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Jan Schaumann | 21 Apr 2006 18:15
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Google Summer of Code project ideas

Hello,

As you are probably aware, the NetBSD project will once again participate
in the Google Summer of Code 2006.  We are currently compiling a list of
possible projects, but seeing how our userbase communicates primarily via
our mailing lists, I thought I should bring your attention to these
projects.

If you are interested in participating in the Summer of Code as as
student, it would be best if you would start discussing your proposal on
this list.  You also want to take a look at
http://www.netbsd.org/contrib/soc-application.html for a list of questions
you should be able to answer in your application.

The projects relating to topics on this mailing list are:

*  finalize syspkgs -- syspkgs is the concept of using pkgsrc's pkg_*
   tools to maintain the base system. That is, allow users to register
   and delete/update/install components of the base system with more
   ease.  There has been a lot of work in this area already, but it has
   not yet been finalized.

*  NetBSD LiveCD with installer -- While NetBSD has had LiveCDs for a
   while, there has not yet been a LiveCD that allows users to install
   NetBSD after test-driving it. A LiveCD that contains a GUI based
   installer and reliably detects the platforms features would be very
   useful.

The complete list of project ideas is available online at
http://www.netbsd.org/contrib/projects.html
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Jon Voris | 1 May 2006 03:52

Summer of Code: LiveCD Installer

Hello all,

I'm a student who is interested in participating in this year's Summer 
of Code with NetBSD. Many of the projects seem appealing, but I 
particularly like the idea of creating an installer for LiveCDs. Here's 
my first go at addressing the pertinent areas of the Proposal HowTo; any 
feedback is welcome.

The Project:
Currently, individuals who are potentially interested in using NetBSD 
must use separate CDs to test it out and install it. The goal of this 
project would be to create a program that users could launch directly 
from their LiveCDs to walk them through the installation process. This 
would ultimately be provided to users in LiveCD ISOs as an "Install this 
LiveCD to drive" option, but the main deliverable would be a GUI-based 
installation utility suitable for inclusion during the LiveCD creation 
process.

Here is a rough outline of a possible project schedule:
5/23-6/9: Familiarize myself with the ins and outs of sysinst and the 
LiveCD creation process and determine the best way to integrate the 
installation utility.
6/12-7/14:Create the installation utility without any automation; that 
is, there would be no platform detection included, so the user would 
have to manually select installation options.
7/17-8/21: Add platform and hardware detection to the process that would 
pick proper defaults during installation.

I believe that I would be able to dedicate about 20 hours a week to this 
project...would this allow for enough time to complete it?
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Jeremy C. Reed | 1 May 2006 18:52

Re: Summer of Code: LiveCD Installer

On Sun, 30 Apr 2006, Jon Voris wrote:

> AFAIK, Knoppix is the only platform that provides an install option with 
> its LiveCD, and even this is very young (I checked the version on 
> Knoppix 4.0; it's v0.3.19.13 with a heavy development warning).

DragonFly OS's installer is via its Live CD.

You may want to look at the BSDinstaller.org project instead of 
NetBSD's sysinst.

It make it easy for different frontends, such as for X11.

Just adding existing sysinst to a LiveCD is easy. And basically all that 
would be needed is to include the base sets (the tarballs) to the CD and 
the sysinst executable. Doing this could be done in just a couple days at 
the most.

So sysinst could/should be included on LiveCd also even if not used as the 
default installer.

The official LiveCD with installer is important.

Part of the project should include what is important and required 
for the LiveCD itself.

Maybe you can include as part of your work on the proposed project to 
research the various NetBSD live CDs and also other LiveCDs and then 
working with your mentors (and this list) decide:
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