2009/12/18 Todd Volkert <tvolkert(a)gmail.com>:
Hi Yaakov,
Thanks for the response. I'm actually only installing it on one local
machine, but I upgrade every Fedora release and have noticed this behavior
the past few releases. I work at VMware, where every developer can install
whatever OS they want to work in, and in Linux, you use ypbind to get access
to your network login and shared folders. Thus, I'm using a simple install
DVD. I'll look into a kickstart file, though for one machine, it sounds
like it might not be worth it.
Writing a kickstart is pretty easy, there are enough examples around, but going through
the trouble for a once every six month process doesn't seem worth it. How do you
normally install Fedora? Are you using the DVD Installer or a Live setup? With the DVD
installer, you can customize the packages at install time, so you can make sure autofs is
present before the machine boots up the first time. For your particular edge case, this
seems like the safest bet.
Kickstart is more useful for deploying larger rollouts, for example when you have three
desktop machines that should all behave the same. The time it costs to set up your
workflow, namely how you get the bits to the machine, say via a respun DVD via revisor or
via a cobbler server makes more sense when you're doing this more than twice a year.
It can turn a point and click festival into a press a button and wait experience. How much
is your time at VMWare worth?
-Yaakov