On Wed, Nov 26, 2003 at 04:05:08PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote: > On Tue, Nov 25, 2003 at 08:39:16AM +0100, Javier Fern?ndez-Sanguino Pe?a wrote: > > > Is there a process for making these CDs from nothing more than debs > > > downloaded from debian.org? > > I know at least of one such process and its the one used at metadistros > > (metadistros.hispalinux.es). The tool in this case is called 'calzador'. Looking at the question again I see that I did not answer the question properly. The process used by Metadistros is not based exclusively on Debian downloaded debs, but uses some custom tools/software. The 'calzador' is really just part of the process and is really a set of preconfiguration data/scripts for use in a LiveCD. > > Is there any code that goes with that? I saw the wiki, but not knowing any > Spanish, didn't really get much from it. Yes, maybe not too ready for mainstream: ftp://ftp.softwarelibre.ulpgc.es/METADISTROS/calzador/calzador.tar.bz2 the (modified) kernel modules for Live-CD support are available at ftp://ftp.softwarelibre.ulpgc.es/METADISTROS/calzador/modulos.tar.bz2 The procedure is not yet completely automated (I got it wrong, sorry). It is described (in Spanish) at http://metadistros.hispalinux.es/tiki-index.php?page=HowTo > > IIRC it basicly depends on having a chroot environment set with the OS > > image you want to burn and it adds that together with the bootup stuff. > > > > Obviously it's non-trivial, but it should be possible to have debootstrap > > > (or a similar tool) construct bootable Knoppix-esque CDs without any > > > user-interaction IMO. > > I'm envisaging something like: > > mkdir sarge-chroot > debootstrap --include knoppix,calzador sarge sarge-chroot > # setup a chroot environment with knoppix and calzador tools > chroot sarge-chroot /usr/sbin/knoppix install-pkgs > # install and configure the standard "knoppix" patches This step in meta-distros is based on a meta-package that downloads all the needed packages and dependancies. (...) > Being able to automatically install a useful system with lots of gnome > and kde and whatever other stuff without having to spend hours in dselect > or aptitude or answering questions or doing other configuration stuff > has obvious benefits, as does being able to easily convert an existing > system into something you can burn to a CD. That's really what has made interest in Knoppix-like distributions spark. > Also obvious, though, is that both those steps are hard: working out > a good set of packages to install, and configuring them usefully is > non-trivial; as is making Debian work with a read-only root. That's why people usually 'remaster' Knoppix instead of starting from scratch. That is, they take the live-CD, dump it to disk, chroot into it, remove/add stuff and generate a new liveCd. > (While the hypothetical /usr/sbin/knoppix and /usr/sbin/tasksel both > solve similar problems they're not quite the same -- /usr/sbin/knoppix > needs to select _and_ configure all the packages you want, tasksel just > selects them. debconf might not be enough either -- /usr/sbin/knoppix > might need to actually modify various files in /etc, too) Taken into account the configuration stuff in Live-CDs is usually done manually and is also very specific to the kind of live-CD you want to create (as well as who will use it, what applications you want to include, etc..). I don't believe that should be included in a /usr/sbin/knoppix. I might be wrong however. Regards Javi
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