[arch-releng] the future of quickinst

[Dieter Plaetinck]

On Mon, 9 Mar 2009 20:01:35 -0500
Dan McGee <dpmcgee at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 5:29 PM, Thomas Bächler <thomas at archlinux.org>
> wrote:
> > Aaron Griffin schrieb:
> >>
> >> On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 2:55 PM, Dieter Plaetinck
> >> <dieter at plaetinck.be> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> * aif -p automatic -c /path/to/configfile:
> >>> the recommended way: you have
> >>> the ability to specify partitioning/filesystems/package
> >>> lists/hostname etc in a config file format which i'll try to keep
> >>> as simple as possible.
> >>> that, and the ability to define custom hooks and whatnot to
> >>> implement custom logic in your config
> >>
> >> This seems the most ideal here. If we're assuming you're
> >> mass-installing or something of the sort, the installer needs to
> >> know all this information for each machine.
> >>
> >> I think we should even skip the initial "quickinst" copy and just
> >> go this route - though providing a sample config file would be
> >> necessary though
> >>
> >
> > I agree.
> >
> > Someone could easily create a custom installation medium with a
> > custom aif automatic configuration and use that for mass
> > installation.
> 
> My only thought is whether this is even necessary- I'm guessing most
> people used quickinst as just a part of a full automated install (e.g.
> shell script that first does partitioning, mounting, etc).
> 
> I wouldn't mind a tool that takes care of this for me, but if it isn't
> useful for a wide variety of cases, it won't be used. In addition, any
> config file format we write is surely not as flexible as a shell
> script would be.
> 
> -Dan

Aha ! This is actually the very reason I started this all.
I want for myself to have a script that does all this cool stuff.
(the port of /arch/setup is just a little side project as far as I'm
concerned ;-)

And you're right that a file format adds another layer of complexity,
but you get some free stuff in return such as the rolling back in case
of failure, no need to program sfdisk input (which is quite ugly).
If no one will use this particular part of aif.. well that's fine by
me. we'll see :)

Dieter