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Projects and resources (En) => Contributing to FOSS => Create masters => Discussion démarrée par: Desmoric le 12 février 2013 à 12:20:36

Titre: Create your Debian based distribution
Posté par: Desmoric le 12 février 2013 à 12:20:36
If someone wants to create his own  Debian-based distribution, I saw a set of tools called pylaivng.

The documentation is here : http://semplice-linux.sourceforge.net/develop/doc/pylaivng/ (http://semplice-linux.sourceforge.net/develop/doc/pylaivng/)
Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: djohnston le 13 février 2013 à 07:42:00
Thanks, Desmoric. I'm looking for an alternative to remastersys.
Titre: Re : Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: konaexpress le 14 février 2013 à 23:44:40
Thanks, Desmoric. I'm looking for an alternative to remastersys.

you and me both........
Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: melodie le 15 février 2013 à 02:28:58
Hi,
I have just started testing Remastersys, is there something particular you dislike about it ?

Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: djohnston le 15 février 2013 à 03:50:57
Yes, it is unstable. Make the wrong changes to your installation and remastersys will no longer work properly. That's the holdup I'm facing now. For about the third or fourth time. Ask Taco.22. He's run into it, too.

EDIT: Another one just occured to me. Under some conditions, running remastersys in a VBox VM will render the virtualbox guest additions inoperable.

EXAMPLE: After installing a liquorix or antiX kernel in VBox, the guest additions MUST be installed to the guest from the host side. I was chastised by the liquorix maintainer over the fact that the kernel doesn't work with dkms. He says I should not expect it to. Anyway, after remastering in VBox with a liquorix or antiX kernel, the VBox guest additions will no longer work after a reboot. The guest additions must be reinstalled, again, from the host side to the VM. (The same guest additions that were previously working.) After the next reboot, the additions will work again, until the next time remastersys is run.
Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: melodie le 15 février 2013 à 04:08:48
Either or I will believe you both. I fear there is no perfect method else than getting deep knowledge of the systems and make an install starting from a bootstrap in a chroot. (However I intend to try several methods with gui apps before declaring I am defeated... still working on the Ubuntu mini remix and Lubuntu these days).



Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: Taco.22 le 15 février 2013 à 09:25:48
I've been running Remastersys reliably since the 3.0.0 version came out.  However I tend to be a bit conservative in my build approach.  So there are a few "rules" that I currently stick to because they work for me. 

I don't use Ubuntu because they keep changing the goal posts, and Remastersys/fragadelic has a hard time keeping up.  I stick to Debian, and Debian, boring though it may seem, stays still long enough that you can use it long term. 

I also keep within the repos except for a couple of minor apps like Pytyle.  I guess that was a lesson learned from the days at PCLOS - if you go outside the repo it's not supported.  I'm not paranoid about it, but I have done my fair share of compiling programs from source on my computer and it only takes one little update to some insignificant lib somewhere and you're back into hair-pulling mode.  I don't have a problem with private repos or PPAs.

I don't remaster in a virtual machine - full stop.  It's always bare metal, and if that isn't around then I can use a usb stick with a full install.  In fact that is how VillageBox is currently done - it's on a stick that gets stuck into the test rig which has six partitions on the hard drive!!

The thing to remember with Remastersys is that if you are doing a "dist" build then rule Number No:1 is paramount - everything you want to see on boot/install MUST be in /etc/skel.  No ifs or buts.  That will also mean that the live ISO will be in root mode when you boot, so there are no user names or root passwords.

I have to say that I find Remastersys easier to use than Mylivecd on PCLOS because I only have to make sure /etc/skel is good.  In Mylivecd the live ISO came out of the user set up, and the install came out of /etc/skel - so you had two lots of config stuff to keep track of.

My quest since leaving PCLOS has been to find a distro that I can reliably remaster, and I have to say that the combination of Debian and Remastersys is certainly serving me well.  However, as the saying goes, YMMV!

 
Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: melodie le 15 février 2013 à 11:43:23
I just found "rig, a slang term referring to a computer", source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rig#Slang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rig#Slang) and now what is YMMV?

(my guess is that at the end of the present year I might have acquired a lot of new slang and specific English words!)

