Deployment image customization

[Michael Stone]

On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:46:09AM -0800, Edward Cherlin wrote:
>On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 11:26 AM, Michael Stone <michael at laptop.org> wrote:
>> On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 09:18:51PM +0200, Morgan Collett wrote:
>>>On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 18:29, Daniel Drake <dsd at laptop.org> wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 2:19 PM, Greg Smith <gregsmitholpc at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Your suggestion that we allow
>>>>> addition of RPMs and get those built into a signed image via "pilgrim or
>>>>> puritan" is certainly valuable and part of the requirement.
>>>>>
>>>>> However, it doesn't cover a few added things (language settings was
>>>>> specifically requested by Mongolia and others):
>>>>>
>>>>> - Updated language packs (I believe we are trying to make this an RPM which
>>>>> may solve it)
>>>>> - Starting language
>>>>> - Date, time and timezone
>>>>> - Network settings
>>
>> Both puritan and pilgrim install many unpackaged hacks; that's actually
>> the major reason why they exist.
>>
>> (Some special indirection needs to be taken if you want to deploy hacks
>> to /home via olpc-update, since it doesn't touch /home, but for
>> whole-NAND-reflash tasks, either is certainly adequate.)
>>
>> It's also possible to combine a compose-tool like puritan or pilgrim
>> with our existing image-builder technology (which generates mfg-ready
>> images from customization-stick data.)
>
>Would it be possible to apply these tools to creating LiveCDs and
>qemu-ready image files? I certainly don't want to add to the burdens
>of over-burdened staff, but can some of us volunteers do that part? I
>ask in large part because recent LiveCDs and image files don't work on
>my computer.

With some work, yes. (The QEMU images are much easier than the livecds
since you only have to make it work on one kind of hardware and since
both programs already have support for generating QEMU images.)

Whether it is wise to use them for this purpose is a separate question
-- and, in a sense, a religious war.

Michael