http://live.debian.net/wiki/Home
A Debian Live System (DLS) is a [WWW] Debian operating system pre installed in some way, that does not require a classical installer to be used. It comes on media, like a cdrom, a usb-key, or over a network.
In operation it will require a boot process and Hardware Discovery, to launch a preinstalled rootfs .
As first draft of key technologies to discuss we propose to investigate Casper from ubuntu to implement initramfs generation, squashfs+unionfs rootfs as the read-write environment, grub or isolinux/syslinux as Bootloader and cdd-dev as the tool to produce rootfs.
Resources for information is http://live.debian.net/.
http://live.debian.net/wiki/WhyDebianLive
What is wrong with current live systems
There are already several Debian-based live systems and they are doing a great job. But, from the Debian perspective, most of them have one or more of the following disadvantages:
They are unofficial projects, developed outside of Debian.
They mix different distributions, e.g. testing and unstable.
They support i386 only.
They change package's behavior and/or appearance by stripping them down to save space.
They include unofficial packages.
They ship custom kernels with additional patches not part of Debian.
They are large and slow due to their sheer size and thus not suitable for rescue issues.
They are not available in different flavours, e.g. CDs, DVDs, USB-stick and netboot images
Why create our own live system
Debian is the Universal Operating System: Debian should have an official live system for showing around and to officially represent the true, one and only Debian system with the following main advantages:
It would be an official Debian subproject.
It reflects the (current) state of one distribution.
It runs on as many architectures as possible.
It consists of unchanged Debian packages only.
It does not contain any unofficial packages.
It uses an unaltered Debian kernel-image with no additional patches.
Debian Live + Installer
Why not merge the Debian Installer and live/rescue system into one? Something that would boot from anything (CD, USB, net, etc.), and then provide a menu to either start the Debian Installer, or a command line. The perfect Debian swiss army knife.
What should a Debian live system consist of
The root should be mounted via a unionfs or the like so that new packages can be pulled from the net as needed (I think that most Debian based live systems are already capable of this).
A full suite of rescue and repair tools should be included by default.
A Debian Installer (something like the net inst).
last edited 2006-04-05 by eag41088