KarmicInstallUNRFromDVD

Summary

The Mobile Team has expressed interest in including Ubuntu Netbook Remix on the standard Ubuntu DVD image. As there is not nearly enough space on the DVD for another live filesystem, we will investigate the feasibility of including other live filesystems as layered squashfs mounted images using the VFS based union mounting assumed to be present in Karmic.

Release Note

Ubuntu Netbook Remix is now available from the Ubuntu DVD.

Rationale

TBD: Find out from the Mobile Team why they prefer this over a separate DVD image.

User stories

  • Joe wants to put UNR on his HP Mini. He has downloaded the Ubuntu DVD ISO and has a 8GB USB disk to put it on.

Assumptions

  • It is assumed that the VFS based union mounting patchset will make it into the Ubuntu kernel for Karmic.
  • It is assumed that we have sufficient space on the DVD image to fit the UNR squashfs delta. At the time of writing the DVD images are oversized and there are no plans to move to a dual-layer DVD image. Therefore, the presence of UNR on the DVD depends on trimming fat from the DVD image to create sufficient space for it.

Design

Ubuntu Netbook Remix will be present as a selectable option on the DVD menu. Choosing it will replace Ubuntu with Ubuntu Netbook Remix in the text of the two install options. As the text of the options may need to be wrapped, we will have to fix the text wrapping issue in isolinux. If implementing these changes to isolinux prove to be too difficult, and the Ubuntu branding on the DVD boot menu is not an issue for the Mobile Team, we will look into the possibility of adding netbook detection code to casper, which will select the UNR squashfs upon finding matching hardware.

Implementation

The Mobile Team will make the required seed change to allow UNR to be an installable task from debian-installer.

This specification will restart the development of LiveCDStackedFileSystem using the new union mounting facilities in the kernel as the replacement for unionfs/aufs. livecd-rootfs will be taught to generate nested squashfses -- live images that only contain what is needed for the base live environment -- and generate additional layers for additional components.

As speed is of concern, we can look at caching the build of the base system for multiple builds within a single day, however we would need to ensure that we could force an update of the base system when necessary.

Test/Demo Plan

  • UNR from the DVD will be added to the QA Team's CD test tracker.

Unresolved issues

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec

FoundationsTeam/Specs/KarmicInstallUNRFromDVD (last edited 2009-06-16 11:45:43 by cpc3-slam5-2-0-cust447)