Install via tarball? (Was: Why does Ubuntu 18.04 doesn't create multiple BTRFS subvolumes anymore during installation by default?)

[Tom H]

On Tue, Oct 2, 2018 at 10:22 PM Ken D'Ambrosio <ken at jots.org> wrote:
> On 2018-10-02 09:46, Tom H wrote:
>>
>> I have no idea whether a subiquity yaml file can be used the way that
>> a d-i preseed file can be used. AFAIK, it requires a maas server. I
>> haven't really looked into it because I started using tarballs to
>> deploy systems (Debian, Funtoo, Gentoo, Ubuntu), a few years ago.
>
> I'll bite: how do you do an install via tarball? I mean, are you just
> taking a running system, tarring it up, swiping the MBR/partition
> table, and reversing the process afterward? Or something a bit
> different?
>
> Just curious,

Basically, yes.

When Ubuntu publishes an lts release (or Debian a stable release), I
use deboostrap to set up a chroot, install/uninstall packages,
customize it as a base for any Ubuntu installation that I'm likely to
make, and tar it up. I then untar it, bring it up in lxc, update it,
and retar it on a regular basis in order to keep it up to date.

For installation, as you describe, I lay down a filesystem, unpack the
tarball, chroot to it, and install a bootloader, etc...