[svlug] Lots o' disk space

[Marc MERLIN]

On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 03:59:39PM -0700, Aaron Porter wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 2:50 PM, Marc MERLIN <marc_news at merlins.org> wrote:
> > That's not the same. I've done many unattended installs (kickstart or d-i)
> > and that's a different game. Some took me days or weeks to debug and make
> > work properly. It's worth it to install many machines, but not for one.
> 
> I may be strange (it's been suggested before) but I started (at home)
> with a hand install, then took the output of dpkg --get-selections,
> debconf-get-selections &  debconf-get-selections --installer and
> turned that into a d-i preseed (in CVS, then SVN and now git). I
> update that periodically as local config drifts. When new hardware
> comes in, it's usually just a few changes in the partman recipe
> (resulting in a new d-i class), a PXE boot and you're good to go.
> Hardware failure is handled much the same way, but with a restore from
> rdiff-backup for user data.

This works for normal installs, not strange and custom lvm/swraid or
encrypted root installs.
I do the latter(s), so it's a lot easier to do one off installs from a boot
CD.

And quite frankly, debugging d-i when things aren't working like you want,
is a major pain in the ass and not something I'd wish on any end user who
just wants to install one or two machines at home.

Marc
-- 
"A mouse is a device used to point at the xterm you want to type in" - A.S.R.
Microsoft is to operating systems & security ....
                                      .... what McDonalds is to gourmet cooking
Home page: http://marc.merlins.org/