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Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 14:20:17 -0700
From: Tim Kientzle <kientzle@freebsd.org>
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To: Ulrich Spoerlein <uspoerlein@gmail.com>
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Cc: hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: Tar output mode for installworld
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Ulrich Spoerlein wrote:
> On Sat, 14.07.2007 at 23:28:05 -0700, Tim Kientzle wrote:
> 
>> #%ntree
>> bin/echo uid=0 gid=0 group=wheel contents=my/bin/echo
>>
>> ... create a tarball with
>>   tar -czf system.tgz @specification.ntree
>> or install directly from the specification file using
>>   tar -xvpf specification.ntree -C ${DESTDIR}
> 
> This would be the perfect basis on which to build a live/install release
> CD. You boot it up ... [do] the fdisk/bsdlabel/gmirror/zfs stuff ...
 > [and] then kick of the install through tar.
> 
> Simple and elegant. It would also do away with those base.aa, base.ab,
> etc. madness.

I'm confused.  base.aa, etc, are a tar file, so I don't
entirely understand how this would be different?  The
current installer does the equivalent of
   cat base.* | tar -xf -

I can see one advantage and one disadvantage of installing
a specification file (which references other files) instead:

Plus:  The specification file can re-use the existing
files on CD, so you don't have, e.g., one copy of /bin/sh
on the live CD and another buried in base.tgz.  This
could save space.

Minus:  Installing a specification file this way would
be slower because you then have to read a lot of small
files off of CD.

Or have I missed something?

Tim Kientzle