[PLUG] [OT?] Setting up to do repetitive installs on ONE machine (cf BabelBox)

[Richard Owlett]

[I posted this to two Debian lists - the silence was deafening.
Can anyone comment on the logic of my approach?
Anyone doing something related on any Debian related 
distribution?
Thank you]


I have two objectives:
    1. Define, by experimentation, optimal installation 
parameters to meet my
       idiosyncratic concept of a "minimal install".
    2. Determine if there are bugs in Debian Installer, the 
instructions for
       the installer, or MY reading of those instructions.

I've bought the 8 DVD set of Debian 6.0.5 and have set aside 
a laptop as a testbed. I would divvy up the 80GB drive with 
8-10GB for a quasi-static Debian install [some other 
experiments, possible supervisor for these tests] and ~40GB 
for DVD content [possibly some additional packages]. The 
rest would be for the resulting test install and possibly 
preserving some log files.

"Debian GNU/Linux Installation Guide" (particularly sections 
4 & 5 and appendix B) give some indication that what I want 
to do is feasible. BabelBox 
{http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/BabelBox} indicates 
that something quite _similar_ has been done.


Open questions about BabelBox and its suitability for my goals:

BabelBox is apparently aimed at a fully scripted fully 
automated repetitive install install dependent only on the 
first DVD of a release [e.g. "When you get to partitioning, 
create a Linux partition on /dev/sda1 ( *_about 1.5 to 4GB_* 
depending on which media you want to use as installation 
media)..." {EMPHASIS added}].

I will, initially, be doing only manual installs using 
preseeding to avoid entering fixed data - keyboard, time 
zone, user name/password, no networking etc.

Can I simply copy all 8 DVD's to the root of my supervising 
Debian install?
After an install will I be able to do apt-get to access the 
DVD content now residing on the hard drive?
Am I missing something?
Are there other routes to my goals I should investigate?

TIA