2:51 p.m.
If release engineering would like to release liveusb.iso for people to
use to install or just to look at the new features, that is fine But
from the #fedora channel the # of people installing off of the livecd
images are very high (if you want to search the logs i am sure they can
be provided, and yes the # installing useing the livecd.iso on usb is
high as well.)
the current livecd isos need to continue (yes i know the size sux, but
not everyone has highspeed internet thats why they are downloading the
livecd and not the dvd)
I say if you want to offer more choice, that is great, but do not shoot
yourself in the foot yet, for f13 we can always try a liveusb image as
well as the livecd iso if someone is willing to help release engineering
make this happen so much the better for all of us
if the people wanting a localized spin step up and do and maintain one
for your locale.
--
Ben Williams
Windows-Linux Specialist
460 McBryde Hall
Blacksburg VA 24061-0123
540 231-2739
2:47 p.m.
On 11/24/2009 02:21 AM, Ben Williams wrote:
If release engineering would like to release liveusb.iso for people
to
use to install or just to look at the new features, that is fine But
from the #fedora channel the # of people installing off of the livecd
images are very high (if you want to search the logs i am sure they can
be provided, and yes the # installing useing the livecd.iso on usb is
high as well.)
Have you done a survey asking if a 1 GB Live image won't satisfy their
needs?
if the people wanting a localized spin step up and do and maintain
one
for your locale.
Would you volunteer to maintain a Live CD Spin?
Rahul
9:05 a.m.
Rahul Sundaram wrote:
On 11/24/2009 02:21 AM, Ben Williams wrote:
> If release engineering would like to release liveusb.iso for people to
> use to install or just to look at the new features, that is fine But
> from the #fedora channel the # of people installing off of the livecd
> images are very high (if you want to search the logs i am sure they can
> be provided, and yes the # installing useing the livecd.iso on usb is
> high as well.)
Have you done a survey asking if a 1 GB Live image won't satisfy their
needs?
To reverse the question - has there been any solicitation of feedback
about how many people would be adversely affected by this change? This
is the first I'd heard of it.
I appreciate the desire to put more content on the default desktop spin
and think it would be a good thing to be able to include this sort of
material, but please be aware that this will adversely affect a number
of users (actual or potential) of fedora (and no I can't tell you how many).
To give you a couple of scenarios for uses this will affect:
1) Plenty of hardware being used today doesn't support booting from USB
and doesn't have a DVD drive. I've seen many of these machines turned
over to using linux after grinding to a halt running other OSs.
2) Plenty of people don't have a network conection or bandwidth cap
which would allow them to do a live install. Even my ADSL connection in
the UK wouldn't be able to do this.
Anyone with a combination of problems 1 and 2 is now unable to easily
install F13+. Before discarding the idea of CD images all together
would it not be worth finding out how many users this might affect?
The other problem I would have is that I give away plenty of CDs.
They're dirt cheap and it's easy to have a few lying around to
distribute when necessary. I'm not about to start giving away USB keys
instead. On a larger scale I've been involved with Software Freedom Day
where we distribute hundreds of CDs of free software. We couldn't
afford to move to DVDs (because of cost, time to burn and coverage of
hardware) so Fedora would have to be removed from the list of discs our
group distributed.
I'm all for having the USB image as well, but if there's any way to keep
a live CD then some of us would really appreciate it.
Thanks for listening
Simon.
9:17 a.m.
On 11/24/2009 08:35 PM, Simon Andrews wrote:
Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> On 11/24/2009 02:21 AM, Ben Williams wrote:
>> If release engineering would like to release liveusb.iso for people to
>> use to install or just to look at the new features, that is fine But
>> from the #fedora channel the # of people installing off of the livecd
>> images are very high (if you want to search the logs i am sure they can
>> be provided, and yes the # installing useing the livecd.iso on usb is
>> high as well.)
>
> Have you done a survey asking if a 1 GB Live image won't satisfy their
> needs?
