Install report (Fujitsu Lifebook S6210)

[Colin Watson]

On Thu, Sep 02, 2004 at 03:10:10PM +0100, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> Colin Watson wrote:
> >On Thu, Sep 02, 2004 at 02:53:18PM +0100, Mark Shuttleworth wrote:
> >>Why does Postfix need any special treatment?
> >
> >It's easier, and a smaller fork from Debian, to leave it there than to
> >remove it ... (actually, I think our base-config does nothing much to
> >it).
> >
> >I guess I could rip that out, though.

Ah, I remembered why it's done that way. There are two reasons, only one
of which applies to us:

  1) The MTA is installed as part of Base, and packages installed at
     that point cannot ask questions. In Debian, this is a problem, so
     it has to be reconfigured. That particular point doesn't apply to
     us.

  2) Networking configuration files like /etc/hosts aren't put in place
     until after the installation of Base is complete, so the
     configuration that postfix calculates for itself during debootstrap
     is probably wrong and needs to be reconfigured.

> One advantage to putting postfix in the list of all the other Base 
> packages is that the failure case is easier to describe to users.

I've already reworked base-config today so that that's much less likely
to come up.

postfix *is* in the list of all the other Base packages, of course.
base-config just calls dpkg-reconfigure on it.

> If they DO find themselves stuck in the base-config menu, the mail
> system installation and config is already done, so they don't have to
> do that step before they finish.

You do have to run the "Finish configuring the base system" step anyway
if you find yourself in some kind of failure case; if you don't,
/etc/environment and /etc/default/gdm won't have the language filled in,
gdm won't be started, console screen blanking won't be turned on, and
the real inittab won't be put into place. Particularly the last of these
can't be moved to any earlier position (consider a power failure during
base-config; you'd want to go back into base-config again).

Given that fact, I don't think this is very high-priority. The right
answer seems to be to make the failure cases very unlikely so that you
never see the base-config menu at all.

> Colin, could you have a look at the work involved in doing it that way
> and discuss with Matt? I'd prefer it, if you think it's a low-risk
> effort.

OK, I'll see what I can do anyway. netcfg will have to be changed
somehow to put /etc/hosts etc. in /target before base-installer.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                    [cjwatson at canonical.com]