Outmoding CDs (LiveCD)

[John Richard Moser]

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Tollef Fog Heen wrote:
> * John Richard Moser 
> 
> | The basic installation would be as follows:
> |
> |  - Warn user that the selected USB drive will be -erased-
> |  - Allot one partition the size of the SquashFS image
> 
> Not needed, the squashfs can be on a VFAT partition.
> 
> |  - Allot 50-100 MB for /boot
> 
> Not needed.
> 

/boot is going to be changing a lot, and it's not going to be on the
real / device (it'll be on a unionfs overlay), it needs to be somewhere.

> |  - Allow the user to adjust the remainder between shared and the overlay
> 
> I don't know what you mean by «shared» here?
> 

the layout of the disk will basically be:

[VFAT (windows sees this)][SQUASHFS (live root)][overlay (changes)]

> |  - Partition the drive accordingly
> 
> Not needed.
> 
> |  - Format file systems
> 
> aka «make a file, named casper-rw on the vfat volume, make it a decent
> size, run mkfs on it»
> 
> |  - Copy the SquashFS image onto the drive
> 
> needed.
> 
> |  - Create an initrd
> 
> The standard casper initrd can be used.
> 

The standard casper initrd uses tmpfs to back the squashfs / with
changes.  Our changes are going to be persistent.  When I install
things, and reboot, they stay installed.

> |  - Install kernels to /boot
> 
> The standard kernel from the live cd can be used.
> 

And when you apt-get upgrade and a new kernel is out?

> |  - Install grub or syslinux to the USB drive
> 
> Needed.
> 
> A tool to automate this procedure would be really nice, but I guess it
> won't be ready until dapper+1.
> 

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