To reverse the question - has there been any solicitation of feedback
about how many people would be adversely affected by this change? This
is the first I'd heard of it.
I appreciate the desire to put more content on the default desktop spin
and think it would be a good thing to be able to include this sort of
material, but please be aware that this will adversely affect a number
of users (actual or potential) of fedora (and no I can't tell you how
many).
To give you a couple of scenarios for uses this will affect:
1) Plenty of hardware being used today doesn't support booting from USB
and doesn't have a DVD drive. I've seen many of these machines turned
over to using linux after grinding to a halt running other OSs.
2) Plenty of people don't have a network conection or bandwidth cap
which would allow them to do a live install. Even my ADSL connection in
the UK wouldn't be able to do this.
Anyone with a combination of problems 1 and 2 is now unable to easily
install F13+. Before discarding the idea of CD images all together
would it not be worth finding out how many users this might affect?
We are not discarding CD images all together. If you feel there is a
compelling reason to continue with a Live CD, I am afraid you will have
to step up and do it. The tools are easy enough to learn and I am
willing to help you or anyone else interested.
Rahul
12:27 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-11-24 at 20:47 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
We are not discarding CD images all together. If you feel there is a
compelling reason to continue with a Live CD, I am afraid you will have
to step up and do it. The tools are easy enough to learn and I am
willing to help you or anyone else interested.
I'm not sure that's entirely true. To my knowledge, only the desktop
team is considering making this change. I haven't heard that the KDE,
LXDE and Xfce spins are all moving to 1GB images.
--
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net
12:24 p.m.
On 11/24/2009 11:57 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:
On Tue, 2009-11-24 at 20:47 +0530, Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> We are not discarding CD images all together. If you feel there is a
> compelling reason to continue with a Live CD, I am afraid you will have
> to step up and do it. The tools are easy enough to learn and I am
> willing to help you or anyone else interested.
I'm not sure that's entirely true. To my knowledge, only the desktop
team is considering making this change. I haven't heard that the KDE,
LXDE and Xfce spins are all moving to 1GB images.
I was referring only to the desktop Live CD since that is the only one
being changed afaik.
Rahul
3:37 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-11-23 at 15:51 -0500, Ben Williams wrote:
If release engineering would like to release liveusb.iso for people
to
use to install or just to look at the new features, that is fine But
from the #fedora channel the # of people installing off of the livecd
images are very high (if you want to search the logs i am sure they can
be provided, and yes the # installing useing the livecd.iso on usb is
high as well.)
the current livecd isos need to continue (yes i know the size sux, but
not everyone has highspeed internet thats why they are downloading the
livecd and not the dvd)
I say if you want to offer more choice, that is great, but do not shoot
yourself in the foot yet, for f13 we can always try a liveusb image as
well as the livecd iso if someone is willing to help release engineering
make this happen so much the better for all of us
if the people wanting a localized spin step up and do and maintain one
for your locale.
--
Ben Williams
Windows-Linux Specialist
460 McBryde Hall
Blacksburg VA 24061-0123
540 231-2739
Given the amount of bandwidth it takes to keep a Fedora install up to
date, the jump from 700M to 1.4G is not that big, and on par with the
other bandwidth requirements of Fedora.
For the really network starved, there is netinst.iso where you start
with 200M~ and only download the specific packages you wish to install,
minimally about 200 packages.
--
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature!
identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating
3:56 p.m.
For the really network starved, there is netinst.iso where you start
with 200M~ and only download the specific packages you wish to install,
minimally about 200 packages.
I think Ben is talking about /users/ with poor network access, the
ones who come on IRC asking for help because they have trouble
installing with the LiveCD. Not sure the netinst.iso would fit their
needs...
----------
Mathieu Bridon (bochecha)
4:09 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-11-23 at 22:56 +0100, Mathieu Bridon (bochecha) wrote:
> For the really network starved, there is netinst.iso where you
start
> with 200M~ and only download the specific packages you wish to install,
> minimally about 200 packages.
