On Wed, Aug 11, 2021 at 11:34:27AM +0000, Horler, Johannes wrote: > Dear Debian Team, > > > hopefully I am writing this to the right email address. (In case I am > not, I would be happy about being refered.) Recently I got interested in > operating systems. Now I want to try to experiment with modifying one. > > Is the complete source code of any Debian Version available somewhere in > full (meaning everything ultimately written - in translated form - to > the bootable device)? Maybe I am a bit slow to understand but I have > failed to find something like it. Therefore I have decided to just ask > you. Every file that is put on the new system by the Debian installer (any of the Debian installers, and also any of the so-called bootstrap tools) ultimately comes from one of the Debian packages. Unlike some other systems (e.g. FreeBSD), there is no monolithic "core" component containing the most important programs, no "base system"; this approach has both benefits and drawbacks, but it is the way Debian (and actually, most of the Linux distributions) works. There is also a major distinction between the so-called binary packages that are installed on the system, and the source packages that are used to build (compile, adapt, modify in other ways) them from the sources of the programs as distributed by the multitude of their respective authors. All of the binary packages and all of the source packages are freely available for download either on the Debian mirrors or, for older versions, in the Debian archive (http://archive.debian.org/) or via the snapshot.debian.org service. So the answer to your question is "look at what packages are installed, look at what versions those packages are, and then you can use either the `apt` tool or some other mechanism to download the source packages". The list of packages currently installed, as well as their versions, may be obtained by the `dpkg -l` or `dpkg-query -W` command (both have many options that make it easier for the result to be processed by automated tools or to provide more information). The way to obtain the source of a specific Debian package is `apt source pkgname` or (better suited for automated tools) `apt-get source pkgname`; both forms allow an explicit `pkgname=version` specification instead of the plain package name. You may find more information about the package system, obtaining packages, and the format of the packages themselves, in the various pieces of Debian documentation, e.g.: https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-handbook/ https://www.debian.org/doc/devel-manuals#maint-guide ...and other articles and books listed at https://www.debian.org/doc/ Hope that helps! If you have any further questions, feel free to ask! G'luck, Peter -- Peter Pentchev roam@ringlet.net roam@debian.org pp@storpool.com PGP key: http://people.FreeBSD.org/~roam/roam.key.asc Key fingerprint 2EE7 A7A5 17FC 124C F115 C354 651E EFB0 2527 DF13
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