9:38 a.m.
So. Had a few discussions around this at the Red Hat Summit -- it became
a hot topic in the Fedora BOF there. What came out of it? Well...
...for one thing, it became clear that we need to kickstart this list. :)
For another thing, some folks asked: why not Live DVD?
For another thing, some folks asked: why not put the installer on it, so
that people can install the precise image they're playing with?
And lots of other questions. But for me, here's the takeaway:
There's lots of Live CDs. Too many to count. If we're not doing
something interesting, then we're nothing more than one more Live CD with
Fedora branding.
What about a Live DVD? With potential goals of:
1. Allowing users to choose to run the image that suits them;
2. Allowing users to install from DVD if they like;
3. Allowing us to put multiple arches on one DVD, if possible?
Looking at the download numbers from the torrent, we're seeing about 50/50
numbers for CD/DVD downloads.
So what about it? I know a bunch of you folks have Live CD code that
runs. Any of it convertible to Live DVD code?
--g
(p.s. Yes, we've announced the intention to announce the Fedora Foundation
at some point. I hope this means that we'll be able to turn this into an
officially sanctioned project at some point. But in the meantime, talking
works.)
_____________________ ____________________________________________
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
6:14 p.m.
New subject: Revival of this list: Fedora Live DVD? |
On Thu, 2005-06-09 at 10:38 -0400, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
So. Had a few discussions around this at the Red Hat Summit -- it
became
a hot topic in the Fedora BOF there. What came out of it? Well...
...for one thing, it became clear that we need to kickstart this list. :)
For another thing, some folks asked: why not Live DVD?
At the moment, the workstation install spills over 650mb , but it could
compress well, but at the moment it is looking like a live DVD to me.
For another thing, some folks asked: why not put the installer on it, so
that people can install the precise image they're playing with?
This can be done, although this would require all packages in rpm format
to be on CD, space may prohibit this.
And lots of other questions. But for me, here's the takeaway:
There's lots of Live CDs. Too many to count. If we're not doing
something interesting, then we're nothing more than one more Live CD with
Fedora branding.
This is true, I think that using anaconda to "create" a live CD package
set is the differentiator (spelling ?) for us. Those who want to, can
generate their own "Live (DV|C)D's" with whatever their focus is.
By using anaconda and therefore kickstart, we can automate the creation
of the liveCD. This creates a very clean way of creating liveCD's
across both RHEL and Fedora.
This benefits Fedora by:
Any beta build features can be tested easily, and people with show
stopping bugs can download a small ISO set that can test to see if their
issue is solved.
An automated "Rawhide" build can be created each day, which will save
developers from having to do an install, and also people with issues
currently being worked on, engineering can push them a "CD" that the
user can test with minimal expense.
What about a Live DVD? With potential goals of:
1. Allowing users to choose to run the image that suits them;
2. Allowing users to install from DVD if they like;
3. Allowing us to put multiple arches on one DVD, if possible?
Looking at the download numbers from the torrent, we're seeing about 50/50
numbers for CD/DVD downloads.
So what about it? I know a bunch of you folks have Live CD code that
runs. Any of it convertible to Live DVD code?
--g
(p.s. Yes, we've announced the intention to announce the Fedora Foundation
at some point. I hope this means that we'll be able to turn this into an
officially sanctioned project at some point. But in the meantime, talking
works.)
_____________________ ____________________________________________
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
--
Fedora-livecd-list mailing list
Fedora-livecd-list(a)redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-livecd-list
--
Wade Mealing
Red Hat Global Support Services
11:51 a.m.
My two cents (and I expect change back):
I think we should think about why people like live CDs, and what they
use them for.
I think one of the big attractors is grabbing a CD and taking it into
an unknown location and yet still having the environment and tools
they like. I'm not sure how many people grab a live cd and then go
'hey this rocks, go ahead and install!' I'm sure it happens, but I
suspect it isn't that often; more likely, they try the live CD out,
like it, then plan some kind of more permanent install (remember, most
Windows people will then have to add a second hard drive or
repartition... not spur-of-the-moment activies).
