Feature proposal: Rebootless Installer

[Douglas McClendon]

Felix Miata wrote:
> On 2009/07/14 05:38 (GMT-0600) Douglas McClendon composed:
> 
>> Felix Miata wrote:
> 
>>> Doesn't kexec, which does a BIOS bypassing reboot, accomplish what you want?
>>> OpenSUSE's installer has had kexec_reboot=1 by default for a version or two
>>> (I think default started with 11.1): http://en.opensuse.org/Kexec
>>> http://en.opensuse.org/Linuxrc
> 
>> ... I could be wrong about that, or my 
>> interpretation of what kexec does ...
> 
> The first URL explains it.
> 
>> Your first link seems currently broken (database error), and the second 
> 
> It worked and works for me.

Yeah, it's working now.  My impression from LWN was correct.

> 
>> doesn't really lead me to believe it is anything equivalent.
> 
> The second URL is mainly a list of installer options, and affirms my
> statement that kexec is now a default option.
> 
>> used *suse that much recently so I can't be sure- Is it perhaps 
>> something where they have a very minimal partial installation, then 
>> start writing the minimal stuff to disk, kexec-reboot, and then set you 
>> up in system that is finishing installing while you use it?  If so, one 
> 
> IIRC most rpms, initrd & Grub are installed by the initial installer, then
> kexec prior to most configuration steps by the installer now running on the
> installed kernel instead of the installation kernel.

So it is in fact like what I supposed, except instead of a minimal 
install before kexec, it's basically the full install followed by a 
kexec reboot.  Which again, is an entirely different user experience.

peace...

-dmc