[Libosinfo] command-line should come from Libosinfo

[Zeeshan Ali (Khattak)]

On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 9:32 AM, Fabiano Fidêncio <fabiano at fidencio.org> wrote:
> Howdy!

Hi Fabiano,

> Since we start using libosinfo to provide the install-scripts for
> gnome-boxes we have a pending task related to the command-line passed to
> load the install-script.
> Nowadays, the command-line hardcoded for Fedora format and it is okay, once
> we only support unattended-installations for Fedora's flavors of Linux. But
> the family is growing fast, fortunately.
>
> A few days ago Zeeshan found out how the unattended-installations work on
> Debian/Ubuntu. A few hours ago I found out how it works for OpenSuSE.
>
> So, our current cases are:
> - Fedora/RHEL/CentOS: ks=hd:<device>:/<filename>
> - OpenSuSE: autoyast=device://<device>/autoinst.xml
> - Debian/Ubuntu: decompress the initrd, put the file into it, compress again
> and boot with this fresh compressed initrd.
>
> The 3rd method is also supported by Fedora/RHEL/CentOS, but is not by
> OpenSuSE).
> Ah, so bad, looks like we don't have a standard way to follow.

One important thing to note is that according to the documentation,
the same method we use for Fedora should also work for Debian/Ubuntu
so this initrd repacking method is a work around to a bug. We should
file a bug on Debian/Ubuntu about this and use this workaround in Apps
for now. Libosinfo should simply provide working installer scripts for
Debian/Ubuntu.

> I'm going to add OpenSuSE install-scripts for Libosinfo and I think we will
> want to use these scripts on Boxes.

Yup. Sounds right.

> Thinking a bit here, at least for Fedora* and OpenSuSE, we could add a
> property in the install-scripts, "command-line-format" to specify the
> format. Something contenting:
> - installation method (ks, autoyast) -- could be represented by "!"

What would '!' say to app? Do they substitute it with 'ks' or
'autoyast'? Why not just give them 'ks' or 'autoyast' itself?

> - installation method option (hd, device) - could be represented by "@"

Again why use a variable and how does app know what it means for each script/os?

> - device where the script will be put in (sda, sdb) - could be represented
> by "#"

Now is this something that really should come from app but thing is
that app is already providing this in installer config.

What I suggest is that we also use XSL template (just like the script
template) for generating this commandline for the app. App will pass
the same install config as it will for generation of scripts.

> - expected filename (fedora.ks, autoinst.xml)

This we already have and if we generate the commandline for the app,
we can simply hard-code this in the template.

--
Regards,

Zeeshan Ali (Khattak)
FSF member#5124