joeyh

argh... so many 5 am ideas

joeyh at

  • Add a propellor property that installs debootstrap. Portably, on any distro.
  • Enhance propellor's self-bootstrap code so it falls back from using apt to install ghc to downloading the haskell platform, so that it will work on any distro.
  • Then, add a chroot Property, which debootstraps a chroot, and runs propellor inside it, deploying the set of Properties that the chroot is configured to have.
  • Add systemd container support to that, beause it would be easy and would be very similar to propellor's existing docker support.
  • Here's where it gets crazy: Add an explodeChroot property, which sets up a chroot as above, but then deletes the entire system it's run in, replacing it with the files from the chroot..
  • Write a few other properties as needed to make that chroot bootable. (grub installed, fstab configured, etc)

So, you point that config file at some random VM as provided by a VPS provider, which may be full of cruft or not the right distribution at all. And it either turns into a cleanly installed system meeting the Properties of your choice (incuding distribution), or more likely, trashes it so it can't boot. ;)

(It would also be some partition setup properties away from d-i 2.0prealphajustkiddingonlyforhaskellprogrammers, but the clean VM installer seems more novel and interesting.)


Cooincidentally, I'm halfway through reading Schild's Ladder, in which posthumans are racing to keep away from a glitch in the fabric of space-time which is destroying the galaxy. Some of them want to try to destroy the glitch. Some want to stop it expanding, but think it's too interesting to destroy. Some want to study it. Factions form and tensions grow and research progress slows. And then it turns out it's full of fecund, crazy planc-scale life, and maybe it should expand out into the universe which looks pretty sterile and empty by comparison. Maybe they can make their way inside.

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"Tchicaya was sick of only talking to Preservationists at the interfactional meetings, when the entire discussion was guaranteed to revolve around a mixture of procedural issues and mutual paranoia."

joeyh at 2014-11-19T11:10:15Z

This would some somewhat similar to debtakeover, wouldn't it?

Lars Wirzenius at 2014-11-19T12:39:23Z

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