Re: Package Selection for Debian Live

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@complete.org>]

On Thu, Jul 06, 2006 at 08:06:56AM -0700, Ottavio Caruso wrote:
>  > Just checking: are you already aware of Debian From
> > Scratch (DFS), which
> > already does this? 
> > http://people.debian.org/~jgoerzen/dfs/
> 
> At nearly 1/2 gigabyte you can hardly call DFS a
> recovery cd...

Why not?

But also, remember that you can build your own images with dfsbuild,
that include the exact set of packages you want.

The idea with my DFS image is that you have it burned in advance, and
that it has all the tools you need to recover.  And I really try to
include *all* the tools.  For example, with the live DFS CD environment,
you can:

 * Use cdebootstrap to install a new sarge or etch environment
   from the on-CD copy of .debs for the base system

 * Reinstall your boot loader

 * Compile a kernel (using solely the tools on the CD, plus a ramdisk
   or filesystem where you can store the build tree)

 * Complete all that is necessary for a full manual from-scratch Debian
   install

 * Work with XFS, ext2, ext3, reiser, JFS, reiser4, fat, etc. -- including
   filesystem create and repair utilities

 * ssh to and from the recovery environment

 * Read manpages (including development manpages)

 * View webpages, use FTP, use network diagnostic utilities, bring up
   wifi
 
 * Compile/run C, Perl, Python, OCaml, Haskell, and Java programs

 * Work with zip, zoo, arj, tar, tar.gz, tar.bz2, etc. files

 * Use darcs, git, cvs, subversion, or bzr to pull down code

 * Set up a serial connection, including the option to use PPP

 * Restore/use/make tar, amanda, afbackup, dump (and soon bacula) backups

 * Burn CDs and DVDs, make ISO filesystems

 * Repair your Asterisk installation

 * Chroot to your system and be able to run most programs as-is

I am planning to integrate Xen and Bacula into the next revision of the
DFS image as well.

So, it still fits easily on one CD-R, so I don't see what the problem
is.  I believe I have left off fluff, such as X, from this CD.   And
very little starts by default.  But I'm happy to take change
suggestions.

-- John