Templates Shmemplates, What's All The Fuss About?

"Using the same system from my previous post, I decided to compare the creation of new operating system (OS) images from a downloaded ISO image, a bootable CD image burned from the downloaded ISO and from a template to see if there's enough difference to justify the hassle and space used for storing templates or even ISO images.

"Preparation and Standards

"To start the process, I downloaded the debian-500-amd64-xfce+lxde-CD-1.iso from a Debian mirror site and burned it to a CD-R. For each new VM, my timer was set to 0 on my first click on the XenCenter menu item, VM->New and stopped when I successfully logged into the new system via the graphical login screen. The installation choices are all defaults except the virtual disk size which I changed from 5.0GB to 4.0GB and recommended memory from 256MB to 512MB. I chose the XFCE graphical interface for the master and all other images. The installed operating system footprint is 1.4GB.

"Bootable CD Installation

"This original installation (Master Image) from the bootable CD fulfilled my expectation that it would be the slowest of all the tests at 20 minutes. Part of the process that's slow in this installation is answering all of the individual questions about keyboard type, language, disk layout, root password, creating a regular user account, installation type, and GRUB installation. It's easy to see that this part of the process is worth a few valuable minutes on its own."

Complete Story

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