ia64 d-i automation

I've been playing with the ia64 mainly on weekends, since it's not very work-related. Today I switched it over so the permanent, development install is netbooted and uses nfs root. This lets me use d-i without worrying about accidentially destroying the system I use for development. Then I set up a serial console, using conserver. Since the ia64 always netboots now, switching between the development system and d-i testing only requires changing a symlink on the tftp server and signaling the ia64 to reboot by sending some escape codes down the serial cable.

So with that all properly automated down to a single command, I have a remotely accessible ia64 d-i test system that's as easy to use as vmware (and really somewhat faster, though annoyingly displaying at 9600 baud). Next steps will be to really begin automating it by preseeding debian installs and examining the install logs for success/failure..

Anyway, if d-i developers would like access to this ia64 test system, I can probably set something up.