[Fedora-livecd-list] [RFC/PATCH] livecd rebootless installer

[Elias Hunt]

Douglas,

Assuming that iso-caching-to-disk feature is implemented, would it be
easy to have the caching occur on an ext3 partition?

My company actually has a use case where we create custom livecds for
hundreds of systems, using a local drive for data storage only as we
don't want the OS to be modified permanently (a reboot will restore to
normal). Having the performance gain of actually running the iso from
the local disk, while still being able to mount the disk for data
storage, and being able to insert other CDs to the running system would
provide huge benefits.

-Eli

-----Original Message-----
From: fedora-livecd-list-bounces at redhat.com
[mailto:fedora-livecd-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Douglas
McClendon
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2007 5:23 PM
To: fedora-livecd-list at redhat.com
Subject: Re: [Fedora-livecd-list] [RFC/PATCH] livecd rebootless
installer

Douglas McClendon wrote:
> Jeroen van Meeuwen wrote:
>> Douglas McClendon wrote:

>> I'm sure there's /a/ use-case for this technical advancement. Besides
>> that, I'm all for any technical advancement -whether it has actual
>> use-cases or not.
> 
> 
> /The/ use case is simple.  It does what it does.  It is what it is.  
> Whether or not it is well received once it is an available option, 
> remains to be seen. Note, that it is trivial to enhance the existing 
> patch such that things only happen differently than normal if you pass

> 'support_rebootless' on the kernel commandline.
> 
> Also note that it is fairly trivial to add an option so that the user 
> can chose whether to live-migrate the cdrom+ram_overlay onto the 
> destination volume, or just the cdrom.  In the latter case, the user 
> could still eject the cdrom when installation is complete and continue

> working in the live system, though on reboot it would forget all the 
> live-session modifications and give you a fresh start.

A different continuation of this thought, is the modification to support
the 
iso-caching-to-disk functionality I described in my 2001 project.
Though now, 
instead of vfat, use ntfs-3g.

I.e. do your live migration to a file on an ntfs partition, such that
after the 
migration

a) the user can eject the cdrom and use the cdrom drive for other
reasons
b) the system will be much more responsive as data is pulled from the
ntfs 
rather than the cdrom
c) with a sufficiently modern (i.e. probably doesn't exist yet) version
of grub 
or loadlin, the live environment could be subsequently booted strait
from ntfs, 
without needing the original livecd.

-dmc/jdog

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