the "standard"
Fedora distribution.
One area I'm concerned about is the speed of booting and it would be
interesting to see what might be done to address that.
Steve.
10:32 p.m.
On Thu, 2005-03-31 at 14:25 -0500, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
So. To get the ball rolling, how about some introductions?
I'll
start.
I'm Colin Charles, general all-rounder on The Fedora Project. My interst
in making a LiveCD is so that Fedora can get spread far and wide, and
that I can also use it for the United Nations LiveCD that I was doing
(still am doing). It is currently Ubuntu based because Casper actually
"just works"
I didn't want it Stateless based because of the fact that during the
pre-FUDCon discussions and just hanging out with most of the @redhat's,
they figure Stateless is not really a viable option. Xen/anaconda might
be what is its replacement, just minus LiveCDs
So, lets figure it out and get working on it. I've also been talking to
Steve Grubb about the Rookery system which I've been meaning to fiddle
with
Regards
--
Colin Charles, byte(a)aeon.com.my
http://www.bytebot.net/
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you,
then you win." -- Mohandas Gandhi
8:46 a.m.
Colin Charles wrote:
On Thu, 2005-03-31 at 14:25 -0500, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
>So. To get the ball rolling, how about some introductions? I'll
>start.
>
>
I'm Colin Charles, general all-rounder on The Fedora Project. My interst
in making a LiveCD is so that Fedora can get spread far and wide, and
that I can also use it for the United Nations LiveCD that I was doing
(still am doing). It is currently Ubuntu based because Casper actually
"just works"
I didn't want it Stateless based because of the fact that during the
pre-FUDCon discussions and just hanging out with most of the @redhat's,
they figure Stateless is not really a viable option. Xen/anaconda might
be what is its replacement, just minus LiveCDs
So, lets figure it out and get working on it. I've also been talking to
Steve Grubb about the Rookery system which I've been meaning to fiddle
with
Regards
Hi, Neville here,
I have some ideas that I would like to see implemented by the Fedora
Live CD project. I think you should aim to be at the top of the pack so
the Fedora Core live CD should really be a step up from what is
currently available. The various Knoppix boot CDs are at the cutting
edge and you need to release something far superior to draw people to
your products.
As a boot CD builder I have used cloop and squashfs and I would hope
that someone would add squashfs to the standard Fedora Core kernel
distribution before starting this project. This will allow for the
Fedora livecd to have a lot more files.
The ADIOS boot CD, which I have been developing is currently based on
Fedora Core 3. ADIOS uses the busybox/uclibc/isolinux startup which
then performs a pivot_root to the real filesystem this works fine but I
had to modify the filesystem so that /usr was read-only squashfs and the
read-write files are all moved into /var which is a RAM drive (or disk
partition).
The Xendemo boot CD is a better model, it uses copy-on-write filesystems
and I think that including Xen would also make the Fedora livecd very
attractive to Educational Institutions, which want to teach networking
and security.
I would like to see most of the services that are needed to complete the
RedHat Certified Engineer (RHCE) course on the Fedora livecd. And maybe
some of the promotional material associated with obtaining the RHCE.
Lastly why not a Fedora live DVD which would support as many languages
as possible on startup, as there seems to be a huge non-English
following of RedHat Fedora Core. Using squashfs you will have plenty of
room to have both the RPMS and the SRPMS on the DVD as well.
----
Myself and Mark Huth are about to start rebuilding the busbox/uclibc
software in preparation to building the the next ADIOS boot CD based on
Fedora Core 4. We have plans to do most of the above but would be happy
for RedHat to do the work, although we could also help with ideas and
coding. For comparison you can download the current ADIOS boot CD
version 4.11 from http://dc.qut.edu.au/remote/adios4
username: adios
password: 12qwaszx
Start with run option 1 first, you also need the username adios and
password 12qwaszx to login. The FAQ is on the CD but if you don't get
that far go to http://dc.qut.edu.au/adios
--
regards Neville
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
email: n.richter(a)qut.edu.au room: S745 Gardens Point
phone: +61 07 3864 1928 fax: +61 07 3221 2384
web: http://dc.qut.edu.au/sedc/staff/neville_richter.html
Neville Richter, Senior Lecturer
School of Software Engineering & Data Communications
Faculty of Information Technology
Queensland University of Technology
Box 2434 Brisbane 4001 AUSTRALIA
8 a.m.
On Tuesday 05 April 2005 09:46, Neville Richter wrote:
As a boot CD builder I have used cloop and squashfs and I would hope
that someone would add squashfs to the standard Fedora Core kernel
distribution before starting this project. This will allow for the
Fedora livecd to have a lot more files.
You don't have to do it like this. You can use mkzftree during the last stages
to create compressed file system that the kernel knows how to read. Reading
from the squashfs page, they use gzip so isn't it the same? I looked at cloop
and decided there was no gain from mkzftree.
