I'll start by saying that preseeding is a method of automating the standard Debian Installer. It is not an installation method on its own right.
On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 11:18:17AM +0100, Tim Cutts wrote: > > On 7 Jun 2008, at 1:37 pm, Michael Tautschnig wrote: > > >[sorry for cross-posting, I guess this thread should move away from > >debian-devel, but I'm not subscribed to any of the others] > > > >>Hello, > >> > >>I would like to use a system to install automatically all my debian > >>pc. > >>But > >>i don't know wich could be the best between FAI and PRESSEED. > >> > >>Somebody could explain the difference .... > >> > >>the avantage and disavantage of the two methodes...! > >> > > > >It depends a lot on your specific needs. If you're fine with setting > >whatever is > >debconf-configurable (be it at install time, using d-i's preseeding > >options, or > >rather at the level of the installed packages), preseeding may be an > >appropriate > >way to go. > > > >FAI, on the other hand, is a very flexible framework for installing > >systems. > >Debconf preseeding is supported, but just one option out of many. > >You might want > >to run several scripts for fine-tuning your system, copy over config > >files, etc. > >Flexibility comes at the cost of probably slightly higher > >complexity, but people > >tend to get to know it quite easily. > > I use both systems, in different contexts, and the above is pretty > much what I'd agree with. If your requirements are fairly simple, and > you're principally installing very standard workstations which don't > deviate much from the default answers, then preseeding works very > well. Score +1 for preseeding. > > But FAI is much more flexible, and allows you to mess with pretty much > any stage of the installation process in great detail. Score +1 for > FAI. > > It's also more complicated to set up. Score -1 for FAI. > > FAI is easier to troubleshoot - as soon as the install starts, the > machine runs an ssh server, even before hard disk partitioning has > happened, so you can log in and inspect what's going on (or going > wrong!). Score +1 for FAI. d-i has a shell running all the time in a different shell. There is an optional ssh server d-i udeb if that is what you really want. > > However, FAI usually depends on NFS -- yes, I know about fai-cd -- and > so isn't very appropriate for installing machines which are not part > of the same network (FAI: -1), whereas a preseeding install can easily > use http or whatever to fetch its configuration information, and > that's more WAN friendly (Preseed: +1). You might want to talk to the > Munich guys who've done cool stuff with FAI there, including > installing on wide networks. > > FAI has an "update" mode, which preseeding doesn't. So if you want to > update machines, you can use the same FAI config that you're using to > install new machines to bring old machines up to your new standard. > Of course, there are other ways to do that (cfengine, for example, > which is what I use rather than FAI updates). "update" is out of the scope of D-I because you have apt-get / aptitude for that. The equivalent of "preseed" here is probably dpkg-set-selections. Recall that in Debian after the basic debootstrap stage of the installation, all packages are installed with basically the same apt/dpkg code as you use on a live system. No need to re-invent the swirl. > > I think FAI works better when you have a wide variety of system > configs to install, because you can define multiple classes and have > machine very flexibly belong to any combination of those classes. > Preseeding is rather more monolithic, and becomes hard to maintain if > you don't want your machines absolutely uniform. absolutly uniform? preseed allows rather arbitrary (shell commands) run-time tests. -- Tzafrir Cohen | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | VIM is http://tzafrir.org.il | | a Mutt's [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | best ICQ# 16849754 | | friend -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
