[CentOS-devel] lightweight LiveCD installer for CentOS-5.4 available - zyx-liveinstaller

[Douglas McClendon]

I thought some of you might like to know-

The latest version of zyx-liveinstaller (0.1.15) now supports the
CentOS-5.4 LiveCD/USB.

http://filteredperception.org/smiley/projects/zyx-liveinstaller/

This is a ~100kb rpm that can be installed in a running LiveCD/USB
session.  Once run, zyx-liveinstaller will then allow you to install the
running system permanently to system-disk.

This is like the anaconda/liveinst installer available with the Fedora
LiveCD/USB, except-

a) it works _rebootlessly_!  After installation completes, you simply
eject the LiveCD or remove the LiveUSB and continue using the now
installed system.

b) it is still relatively immature, but gets the job done (as far as 
I've tested).  Installation to external usb drives also works.

c) it can easily be included in a custom CentOS LiveCD spin, without the
downside of having to have an unsupported version of anaconda on the system.

d) it is a fairly simple pygtk frontend for a bash backend.  In fact,
all you really need is the single bash script
/usr/sbin/zyx-liveinstaller-cli.

NOTE: that like the Fedora LiveCD installer, it is a *destructive* 
install.  Target partitions/volumes get reformatted.

-----------------

To do a commandline installation with no seperate /boot partition, the
rootfs on /dev/sda2, and the swap partition on /dev/sda3, you would just
run-

rpm -Uvh \
http://filteredperception.org/downloads/zyx-liveinstaller/zyx-liveinstaller-0.1.15-1.i386.rpm

zyx-liveinstaller-cli \
/dev/sda2 /dev/sda2 /dev/sda3

-----------------

Note, that if you throw a copy of the 100kb rpm inside the LiveUSB 
version of CentOS-5.4, you have a totally portable offline installable 
version of CentOS.  This is definitely not as seriously usable as the 
traditional DVD installer on bootable USB form, but might have its uses.

Bugs, comments, criticisms, and feedback are encouraged.

Now that I've got this working, I'll really get to work helping Patrice
crossport my old LiveUSB persistence patches to Fedora-8/9 to CentOS-5.*.

peace...

-dmc

P.S. To get CentOS-5.4 LiveUSB to boot on my acer aspire one, I had to
change the syslinux.cfg line of 'vesamenu.c32' to 'menu.c32' (and copy
menu.c32).  Otherwise an unusable and very grey syslinux bootloader.
Hopefully just a problem with this netbook.