On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 8:35 PM, Jeff Spaleta <jspaleta@gmail.com> wrote:
2009/2/4 Thomas Bendler <ml@bendler-net.de>:
> This is simply ignorant.

I make absolutely no claim that I am anything more than supremely
ignorant.  This is why i am asking questions. I don't know how to do
it. I make no claim as to how to do it. I am saying that it is my
understanding that right now our installer tastes for existing Fedora
installs by looking for at the on system rpmdb.  If I'm wrong about
that, please tell me how I'm wrong.

The ignorant statement was a reply to your comment above that statement (which you delete in this reply) where you stated that there won't be a rpmdb like thing for other distributions. Of course it make no sense to use rpmdb for the detection of other distributions, not all distries use RPM, this is the first blocking issue. Next thing is the RPM version thing which could also block a detection. That is why I said use the filesystem.

Sadly you didn't provide anything close to an idea that was
implementable.  "Look in the filesystem", isn't concrete enough. What
in the filesystem is hallmark Mepis for example or hallmark Foresight?

Should I now explain for all hundred + distribution where a special file exist ... only in this distribution and only in this version which could be used for detection? You're kidding, aren't you? There are several files like /etc/redhat-release, /etc/debian_version, /etc/lsb-release, ... which could be used to determin the distribution. If not known or the installer is unsure, simply add an unkown OS. But it is really not rocket sience to figure out a distribution by only checking some files in the filesystem. At least that should be sufficent to detect the major distributions by name and some other by simply an unknown entry in GRUB.

Regards, Thomas