[MiNT] OSMD - introduction

[xmilb01@sorry.vse.cz (Bohdan Milar)]

Dear MiNT users/coders,

these days I heavily work on a new MiNT installation/distribution 
which should replace the great but a bit old KGMD/KEMD. I am not 
(yet) a coder and that's why I have time for such things. 
Nevertheless it's also a reason why I do not fully understand all the 
aspects of MiNT. So I have a few questions, but first a short 
introduction.

I call it OSMD = Olomouc SpareMiNT Distribution (Olomouc = nice town 
where I and both members of Jay Soft - who help me - live). Our aim 
is to prepare a TOS+68030 compatible computer easily to install the 
SpareMiNT rpm packages. It shouldn't be more complicated (measured in 
the number of dialogs) than the standard RedHat 7.1 installation. I 
think it will require 3 dikettes (1 install floppy and two with the 
config files and rest of KGMD) and of course CD-ROM with SpareMiNT. 
We want our installation to do these things:

- prepare a Minix or Ext2 (optionally) partition
- extract the rpm tar.gz + directory structure
- install kernel+modules from rpm
- install basic rpm packages and rpm from rpm
- install OSMD-base.rpm with basic configuration
- ask some questions and modify the configration
- install some KGMD programs which are not yet in SpareMiNT
- install selected SpareMiNT packages
- install other software (XaAES, GEM-init, ...)

Now we have (working OSMD version 0.2):

- installation looking like KEMD and doing these steps:
	- chooose the install language (only English available)
	- prepare a Minix or Ext2 (optionally) partition
	- extract the rpm tar.gz + directory structure
	- install elementary rpm packages and rpm.rpm
- KGMD Kit segmented to the original parts.


We need help in these areas:

1. Current install-scripts problems:

- in MINT.CNF I try to do a multiple copy of files named setup.?? (?? 
= shortcats for different languages like de, en, cs, fr, ...) but as 
a result in the destinational directory a file named "setup.??" 
apears instead of the multiple copy... (I also tested "*").

- I have uncompressed rpm from tar.gz on a newly crated Minix/Ext2 
parttion and done 'rpm --initdb'. I have correctly (all the others 
work) set links of the root directoried (/bin, ... /usr, /var) to the 
new partition. I try to install bash and this appears:
	error creating temporary file //var/tmp/rpm-tmp.<number>
where <number> is a real number.


2. Configuration files

KGMD had its own commented config files (mint.cnf, /etc/*, ...).I am 
going to use modified example of MINT.CNF from FreeMiNT 1.15.12. Is 
it a good idea to issue /etc files from the Linux ones (means the 
setup-*.rpm package)? Are there another important config files? I 
will welcome any sugestions of the defaults. It could also be 
possible to have prepared several configurations (e.g. 
Falcon/TT/Milan) and choose the right one during the installation.


3. The way of installation

At the moment I have rewritten and tested the KEMD setup script. It 
can do more than the half of above mentioned operations. I know this 
type of text installation is not much sexy but it is the only thing I 
can do. There are two other proposals (both from Jay Soft):
	a) do a text installation using tty dialogs
	b) do a GEM installation using GEMSetup or something like that
What do you think as a MiNT large public? Any other proposals?


4. Localizaton

We design whole installation as open and international. There will be 
a possibility to translate the installation script to many languages 
and choose your favourite one at the beginning of the instalation. We 
will be able to prepare English and Czech versions (no matter what 
way of installation in point 1 will be chosen). We wil be glad if 
some of you will translate the script to German, French, ...


5. KGMD

I selected parts which are not in SpareMiNT and am going to do a 
small rpm packages from them. These should be used untill a new port 
for SpareMiNT will be done. For details please see the next message.



Regards,
			Bohdan Milar