[coLinux-devel] Installing regular distribution CDs

[Nir P. <ni...@em...>]

Hi y'all,

After installing a regular distribution on coLinux, here are the few things
that were in the way, and could be improved in the future (note, the full
report was posted here yesterday):

*** fdisk won't work
fdisk can't get and/or modify a partition table. Since we don't really have
a real disk, we don't have a partition table fdisk can use. I think this
will cause the installer of most distributions to fail. Not sure yet how
coLinux can be extended to support this...

*** /proc/partitions is empty
Probably caused by the same point of lack-of-support as the previous item
(fdisk).
The installer tries to check which partitions of type "Linux" (83) are
available for installation. Normally, such a partition is created by the
"fdisk" stage.

*** ISO unsupported
As noted before, we can't boot from CD. This is annoying, as we have to copy
the content to a disk image, and boot it using some sort of a "root-disk"
(floppy installer, etc.).
Being able to boot from CD is a must if we want coLinux to support
installation CDs as they are without modification.

*** /dev/cobd0 is not supported as an installation target
It is possible that most installers would agree to install on /dev/hdXX or
/dev/sdXX (or similar), but would not agree to use /dev/cobdX. Can't really
blame them as it is not a standard device name.
I'm not sure what is the best way to solve this, but maybe if we could fake
a "/dev/hda1" it would be easiest.

*** Unavailable kernel modules
Most installations come with a kernel+modules of its own. Now we use a
different kernel, so the distribution can't use its own modules. Usually it
will just give some errors that we can ignore, but maybe we can put the
coLinux compiled modules on the installed system after installation.

*** coLinux console
The console needs some improvement to make installation easier. While
testing it, I saw that the text dialogs are not painted fully (where it is
just plain color, you could see the older text), and the direction keys
didn't work (left, right,...). Should be an easy one. Note that it is not a
very big problem - you can install with it, but it is visually messy.
Btw, having a frame-buffer support for the console (maybe vesa compatible)
could be great - for graphic installers, but that would be too much work.


Nir