I think Ben is talking about /users/ with poor network access, the
ones who come on IRC asking for help because they have trouble
installing with the LiveCD. Not sure the netinst.iso would fit their
needs...
----------
Mathieu Bridon (bochecha)
The netinst.iso would involve less downloaded content than the 700M live
image. How would it not fit their needs?
--
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature!
identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating
4:07 p.m.
On 11/24/2009 03:39 AM, Jesse Keating wrote:
The netinst.iso would involve less downloaded content than the 700M live
image. How would it not fit their needs?
Perhaps net installation can be promoted as a "spin" and given
appropriate amount of attention in http://spins.fedoraproject.org
Rahul
4:16 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 03:37:42 +0530,
Rahul Sundaram <sundaram(a)fedoraproject.org> wrote:
On 11/24/2009 03:39 AM, Jesse Keating wrote:
>
> The netinst.iso would involve less downloaded content than the 700M live
> image. How would it not fit their needs?
Perhaps net installation can be promoted as a "spin" and given
appropriate amount of attention in http://spins.fedoraproject.org
That was actually a topic in the Spins SIG meeting today. Kevin Frenzi is
going to ask some people (releng, design team) about this.
We didn't think it should actually be a spin as such, but think that looking
at promoting it as a download option similar to the install CD and DVD is
worthwhile.
4:57 p.m.
The netinst.iso would involve less downloaded content than the 700M
live
image. How would it not fit their needs?
*IF* netinst.iso works the first time (no hardware failure, no user error,
no user misunderstanding, no power failure, no ISP failure, no phoneline failure,
no installer bug, no kernel bug, no X11 bug, ...), and *IF* the netinst.iso
is used only once (only one machine, user doesn't change his mind, ...),
then the 200MB netinst.iso (plus needed packages) does involve less downloading
than a 700MB LiveCD.
However, not so long ago my network connection was 150KB/s DSL, and I much
preferred to download an entire 700MB CD (1.5 hrs) before installation instead of
using netinst.iso. By experience, waiting for the entire CD was faster on average.
Something would go wrong during the first install attempt, and I would have to
start over. Or, I would install again on a different partition in order to
compare two setups. Or, I would give the CD to a friend. The 700MB CD was
a cache of time, and paid for itself after only *two* uses.
--
5:07 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-11-23 at 14:57 -0800, John Reiser wrote:
> The netinst.iso would involve less downloaded content than the
700M live
> image. How would it not fit their needs?
*IF* netinst.iso works the first time (no hardware failure, no user error,
no user misunderstanding, no power failure, no ISP failure, no phoneline failure,
no installer bug, no kernel bug, no X11 bug, ...), and *IF* the netinst.iso
is used only once (only one machine, user doesn't change his mind, ...),
then the 200MB netinst.iso (plus needed packages) does involve less downloading
than a 700MB LiveCD.
However, not so long ago my network connection was 150KB/s DSL, and I much
preferred to download an entire 700MB CD (1.5 hrs) before installation instead of
using netinst.iso. By experience, waiting for the entire CD was faster on average.
Something would go wrong during the first install attempt, and I would have to
start over. Or, I would install again on a different partition in order to
compare two setups. Or, I would give the CD to a friend. The 700MB CD was
a cache of time, and paid for itself after only *two* uses.
--
And to wait for a 1.4G live image, you'd have to wait another 1.5 hours.
When you're already waiting 1.5 hours, waiting 3 doesn't seem
outrageous.
--
Jesse Keating
Fedora -- Freedom² is a feature!
identi.ca: http://identi.ca/jkeating
12:41 p.m.
On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Ben Williams wrote:
(yes i know the size sux, but not
everyone has highspeed internet thats why they are downloading the livecd
and not the dvd)
Another interpretation would be: The contents of the DVD does not
satisfy the needs of many people.
I am in that ship for instance. There is so much useless stuff in the
DVD that I will never use that makes it a waste of time for me to
download.
