Re: problem with simple-cdd 0.3.9
On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 11:27:48AM +0100, Samuele Giovanni Tonon wrote: Error parsing /media/samu/tmp//mirror/conf/distributions, line 3, column 16: A 'UDebComponents'-field is only allowed after a 'Components'-field. and after that a long list of awk errors and so on; but i think the problem is that distribution file . ...snip... looks like it's generated by: reprepro -V --noskipold update i'm using sid if it can help. yes, that helps a lot. try to downgrade to the version of reprepro in lenny. if that fixes it, please file a bug against simple-cdd using reportbug or follow instructions at: http://bugs.debian.org live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-custom-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Simple-CDD and USB install combo: How do I use preseeding?
On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 06:55:55AM +, Fredrik Israelsson wrote: I now have a syslinux.cfg file that contains default vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.gz preseed/file=/cdrom/simple-cdd/default.preseed and most of the preseeding seems to work. I still must make some choices (install procedure language and keymapping among other things) in the beginning, but I guess that that has do do with my preseed file not being entirely correct. you have to specify them in the syslinux.cfg, as preseeding isn't loaded before those questions are asked: default vmlinuz append initrd=initrd.gz preseed/file=/cdrom/simple-cdd/default.preseed debian-installer/locale=en_US console-keymaps-at/keymap=us i think you can short-hand it to simply locale, but i'm not sure the shorthand for the keyboard settings. I did have to use the option --force-root in order to get build-simple-cdd to accept the preseeded root password. Is this a feature or a bug, one wonders. that's because it checks the preseed files for validity, and the password database is owned by root. instead of running as root, i'd recommend running as a non-root user and use --force-preseed (or force_preseed=true in any of the profiles/*.conf). running simple-cdd as root is discouraged. Thanks for all your help! of course! i should look into adding hd-media options to simple-cdd, as it doesn't sound much different from the standard CD method. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-custom-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Simple-CDD and USB install combo: How do I use preseeding?
On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 08:41:30AM +, Fredrik Israelsson wrote: I have created a custom install CD iso image using simple-cdd. I have tried to configure pre-seeding by using a myprofile.preseed file. I have then copied the iso image onto a USB device, following the instructions on http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch04s03.html.en, Preparing Files for USB Memory Stick Booting. simple-cdd has only been tested with CD/DVD installation media, so i'm not sure the other methods will work... When booting from the USB stick, the installer starts ok, scannning for and finding the installer iso image, but my pre-seeding seems to get lost on the way. Will I have to specify the pre-seed file in the syslinux.cfg on the USB memory stick somehow? Isn't the kernel append parameters set in the isolinux.cfg file in the installer iso image recognized at all? yes, you may have to put default.preseed on the USB stick as well. What should I add to the syslinux.cfg file in order to point to the pre-seed file located in the installer iso image? you'll need to specify preseed/file=/cdrom/simple-cdd/default.preseed in whatever relevent append lines for syslinux.cfg. though i'm not sure hd-media will mount the .iso as /cdrom, so you'll have to tweak that as appropriate. it needs to know to load the simple-cdd-profiles udeb, or your profiles will never be acknowledged. good luck. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-custom-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: build-simple-cdd with --conf myconf.conf and --profiles myprofile doesn't seem to work
On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 02:43:18PM -0600, Danny Brown wrote: command line build-simple-cdd --profiles-udeb-dist sid --conf myconf.conf --profiles myprofile. I know that either --conf ... or --profiles myprofile, when selected alone will work but not together. it is because the contents of your myconf.conf override values specified on the commandline: # Profiles to include on the CD profiles= #profiles=x-basic ltsp this resents the profiles value to empty. so it will then ignore the profile you selected on the commandline for some, if not all operations. i'd recommend just specifying it in the working directory: mkdir -p my-simple-cdd/profiles cd my-simple-cdd # you could use an editor rather than multiple calls to echo, of course: echo locale=en_US profiles/myprofile.conf echo server=ftp.egr.msu.edu profiles/myprofile.conf echo debian_mirror=http://$server/debian/ profiles/myprofile.conf echo wget_debian_mirror=ftp://$server/debian/ profiles/myprofile.conf # you can leave this out if you're building a lenny system: # echo profiles_udeb_dist=sid profiles/myprofile.conf # echo all_extras=/full/path/to/some/file profiles/myprofile.conf # drop all your other profiles/myprofile.* in profiles/ build-simple-cdd --profiles myprofile this keeps your commandline shorter, keeps non-packaged stuff in your working directory rather than in /usr/share/simple-cdd, and keeps the configuration all in one place. good luck! live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-custom-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: Manually setting hostname even when using preseed
On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 06:20:17PM -0200, Lucas Brasilino wrote: I'm using simple-cdd to make some custom preseeded images of Debian Etch and I'm running in a problem: I'd like to D-I ask for hostname. My netcfg/* section in preseed file was (the others are commented out): ### Network configuration # netcfg will choose an interface that has link if possible. This makes it # skip displaying a list if there is more than one interface. d-i netcfg/choose_interface select auto d-i netcfg/get_hostname string foo d-i netcfg/get_domain string bar.org d-i netcfg/wireless_wep string So I've commented out: #d-i netcfg/get_hostname string foo #d-i netcfg/get_domain string bar.org And it now sets hostname to 'unassigned'. AFAIK D-I should ask for hostname and domain that sounds like the value set in profiles/default.preseed. are you editing profiles/default.preseed, or profiles/SOMEOTHERPROFILE.preseed? you would need to comment it out in default.preseed at the very least. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-custom-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
Re: simple-cdd questions
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 09:50:05PM -0600, Charliej wrote: I have used simple-cdd to make a install disk of some of my favorite software for i386, how would I go about making a amd64 version of the same CD? using the same profiles, merely set the ARCH variable: echo export ARCH=amd64 profiles/default.conf Is it possible to make a multi arch install CD using simple-cdd? for multi-arch, set the ARCHES variable: echo export ARCHES=\i386 amd64\ profiles/default.conf One other thing, I would like to change the art work for the initial start up screen to a custom one, how would you I go about doing this? links to documentation would be appreciated. :) try the SPASHPNG variable, although this may have changed with recent versions of debian-installer. good luck. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Couldn't create a image with simple-cdd, but I could!
On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 02:56:00PM -0200, Lucas Brasilino wrote: I really don't know if anything is broken in lenny but, I managed to create etch images with simple-cdd but, from a week ago, I couldn't anymore. did you try to create an etch CD on an etch machine? or an etch CD on a lenny machine? I'm running the same command I used to: build-simple-cdd --graphical-installer --profiles my \ --keyboard br-abnt2 --locale pt_BR --auto-profiles my \ --debian-mirror http://ftp.br.debian.org/debian \ --local-packages custom-packages --dist etch ...snip... custom-packages directory: simple-cdd-profiles_0.3.8_all.udeb sun-j2re1.5_1.5.0+update16_i386.deb simple-cdd-profiles package was 0.3.7 and I've updated it early today, but it gives me the same error. i'd recommend using --profiles-udeb-dist sid (or lenny) to pull in the newer versions of simple-cdd-profiles. I've also started over on another $simple_cdd_dir... same error: Error: packages database contains unused 'etch|contrib|i386' database. This either means you removed a distribution, component or architecture from the distributions config file without calling clearvanished, or your config does not belong to this database. To ignore use --ignore=undefinedtarget. There have been errors! this is probably because you previously included: mirror_components=main contrib non-free and now you're no longer asking for contrib, but it's still in the mirror's database. simply removing tmp/mirror/db should work around the problem, or run: reprepro -Vb tmp/mirror clearvanished sounds like you had luck downgrading to debian-cd 3.0.2? i think the debian-cd folks may have fixed some etch related bugs in debian-cd svn, if you want to give that another try, although it also requires patches to simple-cdd that i just committed to the simple-cdd-devel bzr branch... it's all changing so fast right before the lenny release. :) live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: linux-image issue
On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 07:28:49PM +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: So what does this say to you? Should I be thinking the linux-image pkg is somehow bad? possibly, which is why i suggest trying to install without it, using a standard linux-image package. then you can determine if it is really your custom linux-image that is broken, or something else in the build process. am i repeating myself here? :) If that is the case then why can I install this same pkg via dpkg or via apt-get after an install of a std debian iso? Why would it only fail to install if its included into a custom iso? because there are probably some differences in how it installs from a debian-installer environment vs. from whatever environment you're using to install it manually. from the error message you were getting, it sounded to me like debootstrap was trying to install it, rather than the usual debian-intsaller hooks for installing a kernel. so something is very strange with your linux-image package. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: linux-image issue
On Mon, Nov 03, 2008 at 09:44:48PM +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have run simple-cdd as follows: # build-simple-cdd --profiles-udeb-dist sid --dist etch --local-packages /full/path/to/pkgsdir This as I understand it should have build an iso based on the default profile... That said, I added the linux-image pkg I am trying to get installed... just to see if I could get it on the iso only.. and not get installed, I only added it to the default.downloads file. I added no d-i command to the preseed or anything other packages to the default.packages file.. thanks for this information. do you get the same error when running without including --local-packages ? have you re-built with a fresh mirror? i.e. wiped out $your_simple_cdd_workdir/tmp and started over? As usual I was able to build yet another iso that fails on 'unpacking required packages.' The thing that's bugging me is I had thought that adding it to the profile.downloads would get the pkg from my --local-packages dir and put it on the iso, not try to install it.. what's the priority set on the custom linux-image package? lesspipe linux-image*.deb | egrep -i priority live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: problems on adding an package to a image using simple-cdd
On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 10:37:48AM -0200, Lucas Brasilino wrote: I'm using Lenny but trying to build a etch custom CD. I was successful until tried to ...snip... build-simple-cdd --graphical-installer --profiles my \ --keyboard br-abnt2 --locale pt_BR --auto-profiles my \ --debian-mirror http://ftp.br.debian.org/debian \ --local-packages custom-packages --dist etch ...snip... ERROR: missing required packages from profile NAME: sun-j2re1.5 make: ** [debian-test-image] Erro 1 it's probably missing some dependencies, you'll have to check the logs in $simple_cdd_dir/tmp/cd-build/etch/ By the way, I had to put simple-cdd-profiles_0.3.7_all.udeb from lenny in custom-packages/ directory... the instructions for etch say to use --profiles-udeb-dist sid, but putting it in a directory pointed to with --local-packages should be fine as well. http://wiki.debian.org/Simple-CDD/Howto -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: simple-cdd 0.3.7 seems not adding packages other than main ones
