[CentOS-devel] Re: CentOS5 virtual machine image

[Daniel de Kok]

On Thu, 25 Jan 2007 20:54:13 +0100
Nils Toedtmann <centos-mail at nils.toedtmann.net> wrote:
> I agree. But customization of C4 (and probably C3, too) to run
> smoothly as a VM is a bit evil (i run a bunch of productive C4 DomUs,
> so walked through that valley ...): glibc and db4 have to be
> patched/rebuilt because of NPTL incompatibilities.

Upstream is working on domainU support for their 4 branch, so that will
probably not be a problem in the future.

> Sure (i hope i know what you mean with "role"). Could be done by empty
> meta-packages like ubuntu's "{,k,x}ubuntu-desktop".

I like the approach that is taken with FC6 live CD's, they use some
meta packages that pull in all dependencies for a "role". They have
written some nice Python scripts to automate the build process. Since
some of the build path will be equal, it would probably be useful to
extend their scripts with functions to build disk images rather than
squashfs filesystems. In that manner, one could produce Live CD images
and VM images with one tool.

The live CD scripts, as-is don't work on CentOS 4. But when I looked
into it the required changes were fairly trivial (sorry, I don't have
patches for the work I had done).

> Don't forget all those not using CentOS - yet!

I'd say, develop the build framework for C4 and possibly C3, and
retrofit it to C5 if it works. Personally, I think using the FC6 live
CD scripts as a base is the best path. If you like this path, and need
help, let me know, since I have some interest to get a good live CD
building infrastructure that works across releases for personal uses.

-- Daniel