[cut-team] CUT Implemented in 8 Lines of Shell

[Michael Gilbert]

Hi,

Attached is a "CUT" implementation in 8 lines of shell.  After bundling
this file into a udeb and generating an installer image, the result is
a "constantly usable" iso that installs the 20100912 version of squeeze
from snapshot.debian.org [0]. It does this by leveraging the "constant
usability" of the stable installer, and then springboarding into the
testing snapshot.

So, there it is.  It's done.  It's embarrassingly simple.  It's a bit
rough around the edges right now (progress bar labels are not quite
right, there is too much delay between debconf dialogs, sources are
hardcoded, i386/686 is hardcoded, etc.). It uses existing
infrastructure. And most importantly, it also solves CIT (Constantly
Installable Testing); just swap out snapshot sources for testing
sources and you're done.

You can try the iso installer at [0], and the sources for the new
testing-snapshot udeb are also located there.

Note that I've only tested the "Standard System" option from tasksel,
and to get that to work, I had to implement a workaround for an issue
with the console-tools package. I haven't tested the other tasksel tasks
yet, but they should work as long as they don't involve packages with
config files modified during the lenny part of the install.

Finally, I've removed a couple packages that have problematic upgrades:
the squeeze kernel needs a newer cdebconf than the one in lenny, and
acpid needs a populated /proc to upgrade.  You can of course manually
reinstall those once you reboot into the snapshot, where those features
are available.

Best wishes,
Mike

[0] http://alioth.debian.org/~gilbert-guest/testing-snapshot
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