[Tech] Partimus (PXE?) (nearly?) unattended install solution(s?)

[Tai Kedzierski]

Ello,

* Image - will test it on a machine here before putting up a
link/torrent/zsync (at Michael's request) (though the notes I posted should
help you re-create the ISO - that's the intended purpose of said notes :-p)

* By "options" I mean the initial screens asking for "partitioning" (I'd
just use "erase disk" option), setting timezone and keyboard (which will
invariably be LA + US), to leave only the screen asking for a computer
name, username and password. It's not essential, these are trivial but if
we can skip them it would be better.

* Yeah I'm still stuck on PXE - I've had some pointers from Rab in EdLUG
(basically, first, don't test using VirtualBox!) and Charlie's notes still
to review. And Michael's notes when he has a moment :-)



===
Tai Kedzierski

IT Services Specialist
http://helpuse.com
+44 (0) 7526 963 612 (portable GB)

  I use www.libreoffice.org

*"Open Source Free Software is a matter of liberty, not price."*
https://bitly.com/1gXkUcc


On 2 April 2015 at 01:58, Christian Einfeldt <einfeldt at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> My comments in line below...
>
> On Wed, Apr 1, 2015 at 11:19 AM, Tai Kedzierski <dch.tai at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  Hello all
>>
>> I was hoping to email on Sunday night or Monday, but got caught up
>> reviewing the code for remastersys...
>> https://github.com/taikedz/remastersys
>>
>> I have managed to put together what I believe will be able to be a
>> workflow that will allow even teachers themselves to make their own
>> customized ISO images in the future :-)
>>
>
> Thanks very much for this work!
>
>
>>
>> I have prepped a final demo CD with some relevant customizations; I will
>> seed this over bittorrent for demo if anyone is interested, or just share
>> some screenshots?
>>
>
> I will pull it down tomorrow morning Pacific time, and see if I can boot
> my machine from it.  Thanks!
>
>
>>
>>
>>
>> So if this customization workflow is acceptable, only two more items need
>> to be addressed:
>>
>> 1/ preseed file for making the install unattended (my customization
>> method still requires initial input from user, but after that everything
>> comes pre-installed)
>>
>> The main question is about /how to find out/ what the options are we are
>> actually looking for...
>>
>
> I am not sure what you mean by "options".  Are you referring to the apps
> that the users will use?  Those apps are listed in the sandbox google doc.
>
>
>>
>> My next intention is, if we can't set up a PXE server from scratch, to
>> make a home-grown solution. I'm thinking of remastering a CD to contain a
>> script that'll auto-partition, mkfs and mount /dev/sda, then just rsync
>> over the network...
>>
>
> I don't understand what you just said.  All I know is that James Howard
> made us a CD that would just cause the client to download a full and
> completely customized distro over the network.  If I understand you
> correctly, that is where you are getting stuck?
>
> Thanks again for everything, Tai!
>
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