专访：Jeremy Katz 谈 Fedora Live CD
时间：2008-04-09 来源：linux论坛
这篇专访是第一次红帽杂志和Fedora访谈节目合作，在本期，我们将采访Jeremy Katztalks先生，让他给我们谈谈有关Fedora Linux CD的开发情况。
对于Fedora的用户来说，Live CD还是一个比较新潮的东西，但是由于他在系统中集成了一些比较潮流的东西，另外他适用livecd-tools等工具使得系统的定制更加方便，对于用户来说，有多了一个非常好的选择，对此，您能给我们介绍一些目前的fedora live cd的开发情况吗？
好的，自从我们在Fedora 6中开始发布live cd版本的Fedora发行版，我们就一直在努力改进Live CD的制作，真正使得Live CD成为一个非常好用、能够即插即用的好东西，让用户感觉到这玩意并不失为所谓的高手定制的，平常用户同样能够容易上手。
This interview is the first of a serieswe’ll be co-publishing with Fedora Interviews. In this one, Jeremy Katztalks about improvements to Fedora Live CDs.
Live CDs are still something that are relatively new to theFedora Project, but because of their integration to the build systemand the user facing tools such as livecd-tools allowing for easyre-spinning, they’re a fairly central part of what Fedora can offerpeople. Could you give us a bit of background on this and explain thecurrent state of live spins in Fedora
8?
Since the first official livecd release for Fedora Core 6, we’vespent a lot of time on improving the tools used for building liveimages and helping to make them less of the “this is a quick hack jobthat works” into tools that actually can be built upon, maintained,etc. One of the big pieces there is around wanting to havereproducibility for your images?we accomplish this through using akickstart config for the livecd definition.
Fedora 8 was really the first release where we were starting to havemore people building livecds using the tools?the KDE SIG has beenactive in doing so since Fedora 7, but with Fedora 8, we also gainedthe Electronic Lab (FEL) spin, the Developer spin, and the XFCE spin.
In Fedora 9, one of the new features is persistence for LiveUSBs. Based on the impression I get, this is a feature that is in highdemand and probably has quite a number of uses. Where did yourmotivation for working on this feature come from; was it the demandfrom the users, or were you scratching your own itch?
A little bit of both really. It’s definitely a feature that gets askedabout by users, especially since we’ve supported running the live imageoff of a USB stick since Fedora 7 through the livecd-iso-to-diskscript. But it’s also something that I’ve thought would be nice andinteresting to support all along. Being able to carry your (customized)distribution around on a USB stick and preserve any documents you workon, etc is pretty cool. :)
And how does this feature work? What would a user have to do once they have a copy of the Beta release to test it?
It’s pretty straight-forward to use. The main thing is that you needa USB stick that’s at least 1 gig in size, 2 gigs is even better. Then,you’ll use the livecd-iso-to-disk script and run it:
# ./livecd-iso-to-disk --overlay-size-mb 1200 /path/to/iso /path/to/stickIn this case, I’m setting up a 1200 MB file to store my persistentdata. If you only have a 1 GB stick, then you’ll need to use somethingmore like 250.
What work was required on your part to create this feature?
Most of the legwork to implement the early form of the persistence workwas done by Douglas McClendon. I just then massaged the patches a bitand made the integration a little cleaner.
Do you have any interest from other projects, OpenOffice.org orGnome perhaps, who are interested in using these technologies for thepromotion of their own projects and Live CDs?
No, but we haven’t really reached out. Which perhaps we should.
Are there any other improvements to the Live CDs for Fedora 9, ordo you have any that you’d like to get implemented for later Fedorareleases?
For Fedora 9, a lot of the effort has been in making livecd-creatorhave an API that is exported and can be used by other tools that wantto build images. So, e.g., for LTSP image creation, they’re now usingthe livecd-creator imgcreate module as the backend for building theLTSP client images.
I think the big thing that we need to do in the future is try to getsome nice “content” to have available on the CD?things to help a newFedora user know what they can do with the system, etc. If you’reinterested on working on these sorts of things, please let me know. :)Also, it’d be nice to look into a larger image so that we can fit morebits.
And finally, would you care to tell us a bit about yourself? Whatgot you interested in free software originally? What you like to dowith your time when not hacking on Fedora?
I’ve been involved in free software for way too long now, originallygetting involved because it was fun to see how things worked. When notworking on Fedora things, these days, I’m spending a lot of time atschool, as I’m currently enrolled in a graduate program at MIT inaddition to working at Red Hat. I’m also a pretty avid cyclist, doingboth utility/commuter biking as well as longer, more relaxingrecreational rides.