On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 10:29:22AM -0200, Lucas Brasilino wrote: Maybe a bug, maybe a issue or maybe I'm messing things up but simple-cdd 0.3.7 is not including packages other than 'main'. simple-cdd defaults to just using main. to also use contrib and non-free, in profiles/default.conf (or any profiles/*.conf you're using): mirror_components=main contrib non-free Continuing to try to add a jre package, I've downloaded with apt-get in a etch box the sun-java5-jre one. It's brought me down the following packages as dependencies: java-common libltdl3 odbcinst1debian1 sun-java5-bin unixodbc So I put them all in my local packages directory and added at my profile (profile/my.packages). As building the image using: build-simple-cdd --graphical-installer --profiles my \ --keyboard br-abnt2 --locale pt_BR --auto-profiles my \ --debian-mirror http://ftp.br.debian.org/debian \ --local-packages custom-packages --dist etch It's exits with an error: ERROR: missing required packages from profile NAME: sun-java5-bin sun-java5-jre make: ** [debian-test-image] Erro 1 look in $your_simple_cdd_dir/tmp/cd-build/$DIST/*log* (log.list2cds.i386 on my test lenny install) for a file that contains the dependency resolution. it may require additional packages you already had on your initial system. There's also interesting logs: custom-packages/sun-java5-jre_1.5.0-14-1etch1_all.deb: component guessed as 'main' custom-packages/sun-java5-bin_1.5.0-14-1etch1_i386.deb: component guessed as 'main' the --local-packages handling has no way of discovering where the package came from, so it sticks it in the default component. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Name poll (Was: New name: Call for opinions)
On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 09:03:37AM +0900, Charles Plessy wrote: I apologise in advance for sending a negative email, but… hardly seems negative, but a valid critique... Le Mon, Oct 06, 2008 at 02:32:38PM +0200, Andreas Tille a écrit : Debian Pure Blends16 votes Debian Spins 14 votes Integrated Debian Projects12 votes Debian Slice 12 votes http://doodle.ch/ggey86bvqnmcnuyb I personnaly dislike Blend, but will not oppose if I am only part of a small minority. Before this discussion, I did not know what a blend is, apart that it is used for whiskies. I checked the dictionary, and its fundamental meaning is a mixture of different things. I strongly recommend to try to write down an explanation of what a Debian Pure Blend is and to translate it in a few languages before adopting it: I personnaly do not know how to explain that it is a mixture that contains only one ingredient. this was my primary concern with it as well.. blend intrinsicly means mixing things together.. though i eventually conceeded to it for lack of anything significantly better. the Pure in Debian Pure Blends meaning purely debian. this allows for blends that aren't pure, possibly containing things from other sources... Contaminated Debian Blends, for example :) with all the energy going into naming this concept (multiple years of discussion), i think it is more important to find an acceptible name than a perfect one. though i'd rather have a Slice of pie. :) live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Name poll (Was: New name: Call for opinions)
On Wed, Sep 24, 2008 at 08:44:26AM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote: In case you have any proposal currently not on the poll but want me to add it, please use the syntax: Andreas please add the name ... to the poll. Andreas please add Integrated Debian Distribution to the poll. Andreas please add Integrated Debian Focus to the poll. Andreas please add Integrated Debian Flavor to the poll. Please see above. IMHO we do not need more random suggestions. well, probably not. but i can't resist. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: thoughts on a new name
On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 03:34:24PM +0200, Holger Levsen wrote: Maybe Debian Remix or Debian (Pure) Blend. Also I think it should be something short, Debian Integrated Solutions IMO not only has the disadvantage that some remixes aint solutions, but also that nobody will use it and so we will have to explain DIS again. A name should speak for itself. Or am I the only one unhappy with DIS? i haven't wanted to get dragged into this discussion too much, as it seems like many people have put so much energy into it and we're still struggling with a good name. but i too have been a little unhappy with DIS. or DISh? the silent H makes it particularly confusing to me. and having both, makes it more confusing yet. i think Remix has a lot of the same problems that Custom has had- it suggests something that may be clearly based upon, but not necessarily part of the whole. Integrated seems like a really good descriptive word, but something about Solutions doesn't really seem to say anything to me. what's been swirling around in my mind: Debian Integrated Projects? Integrated Debian Projects? Debian Integrated Distribution? ... Integrated Debian Distribution (IDD)? hm... seems pretty direct and to the point, with little room for confusion- dare i propose IDD as a real contender? :) *sigh* live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: cannot generate a simple cd
On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 03:45:46AM +0200, Juan Luis Belmonte wrote: And well, just making the simple cdd build-simple-cdd --extra-udeb-dist sid It downloads everythign and creates tmp/mirror/pool/main and all the directories, but when it starts to generate the cd image i get these error, ...snip... mv: cannot stat `boot1/isolinux/isolinux.cfg.withgtk': No such file or directory FAILED: error 1 Failed to start disc 1, error 256 make: *** [image-trees] Error 9 my guess is an issue with the version of debian-cd used. i'd recommend getting debian-cd from subversion and: mkdir -p ~/my-simple-cdd svn co svn://svn.debian.org/debian-cd/trunk ~/my-simple-cdd/debian-cd echo debian_cd_dir=~/my-simple-cdd/debian-cd ~/my-simple-cdd/profiles/default.conf replace ~/my-simple-cdd with where you're building simple-cdd. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Simple-CDD Modify isolinux.cfg before iso creation
On Sun, Aug 03, 2008 at 03:22:00PM -0500, JR Richardson wrote: I would like to modify isolinux.cfg before the simple-cdd image is created. I would like to add the auto option on the default profile and add TIMEOUT 10 so the cd launches. to set the boot timeout: echo BOOT_TIMEOUT=10 profiles/default.conf to pass the auto boot prompt option: echo KERNEL_PARAMS=$KERNEL_PARAMS auto profiles/default.conf live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Simple-CDD Etch extra packages not installed from CD
On Sun, Aug 03, 2008 at 03:22:39PM -0500, JR Richardson wrote: I've been testing simple-cdd and it is going well. I'm using etch with the udeb from sid. I pretty much followed the howto from http://wiki.debian.org/Simple-CDD/Howto admittedly, i haven't much tested simple-cdd 0.3.7 with etch- it was mostly focusing on getting it working with lenny... i don't think there should be major problems, but it hasn't been as well tested with etch as previous versions. I create the profiles/default.packages with the extra package list. The cd image builds with the extra packages on the iso image. But when I run the iso, only the base-packages get installed. could you post a link to the contents of profiles/default.packages? the format is one package per line, lines beginning with # are comments. could you also post any other profiles files you've modified? If I add the following to the profiles/default.preseed: d-i pkgsel/include string ntp libncurses5-dev bison libssl-dev more-packages. the extra packages get downloaded and installed from the debian mirror, not from the packages stored on the CD. If I understand correctly, this behavior is not right. The included packages in the default.packages should be installed from the CD within the debinstaller. yes, anything in profiles/default.packages should get installed, and be installed from the CD. try uncommenting the following lines in profiles/default.preseed, which were changed since the previous version and may still be used by etch: #base-config apt-setup/uri_type select cdrom #base-config apt-setup/cd/another boolean false #base-config apt-setup/another boolean false another idea would be to use an unmodified default profile with a custom profile, such as: profiles/myprofile.packages profiles/myprofile.preseed and then build with that profile: build-simple-cdd --profiles myprofile good luck and live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: seeking simple-cdd maintainers, testing for lenny
On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 08:43:18PM +0200, Harry Jede wrote: Am Freitag, 20. Juni 2008 22:49 schrieb Vagrant Cascadian: also, please test simple-cdd with lenny, using debian-cd from subversion(the current debian-cd package is borked, as far as i can tell): currently I have no problem with debian-cd from lenny or etch. i haven't seen the packaged debian-cd work building lenny CDs for a while now. a week or two ago, i still needed to use debian-cd svn. But please, change line 175 in simple-cdd/tools/mirror/reprepro from reprepro $reprepro_opts --nolistsdownload --noskipold update to reprepro $reprepro_opts --noskipold update with the option --nolistsdownload I have no chance, to follow the updates of the official Debian mirrors. that's just when it's attempting to resolve dependencies... earlier in the process, it runs without --nolistsdownload. i guess there are corner cases if you did a simple-cdd build at the same time the mirror was getting updated... but a second run will correct that. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: simple-ccd with packages from etch-backports?
On Fri, Jul 04, 2008 at 08:51:40AM +0200, Dieter Hendricks wrote: so, you'd have to download simple-cdd from bzr: bzr get http://cdd.alioth.debian.org/bzr/simple-cdd/simple-cdd-devel/ mkdir -p ~/my-simple-cdd/tools/mirror/ cp simple-cdd-devel/tools/mirror/reprepro ~/my-simple-cdd/tools/mirror/ set in profiles/FOO.conf: backports=true # optional: #backports_mirror=http://backports.org/debian backports_packages=whitespace separated list of packages you want installed good luck. I got the version above - and had a very bad result: it seems the reprepro script generates an endless loop ( I had hundreds of processes), after some time my machine hung (out of memory). So, that was not the result I want to have. ;-) please give more information, as it works for me in at least a basic case (building an etch CD with 1 package from backports.org, on a sid build environment). what commandline arguments did you use? what's in the profiles/ dir that's not present in /usr/share/simple-cdd/profiles (or differing from the profiles dir in the bzr branch)? live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: simple-ccd with packages from etch-backports?
On Thu, Jul 03, 2008 at 03:32:42PM +0200, Dieter Hendricks wrote: I used simple-cdd howto to create my first custom-cd... but how can I add packages from etch-backports (nagios3) into the cd? thanks for the suggestion- just added support in the simple-cdd-devel bzr branch. should work for simple cases, but not if dependencies aren't available in etch, although you could list all packages you want from backports.org and their dependencies. i also haven't tested the latest simple-cdd release (0.3.7) or bzr branch with etch, as 0.3.7 was largely to get simple-cdd into working shape for lenny. so, you'd have to download simple-cdd from bzr: bzr get http://cdd.alioth.debian.org/bzr/simple-cdd/simple-cdd-devel/ mkdir -p ~/my-simple-cdd/tools/mirror/ cp simple-cdd-devel/tools/mirror/reprepro ~/my-simple-cdd/tools/mirror/ set in profiles/FOO.conf: backports=true # optional: #backports_mirror=http://backports.org/debian backports_packages=whitespace separated list of packages you want installed good luck. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
seeking simple-cdd maintainers, testing for lenny
greetings. i've finally been putting more time into simple-cdd again, and hope to do a new upload soon. if anyone else would like to join the simple-cdd team, please let me know. i'll need a sponsor for the next upload, since the last version didn't include debian-maintainer headers. also, please test simple-cdd with lenny, using debian-cd from subversion(the current debian-cd package is borked, as far as i can tell): bzr get http://cdd.alioth.debian.org/bzr/simple-cdd/simple-cdd-devel/ ~/my-simple-cdd cd ~/my-simple-cdd svn co svn://svn.debian.org/svn/debian-cd/trunk debian-cd echo 'debian_cd_dir=$simple_cdd_dir/debian-cd' profiles/default.conf remember to use ./build-simple-cdd (rather than build-simple-cdd from your PATH). and then proceed to do your typical simple-cdd insanity. please always test that you can get a default simple-cdd install working before doing anything unusual. the wiki at http://wiki.debian.org/Simple-CDD/Howto could probably use some updating as well. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: preseeding and simple-cdd
On Mon, Feb 05, 2007 at 02:20:12PM +0100, Vincent Bernat wrote: I am using simple-cdd and I don't manage to preseed the profile. I always get the dialog asking for the profile. Here is what I have put in myprofile.preseed : simple-cdd simple-cdd/profiles multiselect myprofile Any idea ? you would need to put that in default.preseed, rather than myprofile.preseed. default.preseed always gets loaded, whereas profile.preseed get loaded *after* the simple-cdd/profiles question is asked. see the Automatically Selecting Profiles section in the README. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: simple-cdd, debian-cd 3.0.0 and ARCH
On Sat, Feb 03, 2007 at 08:35:52PM +0200, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
It seems that when using the default configuration of current etch branch
of simple-cdd and debian-cd 3.0.0 , ARCH is not set.
indeed. i suspect this has to do with the changes needed to make
multi-arch CDs...
