Hello All,

I am trying to figure out how in the world to automate my Ubuntu 9.04 installation (IE timezone already selected, installation disk previously selected, etc). I have read that all I have to do is place preseed.cfg into the root of the initrd.img. Some how or another I keep hitting wall after wall when trying to place a file in this live file system. What is the easiest way to place the file in the initrd.img?

The first time you make an initrd it makes a directory somewhere, initrd-tree, or the like. What happens when you add it to that, and run mkinitrd with limited options to reuse the existing tree?

Hmmm...perhaps I misstated the process that I am using...

Right now I am chrooted into a Ubuntu 9.04 LiveCD Desktop version. I do an ls and I can see the initrd.img in the / dir. I have tried copying the .img using a non-chrooted CLI to my home dir for mounting/editing. The result is "cp: cannot stat '/media/blah/blah/blah/initrd.img': No such file or directory.

I have also tried the steps on this site http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2009/07/...te-initrd-img/ I modified the first step to cp /blah/blah/initrd.img .

I still get No such file or directory from both chrooted and non-chrooted shells.

Anywho, it sounds like you were trying to see what I was doing when I was making a completley new initrd.img. How do I do that?

Your end goal is to automate installing Ubuntu. Am I correct in thinking you want to do it via pxe? That goes something like
1. set network boot a,d turn on a blank box
2. The box politely asks who is gonna give it a kernel. Your server responds
3. Box boots the kernel, gets on the net again and asks for an OS. For this stage you probably need your preseed file
4. box gets an OS and installs it

There's many docs on that. Here's the Slackware one

wget ftp://ftp.heanet.ie/mirrors/slackwar...README_PXE.TXT

Use mkinitrd in ubuntu to write that initrd. just add the file to the command line or to wherever your initrd tree is. Watch for version issues with the kernel.

I want to do all of this nativley on CD. I am not a running PXE server on my network. I have tried and failed at a PXE server.

I hereby back out if you're going inventing on your own. AFAIK, PXE is the only way to do that, and relies on compatible dhcp servers. Read that doc I sent you. It is a good approach. If you want to have another go at pxe, and let us know where it fails, I'll throw in what I can.

Problems are: PXE from the Bios is pretty stupid, and you have to run a compliant dhcp server on your net or you are dead in the water; Network boot has to recognise the nic on startup, because it's a totally new system asking totally new questions as once you boot, you no longer are on bios; if a firewall is in the way, you are probably disabled; You also need disk access - slack uses nfs, other systems use different things.

Ok, I will take a more detailed look at the slackware site you sent.