[lug] kickstart, RH7.3/KRUD

[D. Stimits]

Hugh Brown wrote:
> 
> There's also a utility called ksconfig (kickstart config)

I looked at this, unfortunately it lacks a lot of options, such as being
able to select individual packages. I edited a file sent by BOF
(heheh...really edited, for many days, all day long), and finally got
what I think is a very good kickstart disk. I still have a lot more that
I want to do with it, but right now it is much faster than either mass
selecting then editing later, or even by custom selecting from the
start. I'm very tempted to hack the ksconfig app and give it other
options, e.g., it can create files, but it is not capable of loading
from a file for later editing; plus I am tempted to add an "extract from
rpm database exact package set" listing.

One thing I still need to figure out is how to get networking going for
the post install scripting. According to what I read, it should be ok
during the preinstall for some things (such as using dotted-decimal
addresses without a need for nameservers), but I have two failures here:
(a) Using network based kickstart (there is an http url format, not just
nfs, and I added it to the web server on the neighboring linux box), it
completely ignores kickstart without ever saying anything (I wish there
were a "strict" mode that causes it to complain and exit if anything at
all can't be met); and (b), during post install I am trying to use wget
to bring in files from the same web server (but it blocks and never
finishes, nor does network monitoring show any traffic at all). I figure
it is something simple, like failing to use a full path, so I add full
paths, and lots of commands succeed, but not network commands like wget.

I still have not figured out how to make it pay attention to all of my
options. For example, if I tell it to use a particular partition with
ext2 filesystem, it remembers and makes those the default selection, but
if I tell it my xconfig settings, it only listens to part of them: It
remembers setting kde as default, it remembers my video card, but it
ignores my resolution and color depth options. I don't know why RH
waited so long to add kickstart, it cuts hours (days?) off of installs
once the kickstart disk is done.

Anaconda itself has another non-kickstart bug, where if I have both IDE
and SCSI drives installed, it refuses to select the MBR of the SCSI as
the lilo install location (it only allows the MBR of the IDE), so I have
to remove the IDE drive to get it installed to SCSI (my guess is that it
assumes only the MBR of the first drive matters, and fails to realize
that on a mixed IDE/SCSI that either the first SCSI or the first IDE can
be the first disk).

D. Stimits, stimits at idcomm.com