...snip...
+# For some reason. ARCH seems to be undefined:
+ARCH=${ARCH:-`dpkg --print-architecture`}
...snip...
Am I missing anything?
i tried this too, which helped a little. but it seems the debian-cd
3.0.0 Makefile doesn't have most of the options that the previous
versions of debian-cd had. so all the make calls that simple-cdd does
fail.
i haven't had the time to figure out what changes need to be made to get
it working again... feels like i almost need to re-learn debian-cd from
scratch :(
live well,
vagrant
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Re: Patch to build-simple-cdd
On Thu, Jan 11, 2007 at 12:40:10PM +, Matthew King wrote: Vagrant Cascadian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: On Wed, Jan 10, 2007 at 12:30:20PM +, Matthew King wrote: i reported a similar bug for i386, but apparently it only got fixed for i386. seeing as it's been a problem, maybe i'll keep the workaround you proposed (for a while, there was a workaround in build-simple-cdd for this). Steve McIntyre said: Yup. This went into the svn version of debian-cd quite a while back, and it's about time we uploaded a new package to match. So this bug will not be around for long. looks fixed in debian-cd 3.0.0 (though i haven't tested if simple-cdd still works with that version) and add an option to ignore debconf preseed errors (--force-preseed), which allows you to build a CD as a non-root user and still preseed questions only root has access to. well, as for building preseeds, i don't think there are any questions that non-root users can't configure. This is to allow preseeding of questions listed in /var/cache/debconf/passwords.dat, such as: passwd passwd/root-passwordpassword r00tme Unless root, /usr/bin/debconf-set-selections fails: [EMAIL PROTECTED]:~/src/Sphere/profiles$ /usr/bin/debconf-set-selections --checkonly default.preseed debconf: DbDriver passwords warning: could not open /var/cache/debconf/passwords.dat: Permission denied error: Cannot find a question for passwd/root-password error: Cannot find a question for passwd/root-password-again Command (511) failed with exit code: 1 indeed, i was able to confirm this. either i'm delusional, or debconf-set-selections didn't used to behave that way (it used to just add missing questions with dummy templates if necessary). i'll try to incorporate your workarounds for this issue soon. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: network-bootable simple-cdd
On Tue, Jan 16, 2007 at 05:52:43PM +0200, Tzafrir Cohen wrote: I eventually gave up on using netboot for the moment, as the simple-cdd udeb needs some word in order not to assume it has the files in /cdrom . thanks for trying, it's been on my TODO list for a while. i wrote the .udeb postinst script(s) such that it's defined as a variable, but currently hard-coded to /cdrom, with the thought that it could be fixed later. if the wget in debian-installer supports recursive fetching, i don't think it would be too hard to re-write the script to support http or ftp for simple-cdd profile related files. or even if it didn't support recursive download, we could write a file with a list of supported profile types that could be downloaded, and attempt to download all the appropriate files. but first, i'd like to get the CD creation process working, and my time for it is far more limited than i would like at the moment. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
docs for simple-cdd process (was: Patch to build-simple-cdd)
On Fri, Jan 12, 2007 at 12:49:23AM -0500, Lloyd R. Prentice wrote: I did one more run last Sunday and suspect, but can't confirm, some kind of instability. Over the last three runs I've tried exactly the same procedure with exactly the same profiles/*.download and profiles/*.download files. It looked like I got different results. with each run -- one successful; two not. May very well be an error(s) on my part. I was stressed out, getting ready for my trip. But I'll run the cycle again on Sunday, when I'm able to focus again on the task. i suspect it is problems with different configurations on some of the http servers that you're hitting, as the default (ftp.us.debian.org) points to multiple machines in a round-robin fashion, some of which may be configured differently or be slightly out of sync with one another (in my experience). One problem is that I feel like I'm blindly following a set of procedures that I don't understand -- and the procedures themselves are a moving target. Thus, I can't distinguish between my blunders and genuine bugs. both simple-cdd and the tools used in etch have actually been going through a fair amount of changes recently. once etch finally releases, that should reduce the complexity a little bit. Has anyone published an authoritative design document that spells out in pseudo code or other high-level representation what's happening under the hood when you run simple-cdd? nope. What I'd most love to see is a two-part doc; 1. Overview of the algorithm used in simple-cdd for generating a custom distribution; i don't really understand what you mean by algorithm here ... ?? 2. A step-by-step procedure for configuring and running simple-cdd to generate a custom distribution -- something similar to the simple outlines that I've included in earlier postings. well, http://wiki.debian.org/Simple-CDD/Howto is pretty much exactly that (or intended to be) ... though maybe you want something with a little more detail? I recognize that the source code would be the most authoritative source of all, but I for one am not sufficiently skilled to follow what's going on in source, nor how to translate source into best-practice run-time procedures. i could probably write a narrative description of the source. but that will be difficult to keep up to date over time... Would it be possible to publish a wiki or similarly community reviewable /editable user document along the lines above that is clearly designated as most authoritative? If others thought it useful, I'd be happy to help with the writing, editing, and updating of such a beast if I can get knowledgeable guidance. please use the http://wiki.debian.org/Simple-CDD/ namespace to create new documents and update the ones already there. though it's only as authorative as the people who edit it. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Simple-cdd Kernal
On Sun, Jan 14, 2007 at 10:32:36AM +0100, Koybe wrote: Just a quick question. Is it possible to use simple-cdd to change the debian-installer kernel. If yes how to do this? I'm using etch. nothing specific in simple-cdd. you can change it like you would for building a custom CD with debain-cd: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianInstaller/Modify/CustomKernel it's a bit of work. i've never really needed a custom kernel, so i haven't ever really put much energy into figuring out how to do it. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Patch to build-simple-cdd
On Wed, Jan 10, 2007 at 12:30:20PM +, Matthew King wrote: This patch actually does two things (well two and a half because of bug 406320). i reported a similar bug for i386, but apparently it only got fixed for i386. seeing as it's been a problem, maybe i'll keep the workaround you proposed (for a while, there was a workaround in build-simple-cdd for this). It gives you the option of specifying a keyboard layout (--keyboard), so that d-i will go away doing its thing and not speak to you until it asks which profile you wish to install, nice. another way i've been meaning to look into to accomplish this is to use debian-installer's auto mode, so that you could include the keyboard/language/country settings in the regular preseed file. and add an option to ignore debconf preseed errors (--force-preseed), which allows you to build a CD as a non-root user and still preseed questions only root has access to. well, as for building preseeds, i don't think there are any questions that non-root users can't configure. debconf-set-selections run as a non-root user will produce a warning about not being able to read the debconf passwords database, but that shouldn't in any way prevent you from including any question you want in your preseeding. i'll look into suppressing the warning message, and consider how to implement your patch in a way consistant with the coding style of simple-cdd. i'll try to merge these when i get the chance (probably this weekend). live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: trying simple-cdd
On Sun, Jan 07, 2007 at 03:31:27PM -0500, Lloyd R. Prentice wrote: We're closing in. Today's run went smoothly... Just three questions: 1) Install did not ask for host name so login prompt reads: unassigned-hostname: that is set in profiles/default.preseed you can comment it out to have it ask you, or change it to something you'd prefer. (search for unassigned) 2) Install didn't ask me which kernel to install. Automatically installed linux-image-2.6.486 that's default behaviour, yes. if you want more kernels to choose from, add them to profiles/test.downloads 3) Still no startx. I put it in test.downloads. Should that have been test.profiles? yes, if you actually want it to install the program (with a few exceptions such as kernel packages), put it in profiles/test.packages. I may have time for one more run later today/tonight. Then, I'll be off air until Friday or Saturday. good luck :) Thanks to Vagrant, Jason, and Wolfgang. thanks for testing it! :) live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: trying simple-cdd
On Sat, Jan 06, 2007 at 01:31:19AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: did you include linux-image-2.6-486 in your test.packages? No. Just gimp xfrc4, and the X packages you suggested. odd, then. I'll have some working time on Sunday, then I'm off to CES for a week. So, looking ahead, would it be smarter for me to start adding packages to test.packages, or play with some of the preseeding options? i think the first step is getting a CD that installs the chosen packages sucessfully without any major glitches. i wouldn't mess with preseeding until you can get that. Also, the system I'm working on has limited memory, 256K. Do you see a problem as I start adding packages? i've run it on a machine with 196MiB of ram. so if you mean 256MiB, i'magine it will be fine. :) add swap into the picture, and if it needs to use swap, it will run slow, but shouldn't cause any errors. good thing there's people out there to find all the ways this stuff can break. otherwise i wouldn't have anything to do :) good luck! live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: trying simple-cdd
On Sat, Jan 06, 2007 at 04:33:16PM -0500, Lloyd R. Prentice wrote: Hearty apologies if I appear brain dead. I'm probably trying to do too many things at once. no apologies needed- we all have moments of... less clarity :) Once again, let me review procedure to make sure that I haven't missed/forgotten anything: 1. Created a new user: cdd 2. Downloaded etch-simple-cdd with: bzr get http://cdd.alioth.debian.org/bzr/simple-cdd/etch-simple-cdd 3. cd etch-simple-cdd 4. added two files to ../profiles/test.downloads 5. added six files to ../profiles/test.packages by files i suspect you mean package names? one package name per line? 6. from ~/etch-simple-cdd executed: debuild -us -uc - i.bzr -b debuild -us -uc -I.bzr -b (this step will someday not be needed when simple-cdd is fully integrated into debian). This gave me fatal error at line 897: problem running fake root you probably need to install fakeroot. 7. My next step would be: ./build-simple-cdd --profiles test $(pwd)/../simple-cdd-profiles_0.3.0~1_all.udeb --mirror-tools reprepro wget ./build-simple-cdd --profiles test --local-packages $(pwd)/../simple-cdd-profiles_0.3.0~1_all.udeb the '--mirror-tools reprepro wget' really shouldn't be necessary. (the '--local-packages *simple-cdd-profiles*udeb' bit will also be unecessary once simple-cdd is in debian) Any clues as the where or how I'm erring? Tomorrow is the last day I'll have to work on this until next weekend. Would love to have clean *.iso. sounds pretty good, overall. install fakeroot, and you should be ready to boot a CD. or at least report some more useful debugging :) seeing as there's been so many troubles with the wget method, i'm wondering if we shouldn't figure out a way to do it using rsync(not all servers support rsync, and not all servers that do want to it be used for things other than secondary mirrors) or some other method (i.e. get debpartial-mirror working again), or grabbing those files off a debian CD iso... live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: etch-simple-cdd