Thanks for your feedback. :)

About remastering Ubuntu, I have tried 2 tools so far, one for the project with Openbox and one on a project with Lubuntu : Remastersys in this case (I am at the beginning of the tests and research). And I will try a new tool soon for the Openbox only one. All is in bare metal too : adding a layer such as Virtualbox would not be a good idea, I agree with that because I think we don't know what goes on inside. Recently happened: I could not have internet connected in a vbox where I was testing the remaster : I finally found out Ubuntu does not like anymore when the vbox machine is in bridge mode; I switched back to "NAT" and that worked again at the following boots.





Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: Taco.22 le 15 février 2013 à 13:12:31
I just found "rig, a slang term referring to a computer", source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rig#Slang (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rig#Slang) and now what is YMMV?

(my guess is that at the end of the present year I might have acquired a lot of new slang and specific English words!)
Yep, I think you will be up there on Colloquial English - not a subject that the "best" schools teach!!

So, "rig" - my experience of that is through all the bad movies that Burt Reynolds and others made!  A "rig" is the "tractor" or "primer-mover" part of a semi-trailer.  No, actually it is the whole unit, all mover and shaker, all 18 wheels, except down here where they are a minimum of 24 wheels!  Gee, you can really see how that became a slang term for a computer!!  Anyway,  I think the term "rig" came from that - but don't quote me!

Ah, now to YMMV - basically it means "Your Mileage May Vary".  That is, it might work for you or it might not - depends.  It means that it works for me, might not work for you, but then it works for a friend of yours!  All depends!  Now the object of the exercise is to get everyones base equal enough that everything "just works" - hopefully!  But then again, YMMV!

And that right now should all be as clear as mud!!
Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: melodie le 15 février 2013 à 13:21:32
ah ha ! your millage! to mill is to grind ? wheat for example ? :)

fr: wheat, blé, mill, moudre, millage → mouture ! \o/ !

(millage of the linuxvillage... )



Titre: Re : Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: Taco.22 le 15 février 2013 à 13:54:07
ah ha ! your millage! to mill is to grind ? wheat for example ? :)

fr: wheat, blé, mill, moudre, millage → mouture ! \o/ !

(millage of the linuxvillage... )

Enthusiasm is good but we are not talking GRAIN, we are talking DISTANCE - why do I get the feeling I am just digging a hole for myself here?!?  In your case it's not "mileage", it's "kilometerage".  Um, if you borrowed a car and someone says it will go as far on a tank of fuel as the way you drive it - your milage/kilometerage will vary, depending. 

I can just just see it though - a dirty great flour mill stuck in the middle of the Village!  Where's the planning process when you need it!! 
Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: melodie le 15 février 2013 à 16:25:22
The YMMV means something approaching "your distance may vary" ? I would have thought it was more about details in the build of the ISO... (for the rest, above post... I was mainly playing with the words, although I had not understood it was about distance, or way of leading the rebranded distribution... - ? - )

Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: djohnston le 15 février 2013 à 19:04:51
YMMV (referring to mileage) is a shortened way of saying "the results you achieve may be different than the ones I achieve". "Your mileage may vary" comes from American car commercials. Once the Environmental Protection Agency required that car manufacturers display the city/highway mileage estimates for every car model built, the disclaimer used was, as an example, "32 miles per gallon highway. Your mileage may vary."

Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: melodie le 15 février 2013 à 22:43:32
OooK! Now I get the picture. Thank you! :)

Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: Taco.22 le 21 février 2013 à 15:26:30
Citer
The most I have seen here in the states is three trailers.
Typical!  Need Aussies to build REAL road trains!!

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18945176/rig.jpg)
All up 110 wheels - not including the spare(s)!!
Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: melodie le 21 février 2013 à 18:50:52
Ma! I want to come see that some day! It's not allowed around here in our European countries (didn't see that in France, Italy, Switzerland, or Germany, nor did I in Spain, but perhaps in other countries ? Not sure the roads need being large and with long straight lines?)

Titre: Re : Create your distribution
Posté par: djohnston le 03 avril 2013 à 23:43:42
And railroad snow plows.

Best Train Snow Plow and Blower Complilation #01 JGV (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJlTrLllWN4#ws)

Titre: Re : Create your Debian based distribution
Posté par: melodie le 07 mai 2013 à 04:21:02
Hi,
Thanks to all for your kind videos and explanations. I am back on this thread to provide two more trails to follow regarding Debian ISOS creation, and they are not as easy to find as the ones dedicated to Ubuntu.

