user added optional features, was Re: [Fedora-livecd-list] Start in runlevel 5, add user accounts?

[Jane Dogalt]

--- Toshio Kuratomi <toshio at tiki-lounge.com> wrote:

> On Fri, 2006-04-14 at 11:43 -0500, Jasper O'neal Hartline wrote:
> > Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> > 
> > >We should prompt for a user/password rather than providing a default
> > >one.  Kadischi could take a cmdline switch like --user=fedora
> > >--md5-password='$1$MEUsTNg2$89lWdr/Hd1YFAIKBXPkD43'
> > >
> > >or popup a dialog requesting a username and password.
> > >  
> > >
> > Right.
> > I think the shell or dialog would be sufficient.
> > 
> > A switch is well, a switch. For a user I don't think it is neccessary
> > maybe we can look into the %livecd  item for this instead.
> > (Anaconda, ks.cfg)
> 
> Currently, I can completely script the running of kadischi.  I'd hate to
> see this feature go away.  So a commandline switch has advantages over a
> dialog.

ditto on that.  Losing headless cron-ability would be IMO undesirable.  GUI's
are nice, but command lines are useful.

> 
> OTOH, this should currently be possible through anaconda's %post or a
> post_install.  So the question becomes, what do we want kadischi to be
> able to do?  Is it just the CD creator and all the configuration is done
> through (possibly distributed and enabled by default) post_install
> scripts?  It makes sense at a certain conceptual level to do this, but
> it is more confusing to the user as scripts will have to be tweaked for
> their specifics.  So at the least, kadischi needs to pass commandline
> args/parse any config files and pass those values through to the
> post_install scripts so the end-user is unaware of the split.

I think this strategy makes sense.  You allow the gui or command line args to
create or tweak pre-cooked post_install scripts.  But in general, there should
be 1 set of post_install scripts that are just plain fundamentally required to
get the liveiso to work.  Another set that just make a tremendous amount of
sense (X11 auto config, removing unneeded files from directories which live in
tmpfs, etc...).  And then more sets that are optional and can perhaps be
shortcut added by the user via a commandline option, or gui radio button. 
Likewise that second primary set could be disabled via a similar comline option
or gui button.

More complicated semi-pre-cooked post_install scripts which require user
configuration (i.e. system user username and password, security settings) could
be used as above, but with the comline option, or gui radio button, requiring
further user input.  I.e. 

--add-feature=useraccount:username=sysuser:password="xxx"
(or gui radio button invokes further dialog prompting for those options)

Just a theory... , i.e.

--add-feature=xautoconfig:defaultresolution=1024x768
--add-feature=gdmautologin:username=sysuser
--add-feature=installextrapackages:extrayumrepo=http://...:packages=xmms,lirc,...
--add-feature=custompayload:data=/home/me/livecdbuildenv/mydata:script=/home/me/livecdbuildenv/mypostinstall

-jdog


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