On Fri, Jan 05, 2007 at 03:58:22PM +0100, Wolfgang Schweer wrote: there are some showstoppers. what's new? :) bzr tree debian/simple-cdd.install: the two lines starting with qemu prevent building of simple-cdd-profiles udeb. you simply forgot to delete them ;) ah, yes. thanks :) d-i cdrom images are not present, so the iso image is generated, but it is not bootable. this is unusual. it is certainly in the list of things to download. by default, it's handled by wget. perhaps it failed to download from your mirror for some reason? to make a bootable image i proceeded like this: copied /usr/share/debian-cd into the bzr tree edited simple-cdd.conf to match the situation (BASEDIR must be set too, please add a notice for this one) you should set this using debian_cd_dir in simple-cdd.conf, not with the BASEDIR variable. otherwise, tweaks made on the fly (if any) by build-simple-cdd will not actually happen. or, simple-cdd with overwrite your BASEDIR variable, and just use the default setting for debian_cd_dir instead of your modified copy of debian-cd. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: etch-simple-cdd
On Fri, Jan 05, 2007 at 08:59:27PM +0100, Wolfgang Schweer wrote: Vagrant Cascadian schrieb am 05.01.07 um 11:39 Uhr: On Fri, Jan 05, 2007 at 03:58:22PM +0100, Wolfgang Schweer wrote: d-i cdrom images are not present, so the iso image is generated, but it is not bootable. this is unusual. it is certainly in the list of things to download. by default, it's handled by wget. perhaps it failed to download from your mirror for some reason? hm, i tried different ones at diferent times, always the same. are the files it's trying to download present on the mirror you're downloading from? dists/$di_codename/main/installer-$ARCH/$di_release/images/cdrom (i.e. dists/etch/main/installer-i386/current/images/cdrom) if it's present on the mirror you're downloading from, i would delete it from the local mirror and try again. the wget method for downloading doesn't always work so great. alternately, try the rsync method, if your mirror supports rsync. edited simple-cdd.conf to match the situation (BASEDIR must be set too, please add a notice for this one) you should set this using debian_cd_dir in simple-cdd.conf, not with the BASEDIR variable. ...snip... well, i changed debian_cd_dir: # location of debian-cd files #debian_cd_dir=/usr/share/debian-cd debian_cd_dir=$simple_cdd_dir/debian-cd but thought, i had to change this setting as well: # where debian-cd expects to find itself :) #export BASEDIR=$simple_cdd_tmp/debian-cd export BASEDIR=$simple_cdd_dir/debian-cd no. $debian_cd_dir gets copied to $simple-cdd_temp/debian-cd , and BASEDIR should not be changed. just change debian_cd_dir. really. :) much like the README, the comments in simple-cdd.conf need to be updated. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: trying simple-cdd
On Thu, Jan 04, 2007 at 11:39:10PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ./build-simple-cdd --profiles test --local-packages $(pwd)/../simple-cdd-profiles_0.3.0~1_all.udeb --mirror-tools reprepro wget We seem to be making progress, but still issues. Not sure whether the problems are my fumbles or your end. i think neither... more below build-simple-cdd seems to go through it's full cycle, but returns with several errors and a warning. And, I see no evidence of *.raw file. -- http://ftp.us.debian.org/robots.txt: Error 404: Not Found -- a whole bunch of Last-modified header missing messages... seem to be a bunch of */doc and *doc/FAQ files -- WARNING: missing optional packages from profile.default: localization.config --ls: ~/etch-simple-cdd/tmp//etch-i386/?? No such file or directory the above messages should be nothing to worry about. -- ERROR: package installation-guide -i386 not found not sure what that's about. probably not fatal. --ERROR: Unable to read UDEB EXCLUDE file... never had this cause a problem. -- WARNING: missing optional packages from profile.default: localization.config -- ERROR: missing required packages from profile test: xorg ok, so what it looks like to me is that reprepro sucessfully downloaded the xorg package, but possibly there are unsatisfied dependencies for xorg, so debian-cd is not including it. you might see messages about unsatisfied dependencies for xorg if you look over the extensive output... (one of these days, i'll get proper log file support for build-simple-cdd) it looks like the new xorg and xserver-xorg that just hit etch changed the dependencies considerably in the last couple days, moving many things that were once dependencies to recommends. gah. so, if you add to test.downloads: xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-input-all it should work. as a side note, i suspect this breaks ltsp packages too :( live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: trying simple-cdd
On Tue, Jan 02, 2007 at 06:27:17PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Dec 31, 2006 at 05:10:04PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Dec 31, 2006 at 01:39:08PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: well, it was a bug. thanks for reporting it. should be fixed in etch-simple-cdd bzr branch. update, and hopefully everything will go much more smoothly :) Definitely forward progress. Now it gets well into the build process, but hangs at processing back-end etch. The cursor just sits there blinking at me. How long should I expect this step to take? that sounds like debpartial-mirror, which is no longer the default, for that very reason. did you set mirror_tools in simple-cdd.conf or use the --mirror-tools commandline option? live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: trying simple-cdd
On Sun, Dec 31, 2006 at 01:39:08PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, December 30, 2006 7:10 pm, Vagrant Cascadian wrote: Error: Installation proceeds to install of the base system; then we get the following error: Debootstrap error Invalid release file: no entry for local/binary-i386/Packages hm. haven't seen that before. possibly some sort of misconfiguration with LOCAL and/or LOCALDEBS variables- are those specified in simple-cdd.conf ? Neither LOCAL nor LOCALDEBS are in simple-cdd.conf. We manually added export LOCAL=0 to simple-cdd.conf. But still got error. is it set in /etc/debian-cd/CONF.sh or /usr/share/debian-cd/CONF.sh ? if using the defaults mirrorring tools(reprepro and wget), they shouldn't be- it's not needed. (though *maybe* something is broken with using --local-packages to add the simple-cdd-profiles .udeb) first thing i recommend trying is just building simple-cdd with all the defaults- no profiles or anything. Tried building with all defaults. Still got error. you've tried with a fresh etch-simple-cdd bzr checkout and made absolutely no modifications, running ./build-simple-cdd with no commandline options? on an up to date etch system? if so, i'm stumped, as that works for me. i'm doing another try, just in case. oh, regarding irc clients, i prefer irssi. if you prefer a GUI, maybe try xchat. there's *many* others to choose from. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: trying simple-cdd
On Sun, Dec 31, 2006 at 05:10:04PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sun, Dec 31, 2006 at 01:39:08PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Sat, December 30, 2006 7:10 pm, Vagrant Cascadian wrote: Error: Installation proceeds to install of the base system; then we get the following error: Debootstrap error Invalid release file: no entry for local/binary-i386/Packages ...snip... you've tried with a fresh etch-simple-cdd bzr checkout and made absolutely no modifications, running ./build-simple-cdd with no commandline options? on an up to date etch system? if so, i'm stumped, as that works for me. i'm doing another try, just in case. well, it was a bug. thanks for reporting it. should be fixed in etch-simple-cdd bzr branch. update, and hopefully everything will go much more smoothly :) live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: trying simple-cdd
please ask simple-cdd questions on the debian-custom list(no need to send to me directly), so others can help (and learn from) the process :) On Sat, Dec 30, 2006 at 06:03:36PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Following your instructions, we created our first CDD *.ISO. Installation went well until install of the base system. We got the following error: Debootstrap error Invalid release file: no entry for local/binary-i386/Packages hm. haven't seen that before. possibly some sort of misconfiguration with LOCAL and/or LOCALDEBS variables- are those specified in simple-cdd.conf ? if using the defaults mirrorring tools(reprepro and wget), they shouldn't be- it's not needed. (though *maybe* something is broken with using --local-packages to add the simple-cdd-profiles .udeb) first thing i recommend trying is just building simple-cdd with all the defaults- no profiles or anything. and then add a profile with your packages that are available from debian. and then add custom packages, if any. one step at a time. i'm often on irc in irc.debian.org #debian-custom channel, if you'd like to discuss it there... live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
trying simple-cdd (was Re: Questions about building a Debian Custom Disk)
On Fri, Dec 29, 2006 at 11:32:28AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Many thanks for your thoughtful reply. of course :) Our first goal will be to create the simplest, plain-vanilla image we can -- just to understand the process. that is an excellent way to go. We've just down-loaded the Simple (sarge) package from the Debian archives. Will study carefully and see what we come up with. please, test the etch version instead :) just created a short howto from an earlier posting ot this list: http://wiki.debian.org/Simple-CDD/Howto the sarge version, while it works with sarge, is kind of ugly, crude and hackish, and is prone to break. i think the etch-based version is much better. i'd rather get the etch version working well than support the sarge version at this point. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
request for mailing list for simple-cdd
hi, i would like to create a mailing list for simple-cdd development as part of the alioth cdd project(to facilitate group maintenance), since i am already hosting simple-cdd's bzr branches as part of the cdd project. otavio suggested adding me to the cdd admins. if vagrant-guest could be added to the alioth cdd project admins, i could make the request for the mailing list myself. or, if someone else wanted to create the list on my behalf, that would be fine with me too. simple-cdd-devel would probably be a good name for the list. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Questions about building a Debian Custom Disk
On Thu, Dec 28, 2006 at 07:28:54PM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: As work in progress toward building the Debian Creative Arts Custom Distribution, my son and I have studying the docs and have tried to work through the Wiki tutorial. But a number of issues have stumped us: As primary documentation we've been studying: a) -- http://wiki.debian.org/CustomDebian b) -- http://wiki.debian.org/DebianCustomCD c) -- http://wiki.debian.org/Simple-CDD ...snip... 1) The documentation pulls us in divergent directions; has left us quite baffled. There seem to be several methods for building CDDS: e.g. b,c,e. yes, there are several different methods. while there may be commonalities between different CDDs, there are also differing needs for the target audience of the CDD, and different skill-sets of the people deeloping the CDD. apparently, nobody has produced the perfect suite of CDD related software. :) to make things a little more confusing, some also may also technically be more of a Debian Derived Distribution(DDD), if they choose to include components or use tools outside of Debian itself. and some projects may have the goal of being a True CDD, though have been unable to integrate all of their changes directly into Debian. a CDD is something entirely within Debian, though the tools for creating CDDs and DDDs tend to be very similar, if not identical. i will address the features of simple-cdd, as i wrote it and am aware of it's strengths and weaknesses. -- in the above documentation, what should we study most carefully? -- are there any documentation sources that we're over-looking? -- are the documentation sources accurate and up-to-date? simple-cdd documentation needs a fair amount of work, and to be updated for etch. but the basic use of simple-cdd is, well... pretty simple, so it shouldn't be too hard to update the documentation :) -- how should we select the most appropriate method? it really depends on what your needs are, and what seems to work for you. defining clearly exactly what you want will probably help determine which documentation and tools would be most appropriate. -- What are the differences between the methods? -- What are the relative benefits of one method over another, etc. simple-cdd allows you to specify a list of packages to install, pre-answer debconf questions, and takes that information and generates a CD image that will install those packages. it is possible to create several profiles that can be selected at install time, each with different package sets, debconf questions, etc. if all the software you want as part of your CDD is part of etch, simple-cdd should be able to generate a CD image without a lot of trouble. if you want some additional packages outside of debian, it is also possible, though maybe more work. if all you want is to select which packages to install, using simple-cdd should be as easy as providing a list of packages you want installed and using simple-cdd to generate a CD image. a) Build the debian-installer and move it to an appropriate directory b) Configure debian-cd c) Generate the CD with simple-cdd you shouldn't have to generate a debian-installer image for most cases(it uses the debian-installer binaries built for Debian), and it handles the debian-cd configuration and CD generation. Our confusion starts once we get past this superficial level; e.g 3) How do we specify which packages to install? in simple-cdd, you define this by providing a list of packages to install in a text file, one package per line. if you want multiple profiles(a.k.a. variants), you provide a list of packages for each profile. -- do we have to specify every single package down through the base system, or just the packages that we want to show up in the menus? in simple-cdd, you usually only have to specify what packages you want, and simple-cdd will make sure the dependencies will be included on the CD. Our understanding is that we need to build meta-packages. But you don't need to use meta-packages with simple-cdd, but it would be useful to create meta-packages if you wanted to make it possible to provide an upgrade mechanism if you later change your mind about what software should be included as part of your CDD- simple-cdd (currenly) only handles installation, not upgrading. 