Having to download the entire distro, PLUS a pile of expanded
binaries, would just waste bandwidth and annoy people.
What would be cooler is if you could create them on the fly from a
given package set; basically take a kickstart (well, the @Packages
section) and turn it into a cd or dvd. Maybe also allow custom
packages. Make some sensible default (OO+Gnome, maybe) available from
the official FC site, but, if someone downloads the original DVDs or
CDs, they should be able to just make their own.
Chip
Greg DeKoenigsberg <gdk(a)redhat.com> writes:
So. Had a few discussions around this at the Red Hat Summit -- it
became
a hot topic in the Fedora BOF there. What came out of it? Well...
...for one thing, it became clear that we need to kickstart this list. :)
For another thing, some folks asked: why not Live DVD?
For another thing, some folks asked: why not put the installer on it, so
that people can install the precise image they're playing with?
And lots of other questions. But for me, here's the takeaway:
There's lots of Live CDs. Too many to count. If we're not doing
something interesting, then we're nothing more than one more Live CD with
Fedora branding.
What about a Live DVD? With potential goals of:
1. Allowing users to choose to run the image that suits them;
2. Allowing users to install from DVD if they like;
3. Allowing us to put multiple arches on one DVD, if possible?
Looking at the download numbers from the torrent, we're seeing about 50/50
numbers for CD/DVD downloads.
So what about it? I know a bunch of you folks have Live CD code that
runs. Any of it convertible to Live DVD code?
--g
(p.s. Yes, we've announced the intention to announce the Fedora Foundation
at some point. I hope this means that we'll be able to turn this into an
officially sanctioned project at some point. But in the meantime, talking
works.)
_____________________ ____________________________________________
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
--
Fedora-livecd-list mailing list
Fedora-livecd-list(a)redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-livecd-list
--
Chip Turner cturner(a)pattern.net
12:19 p.m.
Am Sonntag, den 12.06.2005, 12:51 -0400 schrieb Chip Turner:
My two cents (and I expect change back):
And my two cents also:
I asked someone from a computer magazine that ships live-cds now and
then about the price-ratio of such cd/dvds. He told me dvd are about
four times more expensive then a "normal" cd currently.
I think such magazines are a very important fedora-live-{cd,dvd} target
for marketing purposes. And if CDs are cheaper for magazines we should
provide them with CDs -- maybe we could have a DVD, too, but the CD is
more important imho.
And, as somebody pointed out already, CD are cheaper to download also.
--
Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info>
5:54 a.m.
On Sun, 12 Jun 2005, Chip Turner wrote:
My two cents (and I expect change back):
Your change, as requested. :)
I think we should think about why people like live CDs, and what
they
use them for.
I think one of the big attractors is grabbing a CD and taking it into
an unknown location and yet still having the environment and tools
they like. I'm not sure how many people grab a live cd and then go
'hey this rocks, go ahead and install!' I'm sure it happens, but I
suspect it isn't that often; more likely, they try the live CD out,
like it, then plan some kind of more permanent install (remember, most
Windows people will then have to add a second hard drive or
repartition... not spur-of-the-moment activies).
Having to download the entire distro, PLUS a pile of expanded
binaries, would just waste bandwidth and annoy people.
True enough. One of my goals, though, is to have something that the
Fedora Marketing project can burn and ship all over the world -- a
complete "this is Fedora, baby, one DVD, put it in and watch 'er rip."
In my cloud-cuckoo-land, the
"as-not-yet-defined-but-soon-to-exist-Fedora-Foundation" would have budget
to ship physical media to places that maybe can't even download CD images
without great pain. And I say this knowing full well that DVD has not
reached more than 50% market penetration yet in the best of cases -- but
it'd be nice to be ahead of the curve on something, for once. :)
What would be cooler is if you could create them on the fly from a
given package set; basically take a kickstart (well, the @Packages
section) and turn it into a cd or dvd. Maybe also allow custom
packages. Make some sensible default (OO+Gnome, maybe) available from
the official FC site, but, if someone downloads the original DVDs or
CDs, they should be able to just make their own.
