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Software Installation Using Disk Images. By: Irena Lanc and Peter Sempolinski. Software Installation . Conventional methods of software installation involve: Downloading the package Unpacking Compiling Managing path and environment variables
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Software Installation Using Disk Images By: Irena Lanc and Peter Sempolinski
Software Installation • Conventional methods of software installation involve: • Downloading the package • Unpacking • Compiling • Managing path and environment variables • This leads to package files being strewn in directories across disk. • How can this system be made more efficient?
Our Idea • Create a disk image of the software package, and mount it as a loop device. Virtual File System Image un-installation script Unionfs Image-installation script X X Loop-mounted Device Loop-mounted Device Loop- mounted Device Loop- mounted Device Underlying ext2 filesystem
Complications • Number of loop devices hard-limited in kernel • Possible to ask for more devices at boot time. However, this greatly slows down the boot sequence when number of devices > 4000. • System accommodates up to 1000 devices comfortably. • A typical system could have between 1000-2000 software packages
Complications • Dependencies • Images created using files from debian packages, but since we’re re-packaging, dependencies not automatically fetched. • Further tools needed to manage dependencies. • Unionfs • Demands careful coordination of merges by the script. • As yet untested in scalability when merging hundreds of packages.
Road Ahead • 1. Add more scripts to manage dependencies, and generally make system easier to use. • 2. Create a test bed to obtain metrics such as program install time, memory/processor usage, and scalability. • 3. Kernel hacking • To get more out of Unionfs/loopback devices, certain aspects could be modified to provide more flexibility and better performance