4) We'd really like to build from etch. But most of the docs seem to address Sarge. Is it premature to build from etch? What are the differences? there's been recent work to get simple-cdd working with etch, and i have sucessfully produced some etch CD images using it. unfortunately, simple-cdd wasn't ready to upload before the etch freeze, so will still be officially outside of debian for a while. i think it's (nearly) ready to upload now, if i can find a sponsor :) good luck with your work. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
simple-cdd plans (was: preparing for a new simple-cdd release)
On Mon, Dec 04, 2006 at 07:42:04PM -0200, Gustavo Franco wrote: On 12/2/06, Vagrant Cascadian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ...snip... hopefully, with a little more testing, we will see an upload to debian soon. Let us make clear that it seems that we've missed the Etch boat, but stuff will be pretty much in a better shape for Lenny if us keep the work. I'll do my best, and i need to (really). right. though i plan to keep simple-cdd backportable to etch, or maintain a backported branch for as long as reasonably possible. ...snip... feedback would definitely be appreciated. if you want to give it a try, on an etch system: There's a new donut for you in my branch (the splashpng stuff). I'll add some more minor changes after i bring back my test system, hopefully sometime soon this week. merged. there's a few changes i'd like to finish soon, mentioned in the TODO file. There's one we've ignored that is related with the default profiles that are in our bzr branches. I've 3 profiles and of course almost all the packages i need are listed into default.packages. You've some profiles and just a few stuff on default.packages. Shouldn't we change how the 'default' profile stuff works? I think it's better let the user define if he's using a alternate 'default', got it? That way we both can keep our default* stuff. Thoughts? ah, yes. this is a good idea. i wanted to keep the default profile handling as similar to other profiles as possible, with the main difference being that the default profile always gets installed- this is why there isn't much in the default profile. you might be able to get what you need by creating a simple-cdd.conf, and profiles directory, building and installing the simple-cdd package, and running /usr/share/simple-cdd/build-simple-cdd from the directory simple-cdd.conf is in, and replace the profiles/default.* with your preferred defaults. build-simple-cdd will grab anything missing from /usr/share/simple-cdd/ when run this way. i'm open to ideas and patches of other ways to handle this, though. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
preparing for a new simple-cdd release
i am very happy to annouce that a version of simple-cdd that works with etch is nearly finished. i've tested it using debian-installe RC1, and it seems to be working fine. http://wiki.debian.org/Simple-CDD many thanks to Gustavo Franco (a.k.a. stratus) for doing much of the work to get simple-cdd back in shape. thanks also to Frans Pop for help troubleshooting debian-installer issues. hopefully, with a little more testing, we will see an upload to debian soon. the major new change (since the sarge-oriented version) is that it uses a .udeb to integrate into debian-installer. this udeb is simply a skeletal infrastructure for a CDD to select packages for installation, do debconf preseeding/preconfiguration, and run custom post-install scripts. you can define several profiles, with different package/preseeding/post-install sets and select them at install time. feedback would definitely be appreciated. if you want to give it a try, on an etch system: apt-get install bzr rsync debian-cd reprepro apt-utils wget debhelper cdbs libdebian-installer4-dev libdebconfclient0-dev bzr get http://cdd.alioth.debian.org/bzr/simple-cdd/etch-simple-cdd cd etch-simple-cdd create a profile named NAME: echo list of packages you want installed profiles/NAME.packages for debconf preseeding, put a debconf-set-selections compatible file into profiles/NAME.preseed for a custom post-install script, place it in profiles/NAME.postinst debuild -us -uc -I.bzr -b (to build the .udeb) ./build-simple-cdd --profiles NAME --local-packages ../simple-cdd-profiles_0.3.0~1_all.udeb this will create a partial package mirror in the dir mirror, and if all goes well, an .iso file in the images dir. (alternately, use ./qemu-test instead of ./build-simple-cdd, which will call build-simple-cdd and attempt to boot the CD with qemu) try ./build-simple-cdd --help for more options there's a few changes i'd like to finish soon, mentioned in the TODO file. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: simple-cdd-profile udeb
On Mon, Sep 11, 2006 at 10:01:10AM -0300, Otavio Salvador wrote: Vagrant Cascadian [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: on the down side, repeated troubles with debpartial-mirror have me looking at other mirroring tools. largely reprepro for packages, and rsync for the other files(docs, debian-installer images, etc). it requires implementing dependency resolution, as reprepro doesn't handle that. but i think i can have something workable in the near future. What's the new problems that were found by you? I would like to resolve them. :-D well, i will try the new upload of debpartial-mirror when i get the chance(though it may be a couple weeks), but i do have a working dependency resolver with reprepro now, and rsync for the non-packaged files. the reprepro + rsync method is actually much faster than debpartial-mirror, so it might become the default. but now i feel confident that we can support both methods for simple-cdd, and if one is broken, we can fall back on the other easily :) with a little more work, i think we could upload simple-cdd to sid. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
simple-cdd-profile udeb
it's been on the TODO list almost as long as simple-cdd existed, but today finally managed to get a somewhat functional udeb to integrate more smoothly with debian-installer and etch. the udeb is essentially a skeleton, containing no specific CDD information itself, but looks for files in /cdrom/simple-cdd to determine which profiles are available, asks the user which profiles to install, and then loads debconf preseeding and queues up packages for installation in debian-installer. the CD building script essentially just populates this directory(and all the usual packages and such). if we could shake out the bugs in the near future, i'd like to see an upload to debian soon. the wiki has been updated to include the new bzr branches: http://wiki.debian.org/Simple-CDD now that i've seen this work, i have visions of simple-cdd networked installs, too. :) on the down side, repeated troubles with debpartial-mirror have me looking at other mirroring tools. largely reprepro for packages, and rsync for the other files(docs, debian-installer images, etc). it requires implementing dependency resolution, as reprepro doesn't handle that. but i think i can have something workable in the near future. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: howto build cdd?
On Tue, Apr 11, 2006 at 06:45:59PM +0300, Tzafrir Cohen wrote: Sorry to bug people here in the n-th time, but I still fail to build a custom Debian CD in a decent automated manner and I try to figure out what I'm missing. What I did: There is an ellusive script called simple-cdd. It doesn't seem to be part of any Debian package. I'm not sure what version seems to be the most recent and tested. the last release was announced on this list: http://lists.debian.org/debian-custom/2005/10/msg00010.html i haven't worked on it much since then. i tested it using tools and build environment from sarge, with the exception of debpartial-mirror 0.2.11. stable svn (i.e. released as part of a package): svn co svn://svn.debian.org/svn/debian-np/trunk/packages/simple-cdd development svn is: svn co svn://svn.debian.org/svn/debian-np/people/vagrant/simple-cdd the only difference at the moment is that one has minor updates to some of the example profiles. it probably makes more sense to move it into the debian-custom svn, but i haven't gotten around to that yet. Feature-wise it seems just what I need. The sole problem is that it doesn't work. well, i've released several functional CD images with it, as have others. so it's probably a lacking in the documentation department. sorry i haven't had much chance to work on it more- i'd like to try and get it working with etch and packages into the official debian.org archives. i'll hopefully have some free time during debconf6 in mexico to work on it more as well as other debian-custom related stuff. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [NEWS] New debpartial-mirror release
On Tue, Apr 11, 2006 at 05:52:59PM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote: From the description it sounds like reprepro is a superset of what debpartial-mirror can do. That is why I asked what is special about it. Maybe one of them can be replaced by the other and the devloper time pooled into one package alone. debpartial-mirror does dependency resolution for it's packages, which i haven't seen in reprepro without external tools. i think debpartial-mirror's mirror-merging code is more sophisticated. debpartial-mirror can also mirror other files that aren't part of the package repositories, such as those needed in building a CD image with debian-cd. debpartial-mirror is also written in python (reprepro is written in C, i believe), which means development *might* be easier for a wider group of people, at the expense of system resources (i.e. CPU and ram). but that's pretty much personal coding preferences. also, it's probably easier for other python projects to incorporate or share code from debpartial-mirror(that was the attempt with splitting some of the code into simple-cdd). i've used both. the dependency resolution is crucial. i've often thought about using python-cdd to write some dependency resolvers and then using reprepro to generate the archive :) live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Simple-cdd and etch
On Mon, Feb 20, 2006 at 11:14:30AM -0300, Matheus Morais wrote: I'm have a good time with simple-cdd here but I can't get packages from etch. He insists to get packages from sarge. So, my question is if simple-cdd only get packages from sarge? i have only developed and tested simple-cdd with sarge. others have tried it, but i do not know how sucessful they have been. by default, it will pull in whatever distribution debian-cd pulls in by default. you can set any environment variable that debian-cd supports in simple-cdd.conf- to change the distribution pulled in, you may want to set the CODENAME variable (be sure to do so before the line that sources debian-cd's CONF.sh). is anyone interested in setting up a group to get simple-cdd into etch? my time for it is somewhat limited, but i'd gladly help out. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Back with CDD
