(no subject)

[Gary Ford]

I am a Fedora newbie who needs help preparing for a Kickstart 
installation. I hope to be able to create several different Kickstart 
configuration files to test several different Fedora configurations.

I have these constraints:

1. For testing, I have a local Ethernet network with one Windows 2000 
Pro box, one Mac OS X G4 box, and the Fedora installation target, a 
Dell Dimension 4100.

2. Only the Win2000 box has a direct Internet connection, which is via 
two-way satellite. This is the only kind of Internet connection 
available in my geographic area (rural Colorado), other than voice 
modem that connects at 9600 to 19200 baud (on a good day).

3. Satellite Internet connections limit downloads to about 150 Mb in 
any 8-hour period. Exceeding that limit reduces the bandwidth to less 
than voice modem speed for the next eight hours or so. The net result 
is that it is nearly impossible to download a CD-ROM ISO image.

4. Neither the Win2000 box nor the Dell box has a CD writer.

5. I have a set of Red Hat 9.0 CD-ROMs from early 2003.

I would like to use the following scenario for my tests:

1. The Win2000 box will have a directory named "Fedora" that contains 
the subdirectories "base" and "RPMS". Those subdirectories will contain 
whatever is necessary from the similarly named directories in the 
Fedora distribution web site. With each new Fedora release, I'll update 
the packages I need from a Fedora distribution mirror.

2. This local "mirror" will also contain RPM packages from other 
sources.

3. The Win2000 box will run Apache to serve the files in the "mirror".

4. The Win2000 box will run a DHCP server to assign a static IP address 
to the Dell box during Fedora installation.

5. I will use an installation boot diskette to begin the installation.

6. I would like to have all the various Kickstart configuration files 
on the Win2000 box and have the installer access them via HTTP/Apache.

I need help with the following items:

1. I have an installation boot diskette image file from Red Hat 9. Is 
there such an image file specifically for Fedora?

2. What are the files in the "Fedora/base" subdirectory? I understand 
"comps.xml" and have a tool on the Mac OS X box that can generate it 
and a Kickstart configuration file after "interviewing" the user to 
determine the packages that the user is likely to need. I do not 
understand the "hdlist", "hdlist2", "hdstg2.img", "netstg2.img", or 
"stage2.img" files, their roles in installation, and how to create them.

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Gary Ford
Plaid Flannel Software