Here's a short overview about the changes found in version 4.0.0pre1:

* Core: Integrate initial install support
* Core: Integrate initial preos support

Note for this release:

4.0-pre-not-stable is an experimental branch containing features for the next big thing: cdist 4.

As you can see above, we have worked on cdist to allow not only configuration of machines, but also installation of machines.

These features are poorly documented, the install types are not cleaned up and there are many more ugly things.

Still, we wanted to give eager people access to our codebase, to play around with it.

A minimal introduction for those keen on trying it out:

• host boots preos (you generate this by using "cdist preos")
• host gets installed using "cdist install"
• types that begin with __install_are by convention used for installing sytems
• install types contain the (empty) file "install"

More to come soon - planned release for cdist 4 is mid 2014.

For more information visit the cdist homepage.