On Sun, Feb 12, 2006 at 11:36:52AM +0100, Andreas Tille wrote: On Tue, 7 Feb 2006, Vagrant Cascadian wrote: i haven't tested simple-cdd with debian-installer versions newer than 20050305 (sarge's current release). i suspect significant changes have been implemented post-sarge, so it may no longer be compatible with simple-cdd. IMHO, the problem of simple-cdd is that people ignore that CDD is intended to be something *inside* Debian (and I admit the name Custom Debian Distributions is missleading). ok, so it maybe should be named simple-ddd, as it's really a tool outside of debian, and therefore mainly for debian derived distributions. what it can and has been used to create, however, is a derived distribution comprised entirely of plain debian packages with customizations within the scope of debconf pre-seeding. so, it is a tool outside debian that can be used to create a pure CDD. unfortunately, i don't have the time or energy to keep it up to date and working with a moving target such as etch. it works quite nicely with the tools available in sarge, so i'm glad for that- i don't know of other tools within sarge that can so easily create something similar. If the advise from http://lists.debian.org/debian-custom/2005/07/msg00033.html ... to download simple-cdd, stick in /etc/apt/sources.list: deb http://debian-np.alioth.debian.org/debian unstable main (also added a backport of debpartial-mirror for sarge) and: apt-get install simple-cdd could be replaced by just apt-get install simple-cdd dependency problems could be expressed correctly and the BTS could be used to report this kind of problems. yes, that would be nice. if others wanted to make simple-cdd a package within debian, and working with debian etch, i would be thrilled. i would do what i could to help that. probably getting simple-cdd moved from the debian-np svn repository into the cdd svn repository would be a good start. though it might be better to focus on improving debian-cd, debian-installer, and other tools already within debian, and getting cddtk, into debian, which could make simple-cdd unneccesary. perhaps you can share those errors, otherwise we wouldn't be able to help you :P Who is we? well, since (several) other people have recommended simple-cdd as a tool to create a debian-based customized distributions on this list, it seems that there are people on this list somewhat familiar with simple-cdd, and thus able to provide assistance with getting it working. so the we is anyone familiar with simple-cdd on this list. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Back with CDD
On Tue, Feb 07, 2006 at 11:24:25AM -0200, Matheus Morais wrote: On 2/6/06, Vagrant Cascadian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i haven't seen this before ... are you trying with debian-installer from sarge, or something else? The version of debian-installer is 20051026. i haven't tested simple-cdd with debian-installer versions newer than 20050305 (sarge's current release). i suspect significant changes have been implemented post-sarge, so it may no longer be compatible with simple-cdd. What is the difference betwen build-simple-cdd and qemu-test? Can I use the raw image generated by build-simple-cdd and test it under qemu without use qemu-test to generate that image? If yes, the qemu-test doesnt make any sense. the difference is that i found myself re-typing long, complicated qemu commandline and wrote a wrapper script to handle the qemu part and the cd build all from one commandline. In the logs of image generation I see some erros from debootstrap. perhaps you can share those errors, otherwise we wouldn't be able to help you :P live well, vagrant
Re: Back with CDD
On Tue, Feb 07, 2006 at 05:04:33PM -0200, Matheus Morais wrote: On 2/7/06, Vagrant Cascadian [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: i haven't tested simple-cdd with debian-installer versions newer than 20050305 (sarge's current release). i suspect significant changes have been implemented post-sarge, so it may no longer be compatible with simple-cdd. I'm not sure about this. I just cant find any package with debian-installer name in sarge repository tree and more, there is no place to download that version (20050305) of debian-installer (If you know where I can found this package to download please, send it to me ;). when using simple-cdd, debpartial-mirror downloads the debian-installer automatically. by default, it should pull in the sarge installer, unless you've tweaked values in simple-cdd.conf, such as di_codename, di_release, CODENAME, or debian_installer_dir. perhaps you can share those errors, otherwise we wouldn't be able to help you :P Here is the file ~/simple-cdd/tmp/sarge-i386/list: exim4-daemon-light unifont I: usage: [OPTION]... suite target [mirror [script]] Try `debootstrap --help' for more information. E: You must specify a suite and target. acpi-modules-2.6.8-2-386-di Looks a syntax error comming from debootstrap or something like that but I have no idea why this is happen. Maybe this could be the root of problem. build-simple-cdd does a call to debootsrtap to get the packages needed for a base system: debootstrap --print-debs $CODENAME it seems that newer debootstrap handles --print-debs differently, requiring that you actually download the Package list files (probably to do dependency resolution), and thus need a target argument. i'll try and make a fix or workaround for this case, at least. live well, vagrant -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: gconf as a customization tool?
my limited understanding is that you can tweak existing configuration files with it. can you add additional configuration files (like with run-parts dirs)? how do upgrades handle gconf customizations? i suppose there are different ways to use gconf might fit into different categories. i'm not very familiar with gconf in general, but i'm curious. it's possible as gconf allows you to use a different number of 'configuration sources' (sets of settings) with a priority order between the different settings (in case of the same setting being specified by different configuration sources the value of the set with the highest priority is used). So what you want to do is add in another configuration source with your settings at the right priority. thanks. The big problem is that the list of configuration sources to use, and priority of those sources is controlled by a single configuration file (/etc/gconf/2/path) controlled by the gconf2 package. That package currently doesn't provide a way to add in extra configuration sources or control the priority of those sources (other then messing with the conffile). ugh. The package desktop-profiles provides a cross-desktop way to control the addition/activation/priority of configuration sets (profiles) (a standard way to do this is needed to allow the combination of different configuration sets, e.g. from different CDD's) very cool. how difficult would the desktop-profiles package be to backport to sarge? the code seems relatively simple, but i wonder if the environment variables it hooks into are likely to change significantly(especially over time). live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Howto to make a configuration package for others debs
I can configure the packages with heimdal-clients, openafs-client, libnss-ldap using preseed. But to configure libpam-ldap, libpam-krb5 and libpam-openafs-session I need to edit the configuration files. I could try to patch the configuration files, but there is a better way? if the packages provide a script to customize the package, you should use it. for example, you can use /usr/sbin/update-inetd to customize /etc/inetd.conf How do I store the configuration inside my package, so in the end I have all the packages, that it depends, configured for the way I need? this can be very difficult to do well. cddtk (http://wiki.debian.net/?CDDTool) is a recent attempt to handle some of this better(and a whole lot more)- but it is not yet finished. Can I call debconf-set-selections during installation of tp-openafs-log? How is your experience making CDD? the debconf preseeding probably needs be handled outside the scope of package installation, i believe. this means manually running a script before installing the package, or including hooks to base-config or debian-installer to load the debconf preseeding. another approach is to provide another package which provides a script to load the debconf preseeding that is run manually, and then install the packages you want. i know it's not as simple as you might like, but that's the current situation- we are all working on improving it for the future :) good luck. live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Diskless CDDs: ltsp and lessdisks
speaking of which, i managed to stumble my way through baz and it's bugs/limitations (with much help from otavio and the #bazaar channel on freenode), and my changes to the ubuntu ltsp are published at: http://llama.freegeek.org/~vagrant/baz-archives/[EMAIL PROTECTED] in the ltsp--fixes--0 ... branch(?). i tried to make the commits small, but i made no attempt to preserve the order of which changes were made when- it ended up being about 25 patches, and took quite some time to split it all into smaller sets. but it's well worth it. Thanks very much! However, I'm unable to access this repository via HTTP: mizar:[~] baz register-archive http://llama.freegeek.org/~vagrant/baz-archives/[EMAIL PROTECTED] unable to access URL: /~vagrant/baz-archives/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/.listing webdav error: 404 Not Found my bad.. typo. baz-archive not baz-archives, try: http://llama.freegeek.org/~vagrant/baz-archive/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ you should have considerably better luck, i hope. :) (and for good measure, i added a symlink so both urls should work now) also, i started a thread on the ltsp-developer list: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/ltsp-developer any code or work that is LTSP-specific i will post there, whereas anything more along the lines of Diskless CDDs, i will continue to post here. live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Diskless CDDs: ltsp and lessdisks
This has little to do with custom distributions, either. It is about LTSP development, and it arguably belongs on the LTSP mailing lists. i disagree entirely. as i see it, this is about using a customized debian/ubuntu as a framework for diskless systems. Exactly the same could be said about X, GNOME, d-i, and any number of other components which are used in customized distributions. That does not mean that we should discuss their implementations here, except where we are specifically adapting them for customization. perhaps i see your point, here. patches that are only relevent for LTSP development should not be posted here, and ditto for lessdisks. i will look for an appropriate LTSP list to post my ltsp-specific work. (that said, please remove the lessdisks list from the CC list in replies to this thread, it requires moderator access for non-member posts, and is arguably off-topic :) I'm not going to waste any more time arguing about where the discussion should be held; fine with me. i'm not overly concerned with exactly what happens where, just as long as work gets done, and effort is minimally duplicated. I have plenty of code that needs writing. speaking of which, i managed to stumble my way through baz and it's bugs/limitations (with much help from otavio and the #bazaar channel on freenode), and my changes to the ubuntu ltsp are published at: http://llama.freegeek.org/~vagrant/baz-archives/[EMAIL PROTECTED] in the ltsp--fixes--0 ... branch(?). i tried to make the commits small, but i made no attempt to preserve the order of which changes were made when- it ended up being about 25 patches, and took quite some time to split it all into smaller sets. but it's well worth it. my intent with this thread is to see where lessdisks and ltsp can collaborate, and ideally bring in others such a FAI, systemimager, etc. and possibly even create tools useable by distributions other than debian/ubuntu. Collaboration between lessdisks and LTSP is even less on-topic here; i would think work on installing ltsp using lessdisks-install as an alternative to ltsp-build-client, with the goal of making a common tools that could be used by all Diskless CDD implementations would be appropriate here. maybe CDD is even too specific, but i don't rightly know where else to take such conversations. in fact, given the interest you have expressed in collaborating with LTSP, I'm surprised you haven't approached the LTSP project about lessdisks, rather than contacting debian-edu, debian-custom, me, etc. well, the ubuntu implementation of LTSP is the first i have seen of anything similar enough to lessdisks that i would have anything to offer LTSP. i didn't know who else to get in contact regarding ubuntu's LTSP but the package maintainer. debian-edu was/is interested in porting the ubuntu packages to debian (i didn't start that thread). debian-custom seems the best place for developing a concept of a Diskless CDD (i didn't move the thread there, either). It sounds like in the process of LTSP you have developed some ideas similar to what Jim and I have discussed regarding the relationship between LTSP and distributions. indeed, which is why i've recently taken interest in LTSP, though lessdisks has only ever made a debian implementation. live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
getting next-generation LTSP into Debian/main
