Can mkosi replace Kickkstart / Calamares?

[Patrick Schleizer]

Hi,

I am maintaining a systemd, Debian-based Linux distribution (Kicksecure) 
and am considering moving to mkosi as the "base image creation tool".

It seems mkosi is a fine OS image builder. With systemd-repart, you even 
solved the resizing of partitions at the first boot, which is magic.

Suppose a Linux distribution is providing an OS image that can be 
written to USB. Maybe soon, even to a CD/DVD. [1]

Suppose that OS image is supposed to be able to act as an installer, so 
the user can use it to install it on an internal hard drive.

Is something like Kickstart or Calamares still required? It seems (at 
least Calamares, whose code I am reading) is kind of "yet another OS 
image builder". It doesn't build an image but instead writes to a hard 
drive. However, I find it problematic that a lot of code (creating 
partition tables, creating file systems, making bootable) is duplicated. [2]

Do you have any suggestions?

Did you envision replacing installers, or do you already have tools for 
that?

Cheers,
Patrick

[1] https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/28798

[2] But what about installer questions, customization such as time zone, 
keyboard layout? I think the crucial question for an installer is the 
target drive, and that's it. Perhaps partitioning and file system 
choices, but that is more for geeks. How about time zone, keyboard 
layout? Valid points. But I think those would be better handled through 
a first-boot GUI wizard.