Here a script:
http://jan.exss.de/debian-cd.html (http://jan.exss.de/debian-cd.html)

here another tool which might be interesting:
http://code.google.com/p/debianiso (http://code.google.com/p/debianiso)

I also discovered that Debian 8.0 should have for name « jessie »...

PS: this one might be interesting to read, and perhaps to try as well: http://computemode.imag.fr/mediawiki/index.php/HowTo_Build_Images:_step_by_step_process (http://computemode.imag.fr/mediawiki/index.php/HowTo_Build_Images:_step_by_step_process)



Titre: Re : Re : Create your Debian based distribution
Posté par: djohnston le 07 mai 2013 à 15:16:51
Here a script:
http://jan.exss.de/debian-cd.html (http://jan.exss.de/debian-cd.html)
That one looks interesting.

here another tool which might be interesting:
http://code.google.com/p/debianiso (http://code.google.com/p/debianiso)
That one has shell scripts in a Google svn repo. The wiki hasn't had any entries since Feb 2010.

PS: this one might be interesting to read, and perhaps to try as well: http://computemode.imag.fr/mediawiki/index.php/HowTo_Build_Images:_step_by_step_process (http://computemode.imag.fr/mediawiki/index.php/HowTo_Build_Images:_step_by_step_process)
That one describes how to use Debian's live build system.
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Create your Debian based distribution
Posté par: melodie le 07 mai 2013 à 18:56:44
That one describes how to use Debian's live build system.

I have noticed, I just thought it looked easier to follow than the full Debian documentation from the live build website pages. I have had a look at the French version of the doc, which is 86 pages long for the pdf. I starts with the full Debian history, (or something looking like it), then there is the full live build history, (or something looking like it) than a long list of people who did the great job, (or something looking like it) then the very details of how to compile each and one part of the live build components... (this looked very much like it) Then I could not read anymore, my sight was a bit tired so I closed the pdf book and stored it somewhere on the hdd. :P

Compared to it, that one page seemed reasonable to bring back, to get an idea about the insights of the process.

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Create your Debian based distribution
Posté par: melodie le 07 mai 2013 à 19:03:35
That one has shell scripts in a Google svn repo. The wiki hasn't had any entries since Feb 2010.

You can't know how old it is until you get the sources from the repos:
http://code.google.com/p/debianiso/source/checkout (http://code.google.com/p/debianiso/source/checkout)

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Create your Debian based distribution
Posté par: djohnston le 07 mai 2013 à 21:49:06
You can't know how old it is until you get the sources from the repos:
http://code.google.com/p/debianiso/source/checkout (http://code.google.com/p/debianiso/source/checkout)
I downloaded it from svn. Hey, they're all dated today! How about that?  ;)  This one is pretty wonky, Mel. Just look at the README:

Citer
DebianISO
----------

Tools for creating custom Debian boot images, suitable for booting off CD, USB
stick, etc.


Installation and usage
----------------------

$ apt-get install wajig
$ wajig install pbuilder grub mkisofs qemu

For the first time: create the /var/chache/pbuilder/base.tgz:

$ sudo pbuilder --create --mirror http://ftp.cz.debian.org/debian (http://ftp.cz.debian.org/debian)

Next time just update the image:

$ sudo pbuilder --update

Build the debian.iso image:

$ sudo ./build

Optional
--------

Test the image:

$ qemu -no-kqemu -m 600 -cdrom debian.iso

Edit the base system (install more packages, edit files...) and recreate
the debian.iso:

$ sudo chroot iso
$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install whatever
...
$ exit
$ sudo ./create_iso

To clean the repository:

$ sudo ./clean

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Create your Debian based distribution
Posté par: djohnston le 07 mai 2013 à 21:51:16
Compared to it, that one page seemed reasonable to bring back, to get an idea about the insights of the process.

Yes, I did copy and paste the page as an LO document and saved it to the hard drive. Could be a good overview.

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : Create your Debian based distribution
Posté par: melodie le 08 mai 2013 à 00:27:21
I downloaded it from svn. Hey, they're all dated today! How about that?  ;)  This one is pretty wonky, Mel. Just look at the README:

Hi,
yes, I have not imagined this one was so... (it might not be polite ;-) )

I have a clue anyhow : you are right this is probably pretty old. Here is the content of the menu.lst :
Citer
$ cat menu.lst
default 0

title vmlinuz-2.6.22-1-686
root (cd)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-1-686 boot=myboot
initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-1-686

^^