if we built debian packages that don't have dependencies outside of debian, it would be even easier to make a wrapper script and custom configuration file that would also work more easily on debian machines. maybe i will work on that more, too. i couldn't resist re-building the ltsp packages for debian, with a few changes: ltsp (0.43-0+vagrant.1) experimental; urgency=low * add /etc/default/ltsp-client-setup - use_bind_mounts=true * ltsp-build-client: bugfix configuring mkinitrd.conf -- Vagrant Cascadian [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fri, 5 Aug 2005 11:33:40 -0600 ltsp (0.43-0+vagrant.0) experimental; urgency=low * ltsp-build-client: - bugfixes in sources.list generation - drop laptop-detect from packages to be installed by default -- Vagrant Cascadian [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fri, 5 Aug 2005 10:59:21 -0600 ltsp (0.43-0+vagrant) experimental; urgency=low * rebuild for debian sarge * allow initrd-netboot-tools as alternative to initramfs-tools * allow ssh as alternative to openssh-client and openssh-server * warn about modifying /etc/exports instead of modifying directly * provide tmpfs+bindmount alternative to unionfs * ltsp-build-client: - commandline options to set variables - variable defaults for debian sarge - file urls for MIRROR * add patch to provide long descriptions (Petter Reinholdtsen) * suggest sdm/sdm-terminal as a lightweight alternative to ldm -- Vagrant Cascadian [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fri, 5 Aug 2005 09:48:08 -0600 as you can see, i've already made a couple bugfix releases, and i wouldn't be surprised if i make more as i continue to test it. packages and source available at: deb http://llama.freegeek.org/~vagrant/debian experimental/ i made considerable changes to ltsp-build-client, making many of the options configurable with commandline options. also added an --extra-archive commandline option. so, you could install on debian sarge with: ltsp-build-client --dist sarge --extra-archive http://llama.freegeek.org/~vagrant/debian experimental/ or if you've got a CDROM with all the appropriate packages: ltsp-build-client --dist sarge --mirror file:///media/cdrom --extra-archive http://llama.freegeek.org/~vagrant/debian experimental/ or to specify additional components beyond main: ltsp-build-client --dist sarge --mirror file:///media/cdrom sarge main local --extra-archive http://llama.freegeek.org/~vagrant/debian experimental/ i would have to make tweaks to get the ltsp-install wrapper script (to use lessdisks-install) working, but it wouldn't take much. instead i figured i'd just improve the ltsp-build-client script. since the postinstall script doesn't modify /etc/exports anymore(due to debian policy), you have to do that manually. could instead make it an option to ltsp-build-client. attached is a patch (really) containing the differences between ubuntu's ltsp 0.43 and the version i built. live well, vagrant * looking for [EMAIL PROTECTED]/ltsp--main--0--patch-131 to compare with * comparing to [EMAIL PROTECTED]/ltsp--main--0--patch-131 * modified files --- orig/debian/changelog +++ mod/debian/changelog @@ -1,3 +1,35 @@ +ltsp (0.43-0+vagrant.1) experimental; urgency=low + + * add /etc/default/ltsp-client-setup +- use_bind_mounts=true + * ltsp-build-client: bugfix configuring mkinitrd.conf + + -- Vagrant Cascadian [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fri, 5 Aug 2005 11:33:40 -0600 + +ltsp (0.43-0+vagrant.0) experimental; urgency=low + + * ltsp-build-client: +- bugfixes in sources.list generation +- drop laptop-detect from packages to be installed by default + + -- Vagrant Cascadian [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fri, 5 Aug 2005 10:59:21 -0600 + +ltsp (0.43-0+vagrant) experimental; urgency=low + + * rebuild for debian sarge + * allow initrd-netboot-tools as alternative to initramfs-tools + * allow ssh as alternative to openssh-client and openssh-server + * warn about modifying /etc/exports instead of modifying directly + * provide tmpfs+bindmount alternative to unionfs + * ltsp-build-client: +- commandline options to set variables +- variable defaults for debian sarge +- file urls for MIRROR + * add patch to provide long descriptions (Petter Reinholdtsen) + * suggest sdm/sdm-terminal as a lightweight alternative to ldm + + -- Vagrant Cascadian [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fri, 5 Aug 2005 09:48:08 -0600 + ltsp (0.43) breezy; urgency=low * Start the X server with the -br option --- orig/debian/control +++ mod/debian/control @@ -7,20 +7,27 @@ Package: ltsp-server Depends: debootstrap, nfs-kernel-server, tftpd-hpa, syslinux -Recommends: openssh-server -Suggests: dhcp3-server +Recommends: openssh-server | ssh +Suggests: dhcp3-server, sdm Architecture: all Description: Basic LTSP server environment + The scripts needed to generate the client environment on a server. + This is the basic environment depending on external a DHCP server to + point the clients to the LTSP server. Package: ltsp
Re: getting next-generation LTSP into Debian/main
i couldn't resist re-building the ltsp packages for debian, with a few changes: Thanks for your interest. of course. If you're going to be making customizations, I would very much appreciate if you would maintain your changes in a Bazaar branch, so that they can be merged into mainline. My archive is here: http://people.ubuntu.com/~mdz/archives/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ yes, i've been working with this repository. i don't yet know how to do branching with baz, but will look into it. and the code is on the ltsp--main--0 branch. Your patch is already quite large and contains multiple logical changes, and this would make it easier to keep things broken down into easily-reviewed changesets. used baz to generate the diff with baz diff i could try on a per-file basis, using baz file-diff but that's about the extent of my knowledge so far. not all of the patches would probably be appropriate for ubuntu, but i think most of them would be. I can help you to get set up if needed. pointers on good baz documentation would be useful. i'm mainly used to cvs and svn. i haven't yet found baz documentation that clicks- it feels like a steep learning curve for someone used to centralized revision control systems. live well, vagrant p.s. no need to email me directly if you post to debian-custom, debian-edu or lessdisks lists- i read them. signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Diskless CDDs: ltsp and lessdisks
Please move discussion to debian-custom instead. This topic does not sound that very specific to education... I have taken the bold step and cross-posted. Please follow-up only to debian-custom and the individuals (possibly) not subscribed there. This has little to do with custom distributions, either. It is about LTSP development, and it arguably belongs on the LTSP mailing lists. i disagree entirely. as i see it, this is about using a customized debian/ubuntu as a framework for diskless systems. it started on debian-edu, as debian-edu is interested in getting ltsp into debian, but i think it goes well beyond debian-edu's specific needs. largely, i have been working on the ltsp packages to get familiar with ltsp, so i can better understand the potential for sharing code and ideas with lessdisks and other systems. and the easiest way for me to do that is make it installable and useable on debian :) my intent with this thread is to see where lessdisks and ltsp can collaborate, and ideally bring in others such a FAI, systemimager, etc. and possibly even create tools useable by distributions other than debian/ubuntu. maybe it's a project unto itself, but to me debian-custom seems like the closest appropriate list. but that could just be me not wanting to sign up for yet another list. :) live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [lessdisks] Re: Some notes on the next generation LTSP (getting LTSP into Debian/main)
If you have identified some specific areas where we could share code, that would be a good start. main area is in the chroot installation (server/ltsp-build-client). biggest problem is that everything is hard-coded. petter proposed a patch to change some of the values using commandline options, i think. specificly, all of these should be configurable: ROOT, DIST, MIRROR, the mirror components, the packages, kernel-img.conf options, what additional scripts to run (ltsp-update-kernels, ltsp-update-sshkeys) the lessdisks-install script from lessdisks has many comparable values, and they are also configurable: http://cvs.freegeek.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/lessdisks/install/usr-sbin/lessdisks-install?rev=HEAD lessdisks-install has considerably more complexity than ltsp-build-client (for better and worse- the cold is old and crusty), and i would like to consider writing a more generic chroot installation tool. it seems like it would be easier to adapt (or re-write) lessdisks-install to be able to install ltsp than the other way around. i changed two lines in lessdisks-install and added an example wrapper script(largely a simplified ltsp-build-client with several pieces removed) and configuration file to support installing the ltsp ubuntu packages. i am unable to test them as i do not have an ubuntu machine to test on. to try it out on an ubuntu machine (or at least a machine with a debootstrap that supports breezy): add to /etc/apt/sources.list: # lessdisks cvs autobuilds deb http://fg.lessdisks.net/ autobuild/ apt-get install lessdisks cd /usr/share/doc/lessdisks/examples ./ltsp-install ./ltsp-install.conf this should produce something similar to what ltsp-build-client creates with the fanciness of an progress bar, support for debconf pre-seeding, and a number of other features. if we built debian packages that don't have dependencies outside of debian, it would be even easier to make a wrapper script and custom configuration file that would also work more easily on debian machines. maybe i will work on that more, too. and since lessdisks-install is in need of a re-write, i figure it might be worth writing a generic chroot installation tool that can meet both ltsp and lessdisks needs, and hopefully other chroot installations as well. i could try and split out the installation part of the scripts into a separate package(or even source package), if it seems useful. a big difference between the two scripts is that lessdisks-install actually runs a significant portion of the install chrooted, to make it less dependent on what exact version of lessdisks is installed on the server and in the chroot. some of the functionality taken from ltsp-build-client in the above-mentioned ltsp-install script is also similar to what the chrooted lessdisks-terminal-install script handles, so there could be even more room for sharing code if ltsp decided to go that route. Please move discussion to debian-custom instead. This topic does not sound that very specific to education... done. live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: simple-cdd 0.2.0
local_packagtes is very limited. it doesn't download the packages,
doesn't do dependency resolution,
That's a major problem for me. The packages I build do reply on Sarge
packages. Trying to manually track the dependencies has proven to be a
time-consuming and error-prone task.
i welcome your patch to fix this :)
i would gladly incorporate such a patch, but at the moment, i have
limited time to work on it myself, unfortunately. i had big chunks of
free time this weekend, which is why i worked on it as much as i did.
* checkpackages has no idea about local_packages .
i tried to fix this in svn. not sure if it works.
* checkpackages also has some bashism in it (my shell is bash, but the
script is /bin/sh)
dash is useful for that. '$()' is bash-specific.
works in dash for me:
dash
$ echo x$(which echo)x
x/bin/echox
also works with posh.
if you can find documentation that this is not bourne shell compatible,
you should file bugs against dash and/or posh about it.
I attach my version of the script.
in the future, if you could attach a patch using 'diff -u OLDFILE
NEWFILE' that would be nicer.
Also grep for '$@' . You should use '$@' (with quotes) for everything
that is not a makefile, normally. Otherwise it will not handle
parameters with spaces inside gracefully.
qemu-test seems to have that.
again, could you specify exactly where this occurs, and file a patch
with how you'd like it handled.
* the debian-cd now barks off when creaing a disk about a syntax error
with '(' . Could not work around it yet.
what version of debian-cd ? i have only tested with 2.2.22.
Me too. The following patch to /usr/share/debian-cd/Makefile fixes the
problem:
--- /usr/share/debian-cd/Makefile.orig 2005-07-26 21:35:35.0 +0300
+++ /usr/share/debian-cd/Makefile 2005-07-26 21:32:35.0 +0300
@@ -433,7 +433,7 @@
for i in $(BDIR)/*.packages; do \
num=$${i%%.packages}; num=$${num##$(BDIR)/}; \
dir=$(BDIR)/CD$$num; \
- echo -n $(BINDISKINFO) | sed 's/_NONUS//g'
$$dir/.disk/info; \
+ echo -n $(BINDISKINFO) | sed 's/_NONUS//g'
$$dir/.disk/info; \
echo '#define DISKNAME ' $(BINDISKINFOND) | sed 's/_NONUS//g'
\
$$dir/README.diskdefines; \
echo '#define TYPE binary' \
(double quotes around the argument of '-n')
maybe this should be filed against debian-cd?
i will include the patch in simple-cdd as an example for people to
consider.
