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I'm working on a Linux distro, and it seems like Anaconda and Ubiquity aren't working for my needs.

Are there any precautions one should take when coding an installer for a whole system? I was thinking to just create a graphical copy and paste application with configuration, as my base system is just a squashfs image.

I've already got my partition script working (it just reads blkid and extracts data), so just before I go any further, am I going at this all wrong? How do the systems install themselves?

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Not having any real experience, can you look at the Debian Installer. I've seen it given lots of praise for its near-decade-old design. It's built from a whole bunch of shell scripts AFAIK. – Tshepang May 20 '11 at 17:31
I don't understand the question. An installer is a live system with a dedicated purpose. It can be anything from a shell script in a minimal system (OpenBSD installer) to a complex program running under X with a bunch of services running (principal Ubuntu installer). What are you after? – Gilles May 20 '11 at 21:59
Never mind, actually. I already have it running XD – Blender May 20 '11 at 22:03
Can you post an answer and accept it if it will help other people? – Michael Mrozek♦ May 22 '11 at 18:45
Not sure what to post. I'll just link to my Github repo and describe what I did then... – Blender May 22 '11 at 20:10

closed as not constructive by Caleb, Michael Mrozek♦ Jul 20 '11 at 18:57

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You could check out how Slackware and Arch distros do their installs. Slackware wants you to install a medium-sized set of packages from a CD-ROM disk. Arch installs a bare minimum from a CD, then updates itself with the latest and greatest from repositories on the Internet.

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