bugs/linode-custom-install.md

OK, backing out of earlier suggestion, which was based on a misunderstanding of the document in question:

https://linode.com/docs/tools-reference/custom-kernels-distros/install-a-custom-distribution-on-a-linode/#download-and-install-image

The problem occurs if the reader loses track of the roles of the disk images through the process. In Rescue Mode, a pile of bits goes into a volume known temporarily as /dev/sda.

Then, booting into the Installer profile, that pile of bits gets a different name, /dev/sdb. Those bits are used to boot, but only temporarily, during installation. Unlike in Rescue mode, the name /dev/sda is applied to a different volume, a volume intended to receive the installed system and eventually to become the boot volume.

Finally, in the Boot profile, that pile of bits, still under the name /dev/sda, is used to boot the system.

At this point, I think I'll suggest changing the language so that the two profiles do not have the same names as the two disk images. Use of the term boot to indicate a profile or a disk image either one is a problem, since one boots a system into each of three modes: Rescue, Installer, and the final configuration, which I suggest here be called Production but could be called Final or something else, so long as it does not collide with the name used for the volume that is the ultimate destination of the installation process.

So, instead of

• Installer profile and Installer image
• Boot profile and Boot image

we would have

• Installation profile, but installer image.
• Production profile, but target image.

So, in Rescue Mode, one writes, eg, a GNU/Linux distribution's download ISO file to the installer disk image.

When booted into the Installation profile, one boots from the installer image, but writes to the target image.

In the Production profile, one boots from the target image, and the installer image is dormant.

The process optionally can stop here, or continue into the improvements suggested by the rest of the document.

Again, the installation necessarily entails 3 boots--into Rescue Mode, into the Installer profile, and into the Boot profile

It is easier to miss the switch in the role of the disk names and volume roles through this process because this document visually draws out the two profiles Installer and Boot. In contrast, it somewhat buries the implicit aspects of the existing volume from which the system is booted into Rescue Mode.