distros everywhere!
So lately I've been working on an ongoing project at work to update this bootable CD that we have that lets people perform automated Linux installations. We've had all the Redhat & Fedora Core flavors working for ages. Recently we added Mandriva & SuSE. I've been trying to add a few more with very limited success.
Ubuntu is a horrific collection of unmaintained buggy software. I got Ubuntu (x86 & x86_64) almost working accept for one nasty problem after the reboot into the newly installed kernel. The ubuntu installer starts looking to install packages that don't exist. And by don't exist I mean, are not even a part of Ubuntu. I have no clue why its doing this, and all of my cries for help have gone unanswered. I tried their forums, I tried their mailing list, I tried their irc channel, and I even tried emailing their developers, and no one seems to know anything. For a distro that prides itself on being super-user friendly, this is a complete joke. I guess that they're only user friendly when people are asking the same newbie-ish questions that have been asked countless times for every other distro in the past. As soon as they have to actually do something close to supporting their own code, no one seems to have any clues. Yes, Ubuntu, you suck. If someone wants to prove me wrong, feel free to email me.
I realize that Gentoo prides itself on being the complete opposite of cookie-cutter automation, so I didn't expect to find much of anything that resembled a hands-free install process. I was actually surprised to find this. It seems to use something called GLIS. I might give it a try, but like all things Gentoo, it requires a ton of work to get off the ground. Its hard to get motivated on this stuff when Redhat's kickstart is so damn simple to configure & use.
This takes me to good old crusty Slackware. I did some brief research about Slackware a few weeks back and found very little. But I searched on 'kickstart slackware' this time on google, and seem to have hit the motherlode. Its relatively simple, straightforward and unemcumbered by silly requirements. I'm about 80% of the way through it now, so sure, it could still blow up in an ubuntu-style explosion, but I'm hopeful.