brainstorming for UDS-N - Performance - disk footprint

[Stephan Hermann]

On Tue, Oct 05, 2010 at 08:10:28AM -0700, Dustin Kirkland wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 4:33 AM, Stephan Hermann <sh at sourcecode.de> wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 04, 2010 at 10:05:33AM -0700, Dustin Kirkland wrote:
> >>
> >> I'm proposing that we offer 3 install methods from a single 11.04 Server CD:
> >>  a) Install Ubuntu Enterprise Cloud
> >>  b) Install Ubuntu Server (Deluxe)
> >>  c) Install Ubuntu Server (Minimal)
> >>
> >> The minimal install would be as small as possible, with no recommended
> >> packages, and a pruning of documentation, manpages, and any other
> >> unnecessary overhead like unused kernel modules.  This system would be
> >> a great building block for appliances, virtual machines, and
> >> single-purpose servers.  This would embrace and enhance JeOS, and make
> >> it easier to install, directly from the Server CD, as a
> >> supported/tested mode of installation.
> >
> > Do you really think that makes sense?
> 
> I do think a split between Server-minimal and Server-deluxe makes sense.
> 
> Because for every person (like you and I) that says...
> 
> > etckeeper byobu and sshd enabled by default should be the default for the
> > server install, eventually asking "which VCS backend do you want to use" via
> > debconf/preseeding + asking for the location and username + password
> 
> Someone else will come along and say:
> 
> > I think the default CD image of ubuntu-server is already oversized for a small
> > footprint of server installs.

Ok, I see the point, but I don't think it would be wise to provide several
spins of ubuntu server.

Admins who are in need for a smaller footprint image, or the other way around,
should be able to generate them easily for themselves (that's one of the
reasons they are admins ;))

Using other deployment methods (means != preseeding/kickstart) will result in
many different images. Some want to have images like "install it with an X
server + X libs, because I need it for my oracle installation tool" or others
want to have a small image with nothing on it then kernel, the needed libs,
needed utils and eventually nothing else to just test install it on their
machines (vm or bare)
If we would provide a tool which does exactly that, creating images for
different purposes, that would help the admins more, then presenting on
r.u.c. more images, which could flurry someone, especially newcomers.

So having one standard iso image for distribution should be enough, but giving
the hint, that anybody can spin their own image release with a simple call to a
util.

The idea behind is to really provide a simple method to generate special
appliance images for the admins special needs ;)

The distributed server image on r.u.c should stay like it is, as an all purpose
example of Ubuntu Server Flavour.

On that ground, debootstrap is not a good way to go, because it misses some
needed modules when you want to provide bare metal server images...so we need
something better, not as complicated as our CD image building process, but
more functional and easy so that everybody could use it.

Regards,

\sh