Package Selection for Debian Live

[serni at serni.net (Lluís Gras)]

>  > On Tue, May 30, 2006 at 09:51:18PM +0200, Daniel
>> Baumann wrote:
>  I'm open for your
>> suggestions...
>
> I was thinking, I am a bit cold about having a
> persistent home directory on my usb stick. I'd like to
> have a more low-tech backup/restore script a-la
> Damnsmalllinux, but I can't use that one as the
> licence is not clear.
>
> I was thinking of BACKUP2L:
> http://packages.debian.org/unstable/admin/backup2l
>
> We could build upon that and customize it for a live
> distro. What do you think?
>
> Ottavio Caruso

Hi

I like the ability to use multiple persistent configurations.

I'm using it with makeliveusbcd, a Debian Live like project but with
install to hd or usb devices in mind, nevertheless i think the idea could
help Debian Live project.

In usb, parted creates FAT16 and ext2 partitions, booting with syslinux
with dirconf=name_of_configuration parameter allows to especify diferent
persistent configurations.

The relevant code:


In initrd init:

# Parse command line options
export dirconf=


        dirconf=*)
                dirconf=${x#dirconf=}
                ;;


Searching local image, there is a .flag file in ext2 partition.

test="${dirconf}"

if [ "$test" != ""  ]; then

for sd in sda2 sdb2 sdc2 sdd2 sde2 sdf2 sdg2 sdh2 sdi2 sdj2 sdk2 sdl2; do
        mount -t ext2 -o rw /dev/$sd /mnt/changes >> /tmp/initramfs.debug
2>&1
        if [ -e /mnt/changes/.flag ]; then
	mkdir -p /mnt/changes/${dirconf} >> /tmp/initramfs.debug 2>&1
		break
        else
                umount /mnt/changes >> /tmp/initramfs.debug 2>&1
        fi
done
fi

Inside mountroot():

	# Mount root
	unionfs=${rootmnt}
	changes=/mnt/changes
	mkdir -p ${changes}
	if [ -n ${dirconf} ]; then
	changesdir=/mnt/changes/${dirconf}
	mkdir -p ${changesdir}
	fi
	image=/mnt/image
	dirs=${unionfs}/.dirs
	if [ -n ${dirconf} ]; then
	mount -t unionfs -o dirs=${changesdir}=rw:${image}=ro unionfs ${unionfs}
	else
	mount -t unionfs -o dirs=${changes}=rw:${image}=ro unionfs ${unionfs}
	fi

You could take a closer look at svn.

svn checkout http://makelive.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/ makelive

makedeb generates a deb for arch detected.

By now works on i386 and amd64, Debian unstable.