[CentOS] Creating an alternitive install CD for CentOS 5.2 (w/ patched mkinitrd)

[Robert Heller]

At Sat, 07 Mar 2009 11:59:02 -0600 CentOS mailing list <centos at centos.org> wrote:

> 
> R P Herrold wrote:
> >> 
> > Here is the fallout: The poor end user 'knows' it was CentOS, 
> > because she was told by the respinner that it is 'CentOS with 
> > just one package replaced'.  Who gets the black eye here? 
> > Who bears the support load of sorting out what happened when 
> > the poor hurt user shows up in what she thinks is the correct 
> > support venue, barely able to describe her VOIP turnkey box's 
> > operation?
> > 
> > The answer is, of course, the main mother-ship CentOS project 
> > folks.
> > 
> > And it is not right that people do this to us, but it is also 
> > hard to stop.  Probably the only real solution is to enforce 
> > the CentOS trademark on the art and brand packages, and 
> > prohibit respins containing such (just as the upstream does).
> > 
> > Sad, but true.
> > 
> > There is a reason the core CentOS group are skittish about 
> > respins.  We'll have to discuss this seriously.
> 
> I can see your point about the brand value you have embedded into the 
> packages, but it also seems wrong to make everyone who wants to improve 
> it or adapt to some additional purpose repeat all the rebranding work 
> from scratch.

Or deal with a 'show stopping bug', like the known problem with
mkinitrd. I have no interest in rebranding anything or even
redistributing my 'replacement' CD (I'll probably toss the replacement
CD once I get the install done).  I just want to install CentOS on a
system with pre-existing software RAID disks -- I am migrating a server
from Ubuntu to CentOS 5 and I don't want to lose prexisting data, so
simply wiping the disks and installing on bare partitions is not an
option (and even then I'd want to use LVM for some things, and even
without RAID, LVM will also send mkinitrd off into never, never land --
basically anything the fires up /dev/mapper/... will do it: RAID, LVM,
cryptfs, all seem to do this). 

> 
> How hard would it be to generate an 'unbranded' drop in replacement 
> package for everything specifically Centos - or a framework so others 
> could share the work?  That way everyone who needed to replace a driver 
> wouldn't have to repeat all this work unless they wanted to create their 
> own unique brand identity.
> 
> If you think respins containing Centos branding are wrong, make it easy 
> to to the right thing.
> 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
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