Universal Boot disc and Network install

[Paul Howarth]

Reuben D. Budiardja wrote:
> Hello,
> I like to use NFS install, as it minimize the need of burning CDs to install 
> distro. 
> However, as far as I know, you still need to burn the disc 1 iso of the 
> distro, to boot the system from, then specify the NFS install. So if I want 
> to install FC 1, FC 2, FC 3, FC 4 (beta), RHEL 3, RHEL 4, I still need to 
> burn 6 disc 1 iso, right ?. 
> 
> So my question is, is there a way to make like a "universal boot disc" for all 
> the Fedora (and Red hat) versions, so that then I can specify the NFS path 
> (and probably distro code name for sanity check), and then the installer 
> (anaconda? ) understand what distro I want to install based on the specified 
> NFS path (just look at what distro is available in that mounted fs) and/or 
> the specified distro name ?

It's not too hard to do this really. If you look in the "images" 
directories of each distribution's CD1, you should find a "boot.iso". If 
you loopback mount that image you can extract from it a kernel and 
initrd. These will be different for each distribution.

Grab the kernels and initrds for each distribution (these are the 
installer kernels and initrds) and create yourself a boot media (CD, USB 
  key, whatever) that offers a menu with each distro's kernel/initrd. 
You can then use that media to boot the installer for each distro.

Paul.