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From: Henrik Carlqvist on 11 Jan 2010 16:47
Chick Tower <c.tower(a)deadspam.com> wrote:
> Would it work if you simply tweaked your initial installation to how you
> like it and then back it up? Say, pack most of it into a tarball and
> simply extract it on the new PC, maybe with a script to change things like
> the PC's name and IP address? You shouldn't copy /proc, and you probably
> won't need to copy much of /var and /tmp.

Yes, that would work, at least in teory. What you would really do with
such a solution would be a single package file for your entire Slackware
installation. That might seem to make sense as the full install is highly
recomended anyway.

However, there would be one big disadvantage of having it all in a single
package file. You would find out about that disadvantage when you want to
patch your installation. What happens the day a security hole gets known
in application foo? Usually you would do upgradepkg foo-1.23-i486-1.tgz.
But how would you do with your big super-package? Would you replace the
entire super-package everytime you only want to replace a little part of
the system?

Ok, what you suggested was maybe not really a single super slackware
package. It could also be seen as an image of a Slackware installation. So
even installs from that image would be possible to patch with small
packages. So maybe your suggestion sounds more like g4l
http://sourceforge.net/projects/g4l/

However, as you said, such a solution would still require some tinkering
after the installation to customize settings for hardware.

regards Henrik
--
The address in the header is only to prevent spam. My real address is:
hc3(at)poolhem.se Examples of addresses which go to spammers:
root(a)localhost postmaster(a)localhost

From: Mike Jones on 11 Jan 2010 17:53
Responding to Chick Tower:

> On 2010-01-10, Mike Jones <Not(a)Arizona.Bay> wrote:
>>
>> I've already created and deployed a comprehensive post-install
>> customisation pack, including new Slack packages, and a list of
>> rip-outs, a bunch of custom configs, and so on. What I'm looking to do
>> is avoid having to do a post-install thing and simply have all this
>> already on my install DVD so it's ready to fly after a single install
>> operation. I'll also be looking at pre-setting various options, like a
>> UK keyboard, time set to Europe-London, and so on.
>>
>> My problem is that I can't find\figure out what needs to be customised,
>> or how to begin tweaking things. I need a few pointers here.
>>
>>
> Would it work if you simply tweaked your initial installation to how you
> like it and then back it up? Say, pack most of it into a tarball and
> simply extract it on the new PC, maybe with a script to change things
> like the PC's name and IP address? You shouldn't copy /proc, and you
> probably won't need to copy much of /var and /tmp.



I'd not thought about that route. Interesting!

I shall commence pondering immediately. ;)

--
*=( http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/
*=( For all your UK news needs.
From: Chick Tower on 12 Jan 2010 12:41
On 2010-01-11, Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.Carlqvist(a)deadspam.com> wrote:
>
> Yes, that would work, at least in teory. What you would really do with
> such a solution would be a single package file for your entire Slackware
> installation. That might seem to make sense as the full install is highly
> recomended anyway.
>
Well, I wasn't thinking of a Slackware package file. I just meant a
tarball, all the files bundled up and compressed, with a .tar.gz suffix.
>
> However, there would be one big disadvantage of having it all in a single
> package file. You would find out about that disadvantage when you want to
> patch your installation. What happens the day a security hole gets known
> in application foo?....
>
True. I hadn't considered that.
>
> However, as you said, such a solution would still require some tinkering
> after the installation to customize settings for hardware.
>
See in-line comments.

Some tinkering is needed for a normal installation, too, so it's now or
later.

I only suggested backing up his system because it sounded like what he
wanted might be g4l, or some other imaging software. Another solution,
if he has a portable hard drive or a thumb drive of sufficient capacity
would be to keep his base system up-to-date and just copy it to the
external storage device when he needs to create a new duplicate, without
any archiving and compression. I only suggested that part because he
was writing about putting it on a DVD. If he needs to copy the system
to a PC without any OS on it, he could boot with a live CD and then copy
the base system's files to the hard disk.

All this depends on how often Mike needs to do this and what he has
available. For advice on what to copy, see Hard-Disk-Upgrade in
/usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs/.
--
Chick Tower

For e-mail: aols2 DOT sent DOT towerboy AT xoxy DOT net
From: Mike Jones on 12 Jan 2010 13:48
Responding to Chick Tower:

> On 2010-01-11, Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.Carlqvist(a)deadspam.com> wrote:
>>
>> Yes, that would work, at least in teory. What you would really do with
>> such a solution would be a single package file for your entire
>> Slackware installation. That might seem to make sense as the full
>> install is highly recomended anyway.
>>
> Well, I wasn't thinking of a Slackware package file. I just meant a
> tarball, all the files bundled up and compressed, with a .tar.gz suffix.
>>
>> However, there would be one big disadvantage of having it all in a
>> single package file. You would find out about that disadvantage when
>> you want to patch your installation. What happens the day a security
>> hole gets known in application foo?....
>>
> True. I hadn't considered that.
>>
>> However, as you said, such a solution would still require some
>> tinkering after the installation to customize settings for hardware.
>>
> See in-line comments.
>
> Some tinkering is needed for a normal installation, too, so it's now or
> later.
>
> I only suggested backing up his system because it sounded like what he
> wanted might be g4l, or some other imaging software. Another solution,
> if he has a portable hard drive or a thumb drive of sufficient capacity
> would be to keep his base system up-to-date and just copy it to the
> external storage device when he needs to create a new duplicate, without
> any archiving and compression. I only suggested that part because he
> was writing about putting it on a DVD. If he needs to copy the system
> to a PC without any OS on it, he could boot with a live CD and then copy
> the base system's files to the hard disk.
>
> All this depends on how often Mike needs to do this and what he has
> available. For advice on what to copy, see Hard-Disk-Upgrade in
> /usr/doc/Linux-HOWTOs/.



I've just rough-tested this method and its a better option than my
previous SlackMods project. The tweaks it requires will only be fstab,
hostname, IP, partition, and possibly a video driver switch, and the
various passwords and ssh keys too of course.

As somebody said, updating this will be pretty easy, and it's major
benefit is that I don't need to do an install before modding.

Kindly award yourself a huge sticky bun for your brilliant suggestion. :)

--
*=( http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/
*=( For all your UK news needs.
From: Chick Tower on 13 Jan 2010 12:51
On 2010-01-12, Mike Jones <Not(a)Arizona.Bay> wrote:
> I've just rough-tested this method and its a better option than my
> previous SlackMods project. The tweaks it requires will only be fstab,
> hostname, IP, partition, and possibly a video driver switch, and the
> various passwords and ssh keys too of course.

Don't forget to modify/install your boot manager. I'm sure something
would jog your memory if you forgot it, though. :)
--
Chick Tower

For e-mail: aols2 DOT sent DOT towerboy AT xoxy DOT net
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