In that sense, I use the LiveCD for installation, because I *have*
fast internet, so I can pull and install packages real fast.
Orcan
3:07 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 24, 2009 at 12:41 PM, Orcan Ogetbil <oget.fedora(a)gmail.com>wrote:
On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Ben Williams wrote:
> (yes i know the size sux, but not
> everyone has highspeed internet thats why they are downloading the livecd
> and not the dvd)
>
Another interpretation would be: The contents of the DVD does not
satisfy the needs of many people.
I am in that ship for instance. There is so much useless stuff in the
DVD that I will never use that makes it a waste of time for me to
download.
In that sense, I use the LiveCD for installation, because I *have*
fast internet, so I can pull and install packages real fast.
Orcan
--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list(a)redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
If there are systems that cannot boot to USB, why not offer a boot disc that
would automatically search for USB drives, offer a list of bootable USB
drives, and allow the user to select one to boot from?
There really is a huge need for this kind of option. I love installing from
USB, since it is so much faster and more reliable, but I have many systems
that are unable to boot from USB. And if it is done right, this boot disc
would rarely (if ever) have to be updated, since it would work for past and
future Fedora releases.
3:17 p.m.
On 11/24/2009 04:07 PM, Sir Gallantmon wrote:
If there are systems that cannot boot to USB, why not offer a boot
disc that
would automatically search for USB drives, offer a list of bootable USB
drives, and allow the user to select one to boot from?
Not that I actually believe in these systems that are i686 or newer and won't
boot off of usb-storage devices, but if they were to exist, you wouldn't be
able to do what you're saying on them.
When the bootloader is running, it can only see devices BIOS provides to it. If
a system can't boot off of a usb-storage device, it's because the BIOS isn't
enumerating it. So it's not a case of "we can start from another device and
then look at the device we meant to be using" - you can't see the device at all,
regardless of your starting point.
--
Peter
I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record.
3:24 p.m.
Once upon a time, Peter Jones <pjones(a)redhat.com> said:
Not that I actually believe in these systems that are i686 or newer
and won't
boot off of usb-storage devices, but if they were to exist, you wouldn't be
able to do what you're saying on them.
I have run into such systems unfortunately.
When the bootloader is running, it can only see devices BIOS provides
to it.
Not true. See for example PXE-boot floppies. Google "USB boot cd", and
the first hit is how to boot an Ubuntu USB flash drive using a CD boot
loader. There are also floppy images to boot from USB.
--
Chris Adams <cmadams(a)hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.
3:25 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-11-24 at 16:17 -0500, Peter Jones wrote:
On 11/24/2009 04:07 PM, Sir Gallantmon wrote:
> If there are systems that cannot boot to USB, why not offer a boot disc that
> would automatically search for USB drives, offer a list of bootable USB
> drives, and allow the user to select one to boot from?
Not that I actually believe in these systems that are i686 or newer and won't
boot off of usb-storage devices, but if they were to exist, you wouldn't be
able to do what you're saying on them.
When the bootloader is running, it can only see devices BIOS provides to it. If
a system can't boot off of a usb-storage device, it's because the BIOS isn't
enumerating it. So it's not a case of "we can start from another device and
then look at the device we meant to be using" - you can't see the device at
all,
regardless of your starting point.
Mandriva Flash - Mandriva's commercial system-on-a-USB-stick thingy -
does exactly what you confidently proclaim to be impossible. It comes
with a CD ISO you can burn onto a CD (or mini-CD) that allows you to
'chain-boot' the Flash on systems with crappy BIOSes that can't boot
from a USB stick (yes, they exist, but are getting progressively rarer,
obviously).
I don't know the specifics of how it works - given the above, I presume
it goes rather beyond the bootloader stage, or something - but it
definitely does exactly what Gallantmon suggested.
--
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net
3:38 p.m.