Yeah, I think that the ability to create customized Live CDs/DVDs easily
should be one of the primary goals as well.
So... I *know* that a bunch of the folks on this list have code that
works, doing bits and pieces of this stuff now. I know, because I added
some of you to the list myself for that very reason. :)
The question now is, "how do we get our hands dirty"?
--g
10:58 a.m.
On Mon, 13 Jun 2005, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
Yeah, I think that the ability to create customized Live CDs/DVDs
easily
should be one of the primary goals as well.
So... I *know* that a bunch of the folks on this list have code that
works, doing bits and pieces of this stuff now. I know, because I added
some of you to the list myself for that very reason. :)
The question now is, "how do we get our hands dirty"?
One thing to note is that the "LiveCD generator" project is on the Fedora
Bounties list for the summer of code, and to date it has been one of the
most popular projects in terms of questions asked. This means that it is
likely that we will have a student working on the project starting around
the end of this month.
No doubt this person will use the work so far as a starting point on
their project. We'll have to see how the interaction between the student
and this list works once the person gets started.
Best,
-- Elliot
You can accomplish anything you want, so long as you don't care who gets credit for
it.
10:09 a.m.
New subject: Live CD: Who's got some code?
Seems to me that, since we're about to have a lot of hands available, it's
time to do a few things:
1. Identify everyone on the list who currently has code working that
builds Live CDs, and set up CVS write access for those folks ASAP.
Elliot, in your opinion, does it make sense to set aside a livecd repo
under cvs.fedora.redhat.com?
2. Figure out how to do some show-and-tells, so everyone can get a common
understanding of what's out there.
3. Get into an IRC channel sometime, somewhere, and start arguing about
what the real requirements are. :)
So: ROLL CALL! If you've got code that builds a Live CD somehow, tell us
all about it. This means you.
--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
11:42 a.m.
New subject: Live CD: Who's got some code?
On Mon, 13 Jun 2005, Greg DeKoenigsberg wrote:
Seems to me that, since we're about to have a lot of hands
available, it's
time to do a few things:
1. Identify everyone on the list who currently has code working that
builds Live CDs, and set up CVS write access for those folks ASAP.
Elliot, in your opinion, does it make sense to set aside a livecd repo
under cvs.fedora.redhat.com?
We can put the stuff in the /cvs/fedora repository, since the LiveCD
script seems like an infrastructure project.
-- Elliot
You can accomplish anything you want, so long as you don't care who gets credit for
it.
2:02 a.m.
On 6/13/05, Greg DeKoenigsberg <gdk(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On Sun, 12 Jun 2005, Chip Turner wrote:
True enough. One of my goals, though, is to have something that the
Fedora Marketing project can burn and ship all over the world -- a
complete "this is Fedora, baby, one DVD, put it in and watch 'er rip."
This would involve a tedious but straightforward mastering process
that could probably be done in a few days by an individual using
existing tools. Unfortunately I don't see the utility of the DVD
format when so many systems aren't equipped with them. Compression
can pack a standard CD with most of the killer apps that Linux has to
offer... and if the plan is to ship these around the world, they're
going to encounter a lot of older hardware that won't know what a DVD
is.
> What would be cooler is if you could create them on the fly from
a
> given package set; basically take a kickstart... but, if someone
> downloads the original DVDs or
> CDs, they should be able to just make their own.
This is the project I'm interested in working on. A graphical tool to
do this doesn't exist yet.
The question now is, "how do we get our hands dirty"?
Focusing on a specific goal would be a good start.
Media size and type are just parameters. A challenge worthy of this
list would be creating a tool that makes package selection,
customization and image building easy. For me, the basic requirement
is gui based system that will create a variety of selectable OS image
types from a pile of binary RPMs. In this context, business card
CD's, UML images, DVD's, USB stick bootables, hd installs, etc are
just radio buttons on a tabbed panel. Roger Binn's UMLBuilder with
individual package and media type selection is pretty close:
http://umlbuilder.sourceforge.net/
So at this point, we have two different projects on the table. One is
to build a FedoraMax DVD... the other is to build a "builder". Picking
the one that the people on this list are interested in would probably
be the best way to get started.
