[fedora-arm] Initial git-commit of a Possible Fedora-ARM Image Creator

[Chris Tyler]

On Wed, 2012-02-01 at 22:41 -0500, Jonathan Chiappetta wrote:
> Hey everyone, 
> 
> I've been really bored at the start of this semester so I've been in
> the mood to make stuff 
> even if I'm not qualified to do so. Anyway, here is just a rough,
> basic start of something 
> some of you may like. I would like feedback on a couple things if you
> guys are indeed 
> even intending to use this thing: 
> 
> 1. Does the front-end look ok? Too simple? Too complicated? Missing
> something?
> 2. How should I connect the front-end to the back-end of it?
>   -- What should a user have at the minimum to make a working
> computer?
>     -- (root fs, kernel files, machine type, etc...)
> 3. Should it link to a well-known, always up, static site to
> automatically pull all the files in?
>   -- Could this allow them to simply only have to select the Fedora
> version and ARM type?

Hi Jon,

Looks like a fabulous start. Some comments:

- I agree that the user should be able to simply select the Fedora
version (and maybe spin?) plus target machine type. This is what the
LiveUSB tool does, and downloads the image if it's not already cached
locally -- though it also allows the user to select any local image
file. (Just don't hard-code the image list like LiveUSB Creator does! It
should ideally download a file that describes available images.)

- The name (Image Creator) sounds to me like it's the tool that creates
the rootfs (as opposed to the tool that write out the media for the
target using a precomposed rootfs etc). Maybe "Image Installer"?
"ImageTool"? "Image Writer"?

- A modular architecture to permit new target machine types to be easily
added would be useful (e.g., a target.d directory?) Then you could in
the future support things like USB mass storage targets, i.e., if a
device such as a tablet supported connection to a host as a USB storage
device, then you could install directly on the device that way (how many
devices work this way? Not sure)

- The Fedora and ARM logos have trademark restrictions, you can probably
easily work things out to use the Fedora one but the ARM logo could be a
sticking point.

- You might be able to get rid of the instruction text if you added a
description to each field (i.e., "Root filesystem image to be
installed:", "Target machine type:", "Destination installation
location:").

--
Chris