On 11/24/2009 04:25 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:
On Tue, 2009-11-24 at 16:17 -0500, Peter Jones wrote:
> On 11/24/2009 04:07 PM, Sir Gallantmon wrote:
>
>> If there are systems that cannot boot to USB, why not offer a boot disc that
>> would automatically search for USB drives, offer a list of bootable USB
>> drives, and allow the user to select one to boot from?
>
> Not that I actually believe in these systems that are i686 or newer and won't
> boot off of usb-storage devices, but if they were to exist, you wouldn't be
> able to do what you're saying on them.
>
> When the bootloader is running, it can only see devices BIOS provides to it. If
> a system can't boot off of a usb-storage device, it's because the BIOS
isn't
> enumerating it. So it's not a case of "we can start from another device
and
> then look at the device we meant to be using" - you can't see the device at
all,
> regardless of your starting point.
Mandriva Flash - Mandriva's commercial system-on-a-USB-stick thingy -
does exactly what you confidently proclaim to be impossible. It comes
with a CD ISO you can burn onto a CD (or mini-CD) that allows you to
'chain-boot' the Flash on systems with crappy BIOSes that can't boot
from a USB stick (yes, they exist, but are getting progressively rarer,
obviously).
I don't suppose you can easily fish out a url for the source to this? I'd like
to see what they're actually doing.
--
Peter
I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record.
3:58 p.m.
On 11/24/2009 01:38 PM, Peter Jones wrote:
On 11/24/2009 04:25 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:
> Mandriva Flash - Mandriva's commercial system-on-a-USB-stick
thingy -
> does exactly what you confidently proclaim to be impossible. It comes
> with a CD ISO you can burn onto a CD (or mini-CD) that allows you to
> 'chain-boot' the Flash on systems with crappy BIOSes that can't boot
> from a USB stick (yes, they exist, but are getting progressively rarer,
> obviously).
I don't suppose you can easily fish out a url for the source to
this? I'd like
to see what they're actually doing.
I've done it using Fedora 12, on an old Dell i686 laptop whose BIOS
cannot boot USB. A typical GRUB stanza has a line such as:
kernel /vmlinuz ro root=live:label='Feodra 12 i386 DVD' rootfstype=auto ...
where /vmlinuz is the kernel on the CD, and root=live:label='...'
designates the label of the device for the root (and init, and ...),
which can be USB, DVD, another CD, any block device that the Linux kernel
/vmlinuz can enumerate and understand.
--
4:01 p.m.
On 11/24/2009 04:58 PM, John Reiser wrote:
On 11/24/2009 01:38 PM, Peter Jones wrote:
> On 11/24/2009 04:25 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:
>> Mandriva Flash - Mandriva's commercial system-on-a-USB-stick thingy -
>> does exactly what you confidently proclaim to be impossible. It comes
>> with a CD ISO you can burn onto a CD (or mini-CD) that allows you to
>> 'chain-boot' the Flash on systems with crappy BIOSes that can't boot
>> from a USB stick (yes, they exist, but are getting progressively rarer,
>> obviously).
> I don't suppose you can easily fish out a url for the source to this?
> I'd like
> to see what they're actually doing.
I've done it using Fedora 12, on an old Dell i686 laptop whose BIOS
cannot boot USB. A typical GRUB stanza has a line such as:
kernel /vmlinuz ro root=live:label='Feodra 12 i386 DVD'
rootfstype=auto ...
where /vmlinuz is the kernel on the CD, and root=live:label='...'
designates the label of the device for the root (and init, and ...),
which can be USB, DVD, another CD, any block device that the Linux kernel
/vmlinuz can enumerate and understand.
This is a different thing than what was being discussed - they were talking
about chain booting device B from device A, not about booting off of A and
mounting a root fs that's on "B". The latter is obviously trivial, and
indeed
something our installer can already set up (though as a permanent installation,
not as another form of install media.)
--
Peter
I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record.
9:41 p.m.
