On Sun, Nov 18, 2012 at 3:50 PM, Zack Perry <zack.perry@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > You might want to check the dists folder and make sure that you
> > have a "universe" folder in there so that it is able to get
> > package listings.

In my case, the loop mounted lubuntu-12.10-alternate-amd64.iso does show such directories:

[root@cobbler quantal]# pwd
/mnt/dists/quantal
[root@cobbler quantal]# ls
main  multiverse  Release  Release.gpg  restricted  universe

> >
> > I played with this a bit this weekend as well. I ended
> > up getting a minimal mirror of the Ubuntu packages needed
> > setup but it requires a bit of work to get going.

In my case, a simple cobbler import of the loop mounted
lubuntu-12.10-alternate-amd64.iso is sufficient to get it going.  Of course, you need to update the distro object to set the initrd.gz
and linux to the pair in the netboot subdirectory, and some updates
to the profile as well.

> >
> > First I downloaded the quantal dists folders from a
> > mirror. Then, I had to create a package list of the squashfs
> > image on the installation disk as well as a list of packages
> > that failed to install during a test installation. It
> > isn't ideal but it is a possibility for getting 12.10
> > up with a subset of the repository (thought I've only tested
> > the server install so I can't really help you with the
> > desktops issues here). If anyone is interested I
> > can send out instructions on what I did.

Please see the outline of what I did. It's quicker and simpler.

This is true but is not a solutions for everyone. 

If I ran Ubuntu in production I'd pull things directly from Ubuntu and simply setup a full mirror locally. It's just kinda sucks to have to mirror a huge repo when you only really need the basics. This also depends on what your local policies are for mirrors and how often you will be setting up systems.


Ubuntu's documentation is pretty messy, and I take many of them with
a big grain of sale. For example:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu states that
"The Ubuntu Install CDs contain software from the "Main" and "Restricted" components of the repositories. Once your system
is made aware of the Internet-based locations for these repositories,
many more software programs are available for installation."

But as evident from my directory listing above, loop mounted
lubuntu-12.10-alternate-amd64.iso does show such directories.

>
> I'm grabbing the 12.10 desktop ISO now, which I'll test with
> the master branch.
>

James, please note that I used the lubunbu alternate amd64 iso, not ubuntu-12.10-desktop-amd64.iso!

Regarding the desktop issue, if I can't get it installed using regular preseed, I have the following two approaches that should work:

0. Use the d-i preseed/late_command, perhaps writing a new snippet
1. Replace the /etc/apt/sources.list with a copy that consists of the regular Ubuntu repos, and then combine with a firstboot script to get the UI installed.

Still, lacking a common meta package name such as ubuntu-desktop makes even both the above a small challenge.

Regards,

-- Zack

Regards,

Andrew 
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