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If a system is not running Linux already, you cannot use the live replace
method to install RSLinux, you have to use a bootable media like USB disk
or CDROM.

A USB disk is handy to do installation locally while a CDROM image is
suitable to install remotely on a KVM based VPS. For both situations
the most important utilities to include are probably the ones to do
disk partition and filesystem formatting, for remote installation, it's
best to make the CDROM image as small as possible and transfer all the
packages to be installed via network at some later point since it's much easier
to re-upload the image if you forgot to C<patch> some vital packages into it,
so be sure to include something like C<socat> or C<rsync> or C<openssh>
for C<scp> depending on your mood or taste, and of course the C<iproute2>
package and necessary kernel modules to bring up the network.

=back

=head3 A faithful recording of live replace installation on a OpenVZ based VPS

I now have a complete RSLinux system inside a directory on my VPS, I have
already entered it several times and I'm confident that it's good, and the

bin/rs  view on Meta::CPAN

=head3 A faithful recording of CDROM installation on a KVM based VPS

The first step is of course making a list of the packages that I need,
since this is a KVM based VPS I need to do disk partition, so C<fdisk>
from C<util-linux> is absolutely necessary, and needless to say the
C<mount> command from it, and in order to C<mount> I have to format it
first, so C<e2fsprogs> as well, and I like C<syslinux> as the bootloader
so include that too. The next thing to consider is how to transfer the
compiled packages, I never include them in the iso image since I don't
want to upload a big iso file again if I made a mistake, instead they're
transferred using network, this immediately implies that C<iproute2>
is required, while there may be some circumstances that you don't need a
encrypted connection, but I think I'll just stick to C<scp> of C<openssh>,
for good practice, and the additional benefit to login via C<ssh> if
the installation is complicated, so add C<openssh> to list.  Also, I
definitely want to pack things into a tarball, so put C<tar> on the list
so that I could unpack them later.  Finally, C<bash> and C<coreutils>
of course, they're essential for the commandline.

That's everything I need directly, but since it's expected to boot from

bin/rs  view on Meta::CPAN

So I C<patch>ed all the packages, copied the kernel and its modules, along with
relative C<isolinux> file and configuration, setup the script to boot, and
finally generated the iso using C<mkisofs>. After that I launched to C<qemu>
to test it, well, I forgot that C<agetty> will launch the C<login> program
which is from C<shadow-utils>, and the C<ip> command will link against
C<libmnl> if available, but that's fine, I C<patch>ed them and regenerated
the iso, did extensive testing on it and became pretty confident that it's solid.

And with all these preparations done the rest was really easy and smooth, I
uploaded the iso file and booted the VPS, did disk partition first, formatted
the filesystems after that, and then installed the bootloader, finally tranferred
the root filesystem tarball using C<scp> and extracted it. I rebooted the
VPS and saw a login prompt as a indication of success, the installation is done!

=head1 PERFORMANCE

B<rs> is actually pretty efficient, all the serializations routines are
written in C<C>, the first C<diff> operation will probably take some
noticeable time if you're not using a SSD since all the metadata is not
yet cached, that's just like the first C<git status> command inside a