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Fedora Deciding Whether CD/DVD Installation Issues Should Still Hold Up Releases

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  • starshipeleven
    replied
    Originally posted by lsatenstein View Post
    I would like to abandon both cd/dvd and flashdrive. Why not have a wrapper program (linux/windows) that accepts at least one parameter, the address if the ISO file.
    With the wrapper, and the ISO file being read, and with 8gig or more ram memory, alread prevalent, it will treat the ISO as a DVD and allow the installation to proceed.
    In fact, replace the ISO with a integrated wrapper that has the ISO integrated. Avoid the following:
    • No need to Download an ISO,
    • No need to use dd or a USB to Flash tool to create a bootable flashdrive and subsequently
    • reboot to run the installation from the flashdrive and
    • finally reboot into the new system.
    The simple view. Every distribution includes the wrapper. When an ISO is released and an individual wants to install that Linux distribution, run the wrapper that either fetches the ISO from the web or from a Download directory. Load it up and transfer to the ISO's installer.
    Your system is plain worse.

    You are downloading the ISO in any case, with or without the "wrapper".

    To run the installer you MUST reboot because you are re-partitioning a drive, and you CANNOT guarantee that what you write in RAM is preserved on reboot, so writing in RAM is foolish. In all other cases you don't need to waste RAM like that.

    Most decent distros already include a tool to create a bootable USB drive (sometimes they also download the ISO)

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  • lsatenstein
    replied
    I would like to abandon both cd/dvd and flashdrive. Why not have a wrapper program (linux/windows) that accepts at least one parameter, the address of the ISO file.
    With the wrapper, and the ISO file being read, and with 8gig or more ram memory, alread prevalent, it will treat the ISO as a DVD and allow the installation to proceed.
    In fact, include the wrapper with the ISO which as a benefit avoids the following:
    • No need to Download an ISO, to disk, read it directly to ram.
    • No need to use dd or a USB to Flash tool to create a bootable flashdrive and subsequently
    • reboot to run the installation from the flashdrive and
    • finally reboot into the new system.
    The simple view. Every distribution includes the wrapper. When an ISO is released and an individual wants to install that Linux distribution, run the wrapper that either fetches the ISO from the web or from a Download directory. Load it up and transfer to the ISO's installer.
    Last edited by lsatenstein; 14 March 2020, 08:32 PM. Reason: confused sentences

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  • starshipeleven
    replied
    Originally posted by caligula View Post
    I kind of wish it was possible to install Linux straight from the UEFI menu/shell, without downloading any installation media. I suppose some PXE setup would work here, but wouldn't UEFI allow downloading the image from the internets?
    Theoretically, yes, UEFI specificantion has its own "download from http" capability https://ipxe.org/appnote/uefihttp

    But I personally never saw it implemented. (i.e. never saw how to set it up in the Setup interface of the firmware)

    Also, UEFI has the network stack (in theory) but in most cases it's disabled by default, some times it is broken, and some times it is missing outright (no surprises here, who thought UEFI firmwares have anything remotely alike, besides the boot process).

    So for most intents and purposes you are still stuck with whatever crap firmware network boot functionality your cards have, which is very meh.

    Which is why projects like iPXE are still a thing nowadays, and were updated to create EFI binaries you can run from the shell (or through rEFInd).

    iPXE is completely self-sufficient and has its own network "drivers" so it does not care in the slightest about what UEFI or BIOS or whatever else is capable of using https://ipxe.org/appnote/hardware_drivers

    You keep a USB drive with EFI partition plugged in and you can "boot" iPXE binaries and then do whatever you want.
    Last edited by starshipeleven; 15 December 2019, 10:04 AM.

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  • starshipeleven
    replied
    Originally posted by caligula View Post
    Requires?
    Clarification: Distros don't usually ship USB disk images, in most cases they ship a "hybrid ISO" which can be written raw to a USB drive.
    There is no TECNHICAL reason why they couldn't just ship disk images you can restore on a USB drive, of course.

    Other than that, if I understood correctly, the boot process is a bit of a mess, and modern systems totally skip the ISO part and either begin by directly reading the MBR boot sector or UEFI system partition.
    AFAIK the issue is only for UEFI, because embedding a FAT32 partition with UEFI bootloaders was easier than adding the CD/DVD UEFI boot support to existing bootloaders (namely GRUB2).

    Leave a comment:


  • garegin
    replied
    Originally posted by caligula View Post
    I kind of wish it was possible to install Linux straight from the UEFI menu/shell, without downloading any installation media. I suppose some PXE setup would work here, but wouldn't UEFI allow downloading the image from the internets?
    You can connect to an http server with ipxe. https://ipxe.org/howto/winpe
    you’re welcome

    Leave a comment:


  • caligula
    replied
    I kind of wish it was possible to install Linux straight from the UEFI menu/shell, without downloading any installation media. I suppose some PXE setup would work here, but wouldn't UEFI allow downloading the image from the internets?

    Leave a comment:


  • stiiixy
    replied
    Jees, take a ticket on yourself torsion? Are you also psychic? I dont recall meeting. I know the book colours well enough to know the issies, and really could care less. Your use case makes sense to you, except you might well be a part of a small minority and Fedora have recognised this might be a thing and are discussing the possibilities to reducing potential costly time sinks for other more important.

    Do you think Fedora have forgotten how ISO's work?

    Leave a comment:


  • caligula
    replied
    Originally posted by starshipeleven View Post
    Fun fact: installing from thumb drive still requires an ISO for most distros.
    Requires? I guess the choice originates from the fact that most distros had CD installers and now still want to support both methods. The ISO format supports a bit longer file names than FAT16. Maybe up to 30 characters? Other than that, if I understood correctly, the boot process is a bit of a mess, and modern systems totally skip the ISO part and either begin by directly reading the MBR boot sector or UEFI system partition.

    Leave a comment:


  • MadeUpName
    replied
    My issue is that a lot of people grab the ISO from a mirror site rather than the main download page. That makes it difficult to put up a warning that says "here is the ISO don't use it for DVD installs at this time". I would hate to see some one wipe their existing system and start a DVD install just to end up with a hosed system.

    Leave a comment:


  • starshipeleven
    replied
    Originally posted by torsionbar28 View Post
    I can honestly say that I've never installed Linux from a thumb drive.
    Fun fact: installing from thumb drive still requires an ISO for most distros.

    Leave a comment:

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