-Tom
6:41 p.m.
New subject: Fedora "builder" CD
Tom Lisjac wrote:
On 6/13/05, Greg DeKoenigsberg <gdk(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 12 Jun 2005, Chip Turner wrote:
>
>
>True enough. One of my goals, though, is to have something that the
>Fedora Marketing project can burn and ship all over the world -- a
>complete "this is Fedora, baby, one DVD, put it in and watch 'er rip."
>
>
This would involve a tedious but straightforward mastering process
that could probably be done in a few days by an individual using
existing tools. Unfortunately I don't see the utility of the DVD
format when so many systems aren't equipped with them. Compression
can pack a standard CD with most of the killer apps that Linux has to
offer... and if the plan is to ship these around the world, they're
going to encounter a lot of older hardware that won't know what a DVD
is.
>>What would be cooler is if you could create them on the fly from a
>>given package set; basically take a kickstart... but, if someone
>>downloads the original DVDs or
>>CDs, they should be able to just make their own.
>>
>>
This is the project I'm interested in working on. A graphical tool to
do this doesn't exist yet.
>The question now is, "how do we get our hands dirty"?
>
>
Focusing on a specific goal would be a good start.
Media size and type are just parameters. A challenge worthy of this
list would be creating a tool that makes package selection,
customization and image building easy. For me, the basic requirement
is gui based system that will create a variety of selectable OS image
types from a pile of binary RPMs. In this context, business card
CD's, UML images, DVD's, USB stick bootables, hd installs, etc are
just radio buttons on a tabbed panel. Roger Binn's UMLBuilder with
individual package and media type selection is pretty close:
http://umlbuilder.sourceforge.net/
So at this point, we have two different projects on the table. One is
to build a FedoraMax DVD... the other is to build a "builder". Picking
the one that the people on this list are interested in would probably
be the best way to get started.
-Tom
--
Fedora-livecd-list mailing list
Fedora-livecd-list(a)redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-livecd-list
Hi,
Here is what I am going to do with the next version of ADIOS live CD so
why not Fedora "builder" CD. I am including squashfs and unionfs as
part of the kernel.
So my suggestion is that standard Fedora kernel have these modules or
similar, then it is easy to create a "builder" CD on the fly, just
create a "root_fs" filesystem on a spare partition or directly into a
2GByte loopback filesystem. This root_fs filesystem is then placed
within a squashfs filesystem. This only requires the startup process
using say isolinux+busybox+vmlinuz+initrd.gz (or whatever) to mount the
squashfs, create a ram drive for read-write, then mount the loopback
using unionfs, a few extra "if" statements in rc.sysinit (or rc.bootcd)
and then the live CD works.
--
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
10:58 p.m.
New subject: Fedora "builder" CD
Hi,
Here is what I am going to do with the next version of ADIOS live CD so
why not Fedora "builder" CD. I am including squashfs and unionfs as
part of the kernel.
So my suggestion is that standard Fedora kernel have these modules or
similar, then it is easy to create a "builder" CD on the fly, just
create a "root_fs" filesystem on a spare partition or directly into a
2GByte loopback filesystem. This root_fs filesystem is then placed
within a squashfs filesystem. This only requires the startup process
using say isolinux+busybox+vmlinuz+initrd.gz (or whatever) to mount the
squashfs, create a ram drive for read-write, then mount the loopback
using unionfs, a few extra "if" statements in rc.sysinit (or rc.bootcd)
and then the live CD works.
Neville,
Are the scripts used for ADIOS liveCD available under the GPL to the
public. I may have missed something, is there any chance I get the
source code ?
Wade
--
Wade Mealing
Red Hat Global Support Services
6897
days inactive
6904
days old
livecd@lists.fedoraproject.org
10 comments
7 participants
participants (7)
-
Chip Turner -
Elliot Lee -
Greg DeKoenigsberg -
Neville Richter -
Thorsten Leemhuis -
Tom Lisjac -
Wade Mealing