Scriptable Installation

dennis · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 06 Jun 2002 Posts: 84

hi,

everytime someone installes a Linux he has to do pretty much the same stuff over and over ... (especially if you are setting up more than one comp)comp

but it seems to me that 99% of it is not necessary!

just take a usual installation on a 486 ... the only things that need to be adjusted to each computer are the modules and the partition/hard disk sizes.

a litlebit scripting interface would be nice and solve this problem...

if you think a litle bit further you could also create a little tool that asks you for these changes (hdds n modules, etc) and creates a script for you ...

this sounds like some other "slow" distris and their setup ... but it doesnt make anything slower or less configurable ... i would compare it to menuconfig for the kernel confguration, nobody would do that by hand

Dennis

fghellar · Posted: Thu Jun 06, 2002 4:49 am Post subject: Re: Scriptable Installation

dennis · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 06 Jun 2002 Posts: 84

yep, i know bash but that wouldnt go through the chroot would it? (never tried though)

fghellar · Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2002 8:31 pm Post subject:

I need a confirmation on this, but I think you can do something like

lx · Posted: Fri Jun 07, 2002 11:52 pm Post subject:

fghellar · Posted: Sat Jun 08, 2002 3:22 am Post subject:

Chadmitch · n00b Joined: 18 Apr 2002 Posts: 1 Location: Fairport, NY

I'm looking for a linux dist that has an automatic install and repeatable and is minimal. I've just about got RedHat there but there is stuff there I don't want, even in just a base install. I learned a trick to script fdisk and then thought about Gentoo again.

Now I'm hacking away at scripting an install of Gentoo. I'm working to rebuild my secondary name server and want everything just the way I want it. It may take a few installs to do this, fortunately I've got a 1.2GHz test system.

From what I've thought about so far a generic scripted install users would have first install the system or at least know the parameters to pass to fdisk to get the disk layout correct.

If/When I get my install of Gentoo Linux scripted and working I'll write it up and put up on my site somewhere.

Plus I also want a dist that runs on Sparc|64, x86, and Alpha would be nice as well as I've got all 3 in my basement.

delta407 · Posted: Sun Jun 09, 2002 3:58 am Post subject:

You could have the user partition their hard drives manually and then just prompt for partition names. (Like "Root partition? Boot partition? How many swap partitions? Swap partition 0?" etc.)

nzadrozny · n00b Joined: 22 May 2002 Posts: 11 Location: San Diego

lx · Posted: Mon Jun 10, 2002 1:21 pm Post subject:

Well I don't say people should do it the hardway, but maintaining gentoo goes in the same manner, there aren't fancy configuration tools, so I think a small barrier ain't that bad. A very small barrier; I also don't think the install is that difficult. The installer represents the distro just fine. But well the post wasn't talking about this in the first place, so never mind.

If somebody wants to create an installer, I will use it, but I don't see a pressing need for it, I rebuild my system from scratch a few times and it didn't take that long (well except for compiling). If I would do it more often I could always write my own script, remember it ain't that simple to write a general install script. Many tasks need to be done by hand. Most people can write there own bash script.

Cya lX.
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