No way to tell what type an install CD is from its contents

[Tony Yarusso]

I frequently burn an Ubuntu installation CD, use it, and then promptly manage to leave it laying around somewhere in my house neglecting to properly label it first. Later, I pop it in to see what it is, and while I can tell that it's Ubuntu, I don't know for sure exactly which image it is. I would like to propose that all information necessary to establish what the original image name/type was should be easily accessible in the contents of the image itself.

*Most* of what is needed is accomplished already in the README.diskdefines file, such as "#define DISKNAME Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386". However, there are two problems remaining. First, there is no differentiation between the desktop, alternate, and server CDs in this line. Second, it would be nice if the different items were also written separately just to be more easily programatically readable, in case someone needed that capability.

Thus, I propose that at a minimum a line should be added to README.diskdefines or another appropriate top-level file with a declaration along the lines of "CDVARIANT Alternate". That combined with existing things would satisfy the basic needs outlined in my first point.

What would be ideal IMO to take care of the second too would be something that looks like this:
#define DISKNAME Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386
#define TYPE binary
#define TYPEbinary 1
#define ARCH i386
#define ARCHi386 1
#define DISKNUM 1
#define DISKNUM1 1
#define TOTALNUM 0
#define TOTALNUM0 1
#define DISTRO Ubuntu
#define VERS 9.10
#define MILESTONE Release
#define CODENAME "Karmic Koala"
#define CDVARIANT Alternate

(ARCH is already mentioned separately.) Note that I don't really understand all of what the README.diskdefines file does or the inner workings of the disk images and installer - I just noticed that most of the info I want happens to be in that file, so it would make sense to me to elaborate on it there.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I believe the following contains all the information that you are looking for:

cat /media/iso/.disk/info
Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.4)

[Tony Yarusso (tonyyarusso)]

Brian - where does that address that Desktop/Alternate/Server question?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for ubuntu-meta (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Moving to ubuntu-cdimage, which is where any change here would need to happen.