another cool linux tool

[jsusanka]

here is another cool linux tool - haven't tried but it looks really cool

http://www.instalinux.com/

here is the article on it.

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/02/09/1449257

[Gomer_X]

here is another cool linux tool - haven't tried but it looks really cool

http://www.instalinux.com/

here is the article on it.

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/02/09/1449257

I walked through it for a Fedora Core 4 install, and I found it harder to configure than an actual install. There is no help or description for many of the options, and they ask more questions than an install does. It's nice to have an image that automates an install across many desktops, but kickstart will do that, and it's worked just fine for many years.

It may be a good tool for distros that don't have this automation already built in.

[jsusanka]

all the distros that are listed have a way of auto installing like kickstart.

I just thought this was a cool down and dirty way to get a basic workstation up and then use yum/apt or yast to install the custom packages.

like I said though I haven't tried it but I will give it a go and see how it works.

[avatar-man]

Thanks for the link. I'm gonna try it on an old laptop that doesn't seem to want to recognize any of my install CD's.

[Gomer_X]

I downloaded the ISO I configured and looked inside. It does indeed use kickstart to do the install.

One thing I really didn't like is they give you the option of RHN (Red Hat Network) or apt-rpm for updates. RHN won't work at all on Fedora because you need an RHEL license to use it. If you choose apt, it hacks your config to use freshrpms repositories, since there are no standard apt repos for Fedora. Using yum repositories is the best option, but they don't let you do that.

I'm very much against the idea of throwing away the existing update mechanism and tying someone to apt and freshrpms. It's a recipe for a broken system.

[snarkout]

I downloaded the ISO I configured and looked inside ...

One thing I really didn't like is ... RHN (Red Hat Network) or ... Fedora because ... RHEL ... hacks your config ... since ... Fedora ... is ... a recipe for a broken system.

That's a little harsh!

[Gomer_X]

I downloaded the ISO I configured and looked inside ...

One thing I really didn't like is ... RHN (Red Hat Network) or ... Fedora because ... RHEL ... hacks your config ... since ... Fedora ... is ... a recipe for a broken system.

That's a little harsh!

Freshrpms has been known to be incompatible with the official repositories.

The first time someone uses yum on such a system (and they will eventually), they're quite likely to break it. It's possible to keep such a system from eating itself, but it's a lot of work.

Since this tool looks like it was designed to help a newbie sysadmin configure a bunch of boxes, I think I would have made a different choice. Not a fatal flaw, but not what I'd consider "sane defaults."