An interesting idea. In short, a liveCD that goes through a distribution selection wizard then creates the appropriate installer disk. Maybe a more ambitious verison actually manages the installation of the selected distribution.
I’d add the idea of it supporting whatever free licensed os the project could manage; Linux distros, BSDs, ReactOS, Haiku.. toss ’em all into the list. Granted it quickly becomes something that would need serious funding; maybe a positive marketing project for the FSF?
Anyhow, I thought I’d share:
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Katana multi-OS liveCD would be the example in my own area of interest. Knoppix deserves some serious recognition for the liveCD. Including multiple images on one disk is a great extension of that.
Let me daydream a little more though:
User gets the multi-installer disk and slips it in the machine. It presents a list of distributions with a description and a screenshot. Perhaps it runs a localized version of the Linux Distribution Chooser questions.
optionally, it checks the hardware against selection of distros for compatibility. It may even pull drivers for hardware to merge in with a give OS install. Debian pulls discovered kernel mods off a usb or floppy so it can be easy on the installer/distro side. Nvidia provides a good driver bundle that anyone can wget so it can be easy on the vendor/installer side.
optionally, it contains bootable images that can then bring up the selected OS. The only challenge here is space since a DVD will only hold so many CD ISO.
optionally, it contains network install images that kick off the applicable installer wizard and download process. The user does not get the benefit of a pre-install test run this way as they would with the liveCD.
optionally, it downloads the applicable livecd image rather than having them on the DVD. The image could be downloaded and booted directly or maybe it burns the image to a blank disk; keep dvd writer and .iso in ram and have user swap disks. The first installer disk essentially manages the distribution choice and install media creation then leaves the user and applicable distro installer alone.
optionally, it uses a webapp that presents a selection interface from your own apache. That builds a custom liveCD after user distribution selection is done. This means supporting liveCD customization of all listed distributions but it’s at least on the local server for easy development and less processing load on the client side.
optionally, it may even include custom local installer for supported distributions presenting a common wizard experience but tapping the package manager and repository for whatever OS is selected. This may be the most ambitious as your writing your own installer superseding the distro provided one and it’d have to support all the distros listed on the disk.
On the maintainer side, how many major distributions are listed on the DVD. How many are fast changing versions which will take more time to keep the disk updated with. Do you do a library of disks listing different distribution categories (desktop, server, security, tiny, specialized)?
The base liveCD is easy enough up to the GUI layer. One would need to write the distro selection wizard and database of distro related screenshots and information. One needs to then write a kickoff process be it a download and boot/burn or unified installer reaching out to the relevant distro package source.
Installers are getting pretty good from wizard installers to the boot and stamp method like Ubuntu. It’s still a world of download-burn-install distributions though. This disk would be concerned with vetting the given hardware and guiding a distro selection process and automating the download/burn steps. The distro disk is then in the drive so close the burn and tell the hardware to reboot; whammo, distro native install process.
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