On Tue, 2009-11-24 at 16:38 -0500, Peter Jones wrote:
> Mandriva Flash - Mandriva's commercial system-on-a-USB-stick
thingy -
> does exactly what you confidently proclaim to be impossible. It comes
> with a CD ISO you can burn onto a CD (or mini-CD) that allows you to
> 'chain-boot' the Flash on systems with crappy BIOSes that can't boot
> from a USB stick (yes, they exist, but are getting progressively rarer,
> obviously).
I don't suppose you can easily fish out a url for the source to this? I'd like
to see what they're actually doing.
it ought to be *somewhere* in
http://svn.mandriva.com/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/ , but I dunno where exactly.
I'll try and find out.
--
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net
11:27 a.m.
Trying to respond to several points that were raised in this thread...
1. If live cds are as indispensable as you claim they are, it will be
relatively straightforward to produce them for F13 simply by omitting
the big items that will push us over the cd size limit, ie OpenOffice,
example content, and whatever else we decide to fill the new space with.
But the bigger image will be the one that we try to make as good as
possible, and the CD-sized offspring will be a cut down version with
gaps.
2. More download choices are not a part of the solution, but a part of
the problem... We already have the problem that people are choosing to
download the DVD just because DVD > CD; but unlike the spins, the DVD is
not a designed product at all.
If we need to make a cd-sized alternative available, it should be marked
clearly as a secondary option on the download page, e.g. hidden behind a
'Can't boot USB ?' question...
3. 'Chain-booting' from cd to usb sounds like an elegant way to avoid
the 'Can't boot USB' problem. Did we figure out how Mandriva are doing
it ?
Matthias
12:27 p.m.
On 11/30/2009 12:27 PM, Matthias Clasen wrote:
3. 'Chain-booting' from cd to usb sounds like an elegant way
to avoid
the 'Can't boot USB' problem. Did we figure out how Mandriva are doing
it ?
No, we didn't. There are some things we might be able to do here, though,
which may solve this problem without actually "chain-booting". The most
obvious is to make sure the live image's initrd searches for a USB device
with the right filesystem label (and possibly other criteria) and mounts
that as root, and then build a liveboot.iso with one boot image and no[1]
real filesystem. The boot image would contain the kernel and initrd as
the only boot option.
This is fairly trivial to do, actually.
[1] It'd have to have an iso9660 filesystem with the isolinux/ directory
much like our current boot.iso does, but the kernel and initrd there would
be the ones from the live image, and we wouldn't put the rest of the live
OS on the disc.
--
Peter
5:08 p.m.
On Mon, 2009-11-30 at 13:27 -0500, Peter Jones wrote:
On 11/30/2009 12:27 PM, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> 3. 'Chain-booting' from cd to usb sounds like an elegant way to avoid
> the 'Can't boot USB' problem. Did we figure out how Mandriva are doing
> it ?
No, we didn't. There are some things we might be able to do here, though,
Yeah, sorry, I still haven't managed to find the code or ask anyone
involved (it's slightly tricky to sync up with France :>) I'll try and
do it this week.
--
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Fedora Talk: adamwill AT fedoraproject DOT org
http://www.happyassassin.net
9:23 a.m.
On 11/30/2009 01:27 PM, Peter Jones wrote:
On 11/30/2009 12:27 PM, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> 3. 'Chain-booting' from cd to usb sounds like an elegant way to avoid
> the 'Can't boot USB' problem. Did we figure out how Mandriva are doing
> it ?
No, we didn't. There are some things we might be able to do here, though,
which may solve this problem without actually "chain-booting". The most
obvious is to make sure the live image's initrd searches for a USB device
with the right filesystem label (and possibly other criteria) and mounts
that as root, and then build a liveboot.iso with one boot image and no[1]
real filesystem. The boot image would contain the kernel and initrd as
the only boot option.
This is fairly trivial to do, actually.
[1] It'd have to have an iso9660 filesystem with the isolinux/ directory
much like our current boot.iso does, but the kernel and initrd there would
be the ones from the live image, and we wouldn't put the rest of the live
OS on the disc.