[ 本帖最后由 R0meal 于 2008-4-9 22:33 编辑 ]
对于Fedora的用户来说，Live CD还是一个比较新潮的东西，但是由于他在系统中集成了一些比较潮流的东西，另外他适用livecd-tools等工具使得系统的定制更加方便，对于用户来说，有多了一个非常好的选择，对此，您能给我们介绍一些目前的fedora live cd的开发情况吗？
好的，自从我们在Fedora 6中开始发布live cd版本的Fedora发行版，我们就一直在努力改进Live CD的制作，真正使得Live CD成为一个非常好用、能够即插即用的好东西，让用户感觉到这玩意并不失为所谓的高手定制的，平常用户同样能够容易上手。
This interview is the first of a serieswe’ll be co-publishing with Fedora Interviews. In this one, Jeremy Katztalks about improvements to Fedora Live CDs.
Live CDs are still something that are relatively new to theFedora Project, but because of their integration to the build systemand the user facing tools such as livecd-tools allowing for easyre-spinning, they’re a fairly central part of what Fedora can offerpeople. Could you give us a bit of background on this and explain thecurrent state of live spins in Fedora
8?
Since the first official livecd release for Fedora Core 6, we’vespent a lot of time on improving the tools used for building liveimages and helping to make them less of the “this is a quick hack jobthat works” into tools that actually can be built upon, maintained,etc. One of the big pieces there is around wanting to havereproducibility for your images?we accomplish this through using akickstart config for the livecd definition.
Fedora 8 was really the first release where we were starting to havemore people building livecds using the tools?the KDE SIG has beenactive in doing so since Fedora 7, but with Fedora 8, we also gainedthe Electronic Lab (FEL) spin, the Developer spin, and the XFCE spin.
In Fedora 9, one of the new features is persistence for LiveUSBs. Based on the impression I get, this is a feature that is in highdemand and probably has quite a number of uses. Where did yourmotivation for working on this feature come from; was it the demandfrom the users, or were you scratching your own itch?
A little bit of both really. It’s definitely a feature that gets askedabout by users, especially since we’ve supported running the live imageoff of a USB stick since Fedora 7 through the livecd-iso-to-diskscript. But it’s also something that I’ve thought would be nice andinteresting to support all along. Being able to carry your (customized)distribution around on a USB stick and preserve any documents you workon, etc is pretty cool. :)
And how does this feature work? What would a user have to do once they have a copy of the Beta release to test it?
It’s pretty straight-forward to use. The main thing is that you needa USB stick that’s at least 1 gig in size, 2 gigs is even better. Then,you’ll use the livecd-iso-to-disk script and run it:
# ./livecd-iso-to-disk --overlay-size-mb 1200 /path/to/iso /path/to/stickIn this case, I’m setting up a 1200 MB file to store my persistentdata. If you only have a 1 GB stick, then you’ll need to use somethingmore like 250.
What work was required on your part to create this feature?
Most of the legwork to implement the early form of the persistence workwas done by Douglas McClendon. I just then massaged the patches a bitand made the integration a little cleaner.
Do you have any interest from other projects, OpenOffice.org orGnome perhaps, who are interested in using these technologies for thepromotion of their own projects and Live CDs?
No, but we haven’t really reached out. Which perhaps we should.
Are there any other improvements to the Live CDs for Fedora 9, ordo you have any that you’d like to get implemented for later Fedorareleases?
For Fedora 9, a lot of the effort has been in making livecd-creatorhave an API that is exported and can be used by other tools that wantto build images. So, e.g., for LTSP image creation, they’re now usingthe livecd-creator imgcreate module as the backend for building theLTSP client images.
I think the big thing that we need to do in the future is try to getsome nice “content” to have available on the CD?things to help a newFedora user know what they can do with the system, etc. If you’reinterested on working on these sorts of things, please let me know. :)Also, it’d be nice to look into a larger image so that we can fit morebits.
And finally, would you care to tell us a bit about yourself? Whatgot you interested in free software originally? What you like to dowith your time when not hacking on Fedora?
I’ve been involved in free software for way too long now, originallygetting involved because it was fun to see how things worked. When notworking on Fedora things, these days, I’m spending a lot of time atschool, as I’m currently enrolled in a graduate program at MIT inaddition to working at Red Hat. I’m also a pretty avid cyclist, doingboth utility/commuter biking as well as longer, more relaxingrecreational rides.
[ 本帖最后由 R0meal 于 2008-4-9 22:33 编辑 ]
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