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

Sun Mar 8 12:47:50 UTC 2009
Richard Karhuse <rkarhuse at gmail.com>

On Sat, Mar 7, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Robert Heller <heller at deepsoft.com> wrote:
 .....

> I was unsure of the specific options above -- After installing revisor
> and poked around in the source code and found what I needed, but my test
> install failed -- it complained that there was a problem with mkinitrd --
> could not open it or find it -- guessing I need to rebuild the repro
> database.
>
>
>>
>> ... reboot, lather, rinse and repeat .... :-) :=)
>>
>> You may find "re-generating" the CentOS CDs/DVD quite easy at
>> times and very frustrating and complex at others ......
>
> Yeah, it appears so.  I just hope I don't have to rebuild all 6 CDs,
> since I don't have the DVD nor do I have a DVD-R drive either, so doing
> things with a single DVD is not an option.
>

Last time I added a DVD burner to my Build system, it cost $29 (USD) and
this was for a very good, reliable unit.  Not worth my time and immense
hassle to do otherwise ....

As for ...

> could not open it or find it -- guessing I need to rebuild the repro
> database.

What about:

>> First of all, if you replace an RPM, you'll need to do createrepro.

What isn't clear?? As "need to" means **MUST**.... <hmmmm>.
Why did you even make an attempt without the createrepro command??
Two to three minutes of your time wasn't worth it (but taking our time
is, of course) :-):-) ...

While I believe your bug reports, I install CentOS on RAID + LVM
everyday without any problems, private kernel patches, etc. -- as a
counter-example.

Now, let's see if we understand the situation clearly:

   1.  This is a "one-time" conversion (will "throw the CD away when done") ...

   2.  You're migrating a system from Ubuntu to CentOS (e.g., a different
        version / patch level of LVM + RAID) and *hope* to keep data
        consistency and reliability ...

   3.  You have a backup of this precious data, yes / no??  If no, eegaddss....

   4.  So, why not just do a wipe + fresh install and reload the data???

Now how much time have you spent on this "project" so far??  I believe
the above would be done 2 to 3x times over by now ....

Plus, you've found out that it is a lot more than "just a mkisofs command
with a few arguments" (and that you have to follow instructions precisely
or things just don't WORK(tm)).

Hmmmm....

   -rak-