Further research[1] seems to indicate that this is almost exactly what
they're doing.
[1] Adam pointed me at
http://svn.mandriva.com/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/soft/drakx/trunk/rescue/make_f...
--
Peter
The Shuttle is now going five times the sound of speed.
-- Dan Rather, first landing of Columbia
9:42 a.m.
On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 9:23 AM, Peter Jones <pjones(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On 11/30/2009 01:27 PM, Peter Jones wrote:
> On 11/30/2009 12:27 PM, Matthias Clasen wrote:
>> 3. 'Chain-booting' from cd to usb sounds like an elegant way to avoid
>> the 'Can't boot USB' problem. Did we figure out how Mandriva are
doing
>> it ?
>
> No, we didn't. There are some things we might be able to do here, though,
> which may solve this problem without actually "chain-booting". The most
> obvious is to make sure the live image's initrd searches for a USB device
> with the right filesystem label (and possibly other criteria) and mounts
> that as root, and then build a liveboot.iso with one boot image and no[1]
> real filesystem. The boot image would contain the kernel and initrd as
> the only boot option.
>
> This is fairly trivial to do, actually.
>
> [1] It'd have to have an iso9660 filesystem with the isolinux/ directory
> much like our current boot.iso does, but the kernel and initrd there
would
> be the ones from the live image, and we wouldn't put the rest of the live
> OS on the disc.
>
Further research[1] seems to indicate that this is almost exactly what
they're doing.
[1] Adam pointed me at
http://svn.mandriva.com/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/soft/drakx/trunk/rescue/make_f...
--
Peter
The Shuttle is now going five times the sound of speed.
-- Dan Rather, first landing of Columbia
--
fedora-devel-list mailing list
fedora-devel-list(a)redhat.com
https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list
I found another tool that claims to be able to search and boot a USB device,
from a floppy disk no less! The tool is called PLoP[1], and it is a custom
boot manager that can boot USB, CD, and hard disks.
Maybe that will help some people figure out how it is done.
[1]: http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html
10:18 a.m.
On 12/01/2009 10:42 AM, Sir Gallantmon wrote:
I found another tool that claims to be able to search and boot a USB
device,
from a floppy disk no less! The tool is called PLoP[1], and it is a custom
boot manager that can boot USB, CD, and hard disks.
Maybe that will help some people figure out how it is done.
[1]: http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html
That's pretty neat, but probably not much help to us. What this is is a
custom (proprietary, closed source, it seems) bootloader which basically
does this:
1) installs what amounts to a DOS TSR driver for each of:
a) IDE (of some unspecified variety)
b) [EOU]HCI
c) ATAPI and similar (i.e. SCSI MMC/SBC command sets along with
encapsulation for CDROM and USB-storage)
d) notably not any SATA/AHCI/etc
2) acts as a chainloading boot loader for whatever bootloader is on
media that it finds.
Which is also just a fancy way of saying it /replaces/ some of your BIOS's
int 13h routines with what are plausibly slightly smarter (but also
plausibly slightly dumber) ones.
If somebody wants to implement an open source version of this, it could be
helpful, I guess. But it's a lot of fairly difficult work, and the only
real advantage it has over the other scheme I've discussed is that the CD
(or whatever) you're booting from doesn't have to match the OS being
booted.
Anyway, if somebody's looking for a truly complex and isolating project to
work on, go right ahead, but I'm not going to ;)
--
Peter
The Shuttle is now going five times the sound of speed.
-- Dan Rather, first landing of Columbia
10:49 a.m.
On Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Peter Jones <pjones(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On 12/01/2009 10:42 AM, Sir Gallantmon wrote:
> I found another tool that claims to be able to search and boot a USB
device,
> from a floppy disk no less! The tool is called PLoP[1], and it is a
custom
> boot manager that can boot USB, CD, and hard disks.
>
> Maybe that will help some people figure out how it is done.