ADIOS uses the busybox/uclibc/isolinux startup which
then performs a pivot_root to the real filesystem this works fine but I
had to modify the filesystem so that /usr was read-only squashfs and the
read-write files are all moved into /var which is a RAM drive (or disk
partition).
This is more or less normal for livecds.
The Xendemo boot CD is a better model, it uses copy-on-write
filesystems
and I think that including Xen would also make the Fedora livecd very
attractive to Educational Institutions, which want to teach networking
and security.
Right. This is an improvement in terms of memory space. I also include /etc in
tmpfs because networking stuff wants to write there.
-Steve Grubb
7:42 p.m.
On Apr 5, 2005 7:00 AM, Steve Grubb <sgrubb(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On Tuesday 05 April 2005 09:46, Neville Richter wrote:
> As a boot CD builder I have used cloop and squashfs and I would hope
> that someone would add squashfs to the standard Fedora Core kernel
> distribution before starting this project.
You don't have to do it like this. You can use mkzftree during
the last stages
to create compressed file system that the kernel knows how to read.
That's an interesting approach that I thought about using on another
project. As a comparison I built the same CD using both zisofs and
cloop. IIRC, cloop ended up providing 10 to 15 percent better
compression. Unfortunately cloop has it's problems too. One of them
has been keeping the Debian oriented sources compiling against the
Fedora kernels.
I like Neville's suggestion of having squashfs support in the kernel.
This would provide both the convenience of zisofs and the compression
advantages of cloop.
-Tom
9:40 p.m.
Tom Lisjac wrote:
On Apr 5, 2005 7:00 AM, Steve Grubb <sgrubb(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>On Tuesday 05 April 2005 09:46, Neville Richter wrote:
>
>
>>As a boot CD builder I have used cloop and squashfs and I would hope
>>that someone would add squashfs to the standard Fedora Core kernel
>>distribution before starting this project.
>>
>>
>You don't have to do it like this. You can use mkzftree during the last stages
>to create compressed file system that the kernel knows how to read.
>
>
That's an interesting approach that I thought about using on another
project. As a comparison I built the same CD using both zisofs and
cloop. IIRC, cloop ended up providing 10 to 15 percent better
compression. Unfortunately cloop has it's problems too. One of them
has been keeping the Debian oriented sources compiling against the
Fedora kernels.
I like Neville's suggestion of having squashfs support in the kernel.
This would provide both the convenience of zisofs and the compression
advantages of cloop.
-Tom
--
Fedora-livecd-list mailing list
Fedora-livecd-list(a)redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-livecd-list
Hello again,
I would hope that the COW filesystem technology used on the Xendemo CD
becomes the standard way of starting the Fedora live-CD.
My current problem which will also be a problem for the Fedora live-CD
is that Schools and Universities are all moving towards wireless
laboratories. The problem is that wireless vendors seem to cater
primarily for MS Windows and you then have to use software that runs
these DLLs. Also the licence agreements for the wireless software do
not extend to distributing vendor software with boot CD.
--
regards Neville
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
email: n.richter(a)qut.edu.au room: S745 Gardens Point
phone: +61 7 3864 1928 fax: +61 7 3221 2384
web: http://dc.qut.edu.au/sedc/staff/neville_richter.html
Neville Richter, Senior Lecturer
School of Software Engineering & Data Communications
Faculty of Information Technology
Queensland University of Technology
Box 2434 Brisbane 4001 AUSTRALIA
3:04 a.m.
On Tue, 2005-04-05 at 18:42 -0600, Tom Lisjac wrote:
On Apr 5, 2005 7:00 AM, Steve Grubb <sgrubb(a)redhat.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday 05 April 2005 09:46, Neville Richter wrote:
> > As a boot CD builder I have used cloop and squashfs and I would hope
> > that someone would add squashfs to the standard Fedora Core kernel
> > distribution before starting this project.
> You don't have to do it like this. You can use mkzftree during the last stages
> to create compressed file system that the kernel knows how to read.
That's an interesting approach that I thought about using on another
project. As a comparison I built the same CD using both zisofs and
cloop. IIRC, cloop ended up providing 10 to 15 percent better
compression. Unfortunately cloop has it's problems too. One of them
has been keeping the Debian oriented sources compiling against the
Fedora kernels.
I like Neville's suggestion of having squashfs support in the kernel.
This would provide both the convenience of zisofs and the compression
advantages of cloop.
The best way to get this done is to try to get squashfs into the
upstream kernel. There has been some motion on this recently:
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0503.1/2040.html
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Alexander Larsson Red Hat, Inc
alexl(a)redhat.com alla(a)lysator.liu.se
He's an unconventional Catholic astronaut possessed of the uncanny powers of
an insect. She's a man-hating communist femme fatale with a birthmark shaped
like Liberty's torch. They fight crime!
6958
days inactive
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livecd@lists.fedoraproject.org
9 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
Alexander Larsson -
Colin Charles -
Greg DeKoenigsberg -
Neville Richter -
Steve Grubb -
Steven Whitehouse -
Tom Lisjac