Why does the anaconda-ks.cfg file *not* reflect the packages I chose during my manual install?

[Chris Lumens]

> 2. I was hoping the ks file generated would have a good flight recording 
> I could then replay but it only reflects the default packages, not the 
> "all optional packages" I'd selected during the manual install.

Because that's a bug in 5.0.  This should be much improved in 5.1.

> 3. While CentOS 5 configurator doesn't crash like the FC6 did (wow, that 
> sucked a lot of time), it doesn't allow me to select optional packages 
> at all making it pretty much a starting point for a boilerplate KS file 
> that I must then extensively hand edit.

That's unfortunately a limitation of the system-config-kickstart in
RHEL5.  While it's consistent with the behavior in earlier releases,
it's still pretty crappy.  This is fixed in the s-c-ks in F7 and later
(see bug #232285, version 2.7.4-1).  This is not fixed in 5.1, and most
likely won't be in any update release of 5.  I haven't even gotten any
escalated bugs on this yet.

> 4. In my naive attempt at getting this behavior to work, I did a "rpm 
> -qa >> mymachine.cfg" in order to have anaconda install the RPMs that 
> were installed when I did the original manual install (sorry, English 
> grammar is elusive right now). This just resulted in the install just 
> sitting there pegging the CPU with "Completed Completed" being the last 
> message on the console.

Large %packages sections take a very long time to process due to the
code path that anaconda+yum are using.  This should also be fixed in F7
and later.  I do not know the status of this in 5.1, though I lean
towards it not being better there.

- Chris