I'm trying to configure unattended Ubuntu Desktop (12.10) installations booting from PXE. I've got it working, but since I had to use the initrd.gz and kernel from the mini iso, it appears only to be able to install from an HTTP repository. I'm using kickstart and preseed to do the actual install, and as I said it does work, but it takes a long time since it has to download all the packages.
I have the full 12.10 ISO and I'd like to be able to PXE boot and do an unattended installation (with custom partitioning scheme) using the packages from the installation CD (i.e., not a remote mirror). I looked in the install image and saw that everything's in a single squashfs file, so I mounted that but have no idea if it's possible to use the files inside that to do the install.
It looks like one solution is to use apt-mirror to setup a full repository mirror, and then configure preseed to use the local repository for the install. This seems pretty straightforward, but requires setting up a 100 gig repository, when all the files I want for the base install are on an 800 MB ISO already.
I have a second PXE option which just mimics booting from the Ubuntu CD. It drops you to the desktop, and you double-click the "Install Ubuntu" icon and go through the whole procedure. This works but isn't unattended.
So to summarize, I want to
- Netboot
- Do an unattended (no prompts) installation with custom partitioning scheme
- Perform the installation using only resources on my LAN
- Not setup a full 50-100 gig Ubuntu repo mirror
Is this possible?