>
> [1]: http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager.html
That's pretty neat, but probably not much help to us. What this is is a
custom (proprietary, closed source, it seems) bootloader which basically
does this:
1) installs what amounts to a DOS TSR driver for each of:
a) IDE (of some unspecified variety)
b) [EOU]HCI
c) ATAPI and similar (i.e. SCSI MMC/SBC command sets along with
encapsulation for CDROM and USB-storage)
d) notably not any SATA/AHCI/etc
2) acts as a chainloading boot loader for whatever bootloader is on
media that it finds.
Which is also just a fancy way of saying it /replaces/ some of your BIOS's
int 13h routines with what are plausibly slightly smarter (but also
plausibly slightly dumber) ones.
If somebody wants to implement an open source version of this, it could be
helpful, I guess. But it's a lot of fairly difficult work, and the only
real advantage it has over the other scheme I've discussed is that the CD
(or whatever) you're booting from doesn't have to match the OS being
booted.
Anyway, if somebody's looking for a truly complex and isolating project to
work on, go right ahead, but I'm not going to ;)
--
Peter
The Shuttle is now going five times the sound of speed.
-- Dan Rather, first landing of Columbia
Couldn't something like that be implemented into GRUB/GRUB2? Unlike PLoP,
GRUB doesn't really have a size restriction, so maybe smarter methods of
detection could be implemented.
9:37 a.m.
On 12/01/2009 11:49 AM, Sir Gallantmon wrote:
Couldn't something like that be implemented into GRUB/GRUB2?
Unlike PLoP,
GRUB doesn't really have a size restriction, so maybe smarter methods of
detection could be implemented.
The approach of loading what amounts to DOS TSRs is something you could
do with pretty much any x86 bootloader (though it's worlds simpler with
syslinux than grub). But we're still basically talking about writing a
bunch of 16-bit device drivers.
I'm thinking it's not going to happen.
--
Peter
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
1:46 a.m.
On 11/30/2009 07:27 PM, Matthias Clasen wrote:
2. More download choices are not a part of the solution, but a part of
the problem... We already have the problem that people are choosing to
download the DVD just because DVD> CD; but unlike the spins, the DVD is
not a designed product at all.
This may mean also a good number of people to not care about a "designed
product", they just want the packages. Or it may be the case the design
for the "designed products" (that is the Desktop Spin, right?) is not
that great (I think is not, I am completely out of its target).
--
nicu :: http://nicubunu.ro :: http://nicubunu.blogspot.com/
3:59 p.m.
Hi,
On ۰۹/۱۱/۲۴ 10:11, Orcan Ogetbil wrote:
On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 3:51 PM, Ben Williams wrote:
> (yes i know the size sux, but not
> everyone has highspeed internet thats why they are downloading the livecd
> and not the dvd)
>
>
Another interpretation would be: The contents of the DVD does not
satisfy the needs of many people.
I am in that ship for instance. There is so much useless stuff in the
DVD that I will never use that makes it a waste of time for me to
download.
In that sense, I use the LiveCD for installation, because I *have*
fast internet, so I can pull and install packages real fast.
Yes, in fact DVDs are most suitable for people with slow internet
connections. Such people will NOT download Fedora at all! So, neither
netinst.iso nor livecds are appropriate for people with slow internet
connections. They'll buy Fedora DVDs since it contains more software and
they don't need to download too much. Why should somebody with fast
Internet access download DVDs? They can download whatever they want when
needed.
Thanks,
Hedayat
Orcan
5256
days inactive
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31 comments
15 participants
participants (15)
-
Adam Williamson -
Ben Williams -
Bruno Wolff III -
Chris Adams -
Hedayat Vatankhah -
Jesse Keating -
John Reiser -
Mathieu Bridon -
Matthias Clasen -
Neal Gompa -
Nicu Buculei -
Orcan Ogetbil -
Peter Jones -
Rahul Sundaram -
Simon Andrews