live-package is dead, long lives live-helper

[daniel at debian.org (Daniel Baumann)]

Hi,

live-package did have some problems: it wasn't really extensible,
unflexible, and a mess wrt/ to code organization and duplication.

I got around to finish the reorganisation of live-package, broken up
into individual helpers, and thus called live-helper.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank Ben Armstrong and Kai
Hendry for the last day helping me with testing it and for their usefull
comments on it.

Now, there are some things which changed. make-live is just a wrapper
around the individual helpers, it doesn't actually do anything. There
are different ways of building images (if you encounter problems, do not
hesitate to ask on the list or on IRC):

  * The extra lazy way, with make-live:

    # make-live config $your_options
    # make-live build

  * The lazy way, without make-live:

    # lh_config
    # cd debian-live
    # <edit config/* to match your needs>
    # lh_build

  * The hard way, using meta helpers:

    # lh_config
    # cd debian-live
    # <edit config/* to match your needs>
    # lh_bootstrap
    # lh_chroot
    # lh_binary
    # lh_source

  * The even harder way, using lowlevel helpers:

    # lh_config
    # cd debian-live
    # <edit config/* to match your needs>
    # <call the lh_bootstrap_* helpers you want>
    # <call the lh_chroot_* helpers you want>
    # <call the lh_binary_* helpers you want>
    # <call the lh_source_* helpers you want>

A few additional notes:

  * Yes, live-helper is now at its first alpha release. It is far away
    from beeing perfect or future complete, but it is much better
    than live-package was before.
    Patches/suggestions/$whatever against current SVN are all welcome.

  * make-live must be *always* called in the *parent* directory of the
    build-directory (e.g. debian-live).

    Individual helpers must be *always* called in the *build* directory
    itself.

  * Documentation is mostly missing. Volunteers for helping writing it
    are very welcome.

And finally:

  * live-helper does replace live-package in unstable, it is currently
    waiting in the NEW queue. While it is waiting to be accepted, you
    can download it from here:

    http://archive.daniel-baumann.ch/debian/packages/live-helper/

    It does run without modification on unstable/sid as well as
    testing/etch.

Have fun, more to come later.

-- 
Address:        Daniel Baumann, Burgunderstrasse 3, CH-4562 Biberist
Email:          daniel.baumann@panthera-systems.net
Internet:       http://people.panthera-systems.net/~daniel-baumann/