Another note: in my distro I have originally opted to the same limited
partitioning preseeding as you use in the first version. In the second
version I preseed exactly the oposite of what you preseed:
d-i partman/confirm boolean true
This means that the user is asked two questions instead of one, but they
are both necessary, IMHO. This allows very convinient custom
partitioning. It also allows you to use a different tool to clear out
some disk space, and then install the custom distro there.
i wanted the defaults to be as simple as possible for the user, although
the 0.1.x releases didn't ask about partitioning at all, which was a
little too data destructive...
i could include in the README about various ideas regarding automated
and semi-automated partitioning...
specifically, what are all the questions you define regarding
partitioning(including the simple-cdd defautlts)?
Any idea what to do to automate the packages selection?
I currently use apt-get (described in another thread) to automate this, and
this has proven to be rather useful.
i'll read the other thread and comment there, if appropriate.
live well,
vagrant
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Re: simple-cdd 0.2.0
well, being pleased to hear about debian-oven being inspired by
simple-cdd, i couldn't help but make a new simple-cdd release :)
some of the improvements over previous versions:
simple-cdd (0.2.0) unstable; urgency=low
* automatically include default profile
* option to build local package repository
Great. Is it actually tested?
yes. i always test my code before releasing it. it is, however,
literally impossible for me to test every single way anyone can use
simple-cdd.
i used this feature to build a freekbox3 installer CD:
http://wiki.freegeek.org/index.php/Installer_CD
an example of how to use the local_packages variable in in
profiles/freekbox3.conf
local_packagtes is very limited. it doesn't download the packages,
doesn't do dependency resolution, and you have to already have the
packages available locally. you have to specify the full path to all
the .deb files (well, actually you should be able to point to a
directory containing .deb files, but i haven't tested that. sorry.)
i tried to figure out how to get the LOCAL and LOCALDEBS features of
debian-cd to work, with no luck.
I set local_packages in simple-cdd.conf . And there seem to be
troubles:
* debpartial-mirror's mirror comparison still takes ages. I normally
skip it
i did nothing to change debpartial-mirror, that's a separate piece of
software. (well, the package from debian-np's alioth repository has the
manpages removed. stupid, i know)
i've worked a little bit to try and use reprepro and an alternative,
since it's available in sarge, but i haven't committed any code yet.
when the new version of debpartial-mirror is working and released, i
will try and release a simple-cdd that works with that, too, and make a
backport (if needed) of debpartial-mirror for sarge.
* checkpackages has no idea about local_packages .
i tried to fix this in svn. not sure if it works.
* checkpackages also has some bashism in it (my shell is bash, but the
script is /bin/sh)
if you could be more specific, that would be helpful. checkbashisms
didn't find anything.
* the debian-cd now barks off when creaing a disk about a syntax error
with '(' . Could not work around it yet.
what version of debian-cd ? i have only tested with 2.2.22.
to download simple-cdd, stick in /etc/apt/sources.list:
deb http://debian-np.alioth.debian.org/debian unstable main
This is the copy I used. On a Sarge system.
with debian-cd from sarge?
live well,
vagrant
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simple-cdd 0.2.0
well, being pleased to hear about debian-oven being inspired by simple-cdd, i couldn't help but make a new simple-cdd release :) some of the improvements over previous versions: simple-cdd (0.2.0) unstable; urgency=low * automatically include default profile * option to build local package repository * simplified language and country selection * added build-time configuration file for profiles * examples for setting default CD label * updated freekbox3 and lessdisks profiles * prompt before over-writing hard-disk partitions by default * build-simple-cdd: many commandline options added -- Vagrant Cascadian [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mon, 11 Jul 2005 11:28:19 -0600 most of the recent developments for simple-cdd were needed to simplify creation of a simple installer for freekbox3, freegeek's desktop distribution for recycled hardware: http://freegeek.org to download simple-cdd, stick in /etc/apt/sources.list: deb http://debian-np.alioth.debian.org/debian unstable main (also added a backport of debpartial-mirror for sarge) and: apt-get install simple-cdd or from svn: svn co svn://svn.debian.org/svn/debian-np/trunk/packages/simple-cdd i also improved the package description, hopefully this is good enough for cdd-doc, or were you looking for something more, andreas? :) Description: create custom debian-installer CDs simple-cdd is a limited though relatively easy tool to create a customized debian-installer CD. . it includes simple mechanisms to create profiles that define common system configurations, which can be selected during system installation. simple-cdd also makes it easy to build CDs with language and country settings pre-configured, or to use a 2.6 kernel by default. . this can be used to create a crude Custom Debian Distribution using packages from debian, with pre-configuration of packages that use debconf. custom configuration scripts can be specified to handle packages that don't support debconf pre-configuration. . testing CD images with qemu is also made simple with a provided script. it has only been tested with debian-cd from sarge (other than debpartial-mirror), so if using a new debian-cd or debian-installer, it may require some tweaks. in some ways, it might make sense to move simple-cdd from the debian-np project to the cdd project, as it really is more general than non-profit use only. if folks wouldn't mind giving me (vagrant-guest on alioth) svn access. :) and with things like debian-oven and when cddtk has support for building the installer CDs, hopefully simple-cdd will become obsolete :) live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
simple-cdd description
simple-cdd is a limited though (relatively) easy tool to create a debian-installer CD with debconf pre-seeding and package selections, with support for multiple profiles. Great. Would you volunteer to write a paragraph about it in the CDD-documentation? but that is a short paragraph that you quoted above :) i could probably write a little more (though there's not a whole lot to it). where exactly do you propose to put it? should i just post it to the list? live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
new simple-cdd 0.1.1
i'm releasing simple-cdd 0.1.1 :) simple-cdd is a limited though (relatively) easy tool to create a debian-installer CD with debconf pre-seeding and package selections, with support for multiple profiles. this version was updated it to work ok with the version of debian-cd in sarge(many significant changes happened between debian-cd 2.2.20 and 2.2.22 that broke simple-cdd), added simple options to use a 2.6 kernel and/or serial console by default, and a simple per-profile post-install script mechanism. if you want to give it a whirl, i've uploaded it to: http://debian-np.alioth.debian.org/debian unstable main it's also available from subversion, for those who'd rather build it themselves: svn co svn://svn.debian.org/svn/debian-np/trunk/packages/simple-cdd it requires debpartial-mirror from debian unstable (0.2.10), or the development version from subversion (currently broken). live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: simple-cdd with local packages [was: Re: Bandwidth Manager CDD]
I started adapting simple-cdd to support LOCAL and LOCALDEBS in CONF.sh. I managed to build a CD, but it seems I'm doing some things wrong: ok.. +# TODO: this is something that should have been handled by debian-cd, right? +if [ $LOCAL = 1 ] [ -n $LOCALDEBS ]; then + cp -a $LOCALDEBS/ $MIRROR/ +fi + is this a feature of debian-cd that's broken, or a new feature to add to simple-cdd ? @@ -194,6 +199,12 @@ extras_dir=$extras_base_dir/simple-cdd mkdir -p $extras_dir +if [ -n $EXTRA_EXTRAS ] [ -d $simple_cdd_dir/$EXTRA_EXTRAS ]; then + echo Copying extra disk contents from $simple_cdd_dir/$EXTRA_EXTRAS + # I want to allow copying files from .disk as well: + (shopt -s dotglob; cp -a $simple_cdd_dir/$EXTRA_EXTRAS/* $extras_base_dir/) +fi + what is this doing that isn't already handled by the all_extras variable? The second part is the tar fix I mentioned. i fixed that in subversion... after you mentioned it. The third part the the extra local directory: I want to add an extra txt file to the root of the CD and some files to the tools/ subdirectory. hmmm... don't know the best way to do this.. The first part, though, is my current work around not being able to get the local debs into the CD. It seems some of you use simple-cdd to produce a CD with some locally-created packages. So I ask once again: HOW? the simplest, though clumsiest way to do so, is simply to add some files in the extras dir, which will get installed into /usr/local/simple-cdd, and then add a post-install script to profiles/default.preseed in the base-config/late_command to install your packages. this is obviously not the ideal way to do it, and i'll try to include a simpler mechanism in a future release... the original goal of simple-cdd was to create a debian-installer CD with debconf pre-seeding and standard debian packages from the main archives, with a few profiles. the next goal will probably be figuring out simple ways to include additional packages. :) at the moment i don't have the time, network or computers to test it with. :( live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: simple-cdd with local packages [was: Re: Bandwidth Manager CDD]
Next I noticed that there was zero documentation about the requirement to run as root. Sadly debian-cd not only runs as root, but also edits as root files under /usr . OK. Let's hope It won't destroy my system. i have never once run simple-cdd scripts as root, so that's probably why there's no documentation about it :P are you building the debian-installer CD from scratch, or using one of the released debian-installer CDs? I'm trying to build it from scratch. well, simple-cdd doesn't handle building debian-installer CDs, only re-building them from an already existing debian-installer CD image, as i understand it. that's how it avoids requiring root access. unless i misunderstand you... maybe listing the exact comands you're running would be helpful... typically, when i use it, i download or install simple-cdd, copy the simple-cdd directory to a working copy in my home directory, tweak CONF.sh values such as mirror and proxy info, and then run ./build-simple-cdd debpartial-mirror is *slow* and inefficient at mirroring. It seems to do the whole mirroring process whenever I run it. Thus running it with do_mirror=false is a must if you don't have extra hours to spend on useless downloads. i had good luck using debpartial-mirror with a squid proxy, which helps a lot. How about taking the rsync approach? you do have the md5sums of most files for download separately. Much of the time is actually spent on the files in the documentation (?) directories, which don't really change often (right?). i would welcome code that works as well as or better than debpartial-mirror :) Also: do you use HTTP HEAD or do you download the whole file? i use debpartial-mirror, i don't know how it works, exactly. in my experience, it works best to avoid using the round-robin mirrors (such as http.us.debian.org)... live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
simple-cdd
Try the simple-cdd scripts: http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/debian-np/people/vagrant/simple-cdd/ simple-cdd uses debian-cd and debpartial-mirror to create simple debian-installer CDs. there's also simple-cdd packages in the debian-np repository: deb http://debian-np.alioth.debian.org/debian unstable main i haven't had much luck getting it to work with debian-installer rc3, but i haven't had much time to look into it either. if anyone can give it a whirl and let me know how it's going, that would be great. live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
move simple-cdd to cdd project?
simple-cdd is a generic and simple (or crude) tool to create debian-installer CDs that install lists of packages and feeds debconf pre-seeding answers... i have been developing simple-cdd as part of the debian-np project on alioth, though i'm wondering if it would be more appropriate to be part of the CDD project? this might make it easier to share some ideas and code between projects such as simple-cdd and cddtool... recently built 0.1.0 packages to install the simple-cdd tools (rather than requiring subversion to download it), and uploaded it to the debian-np package repository: deb http://debian-np.alioth.debian.org/debian unstable main the only package it requires outside of sarge at this point is debpartial-mirror 0.2.x (and it seems to also work with the not-yet-released rewrite of debpartial-mirror). so, if folks think simple-cdd should be moved to the CDD project, it would probably require adding my username vagrant-guest to the cdd project on alioth. :) live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
using simple-cdd to create a freekbox3 installer CD
hey y'all, i just posted a little howto on how to create a freekbox3 installer CD using simple-cdd. (freekbox3 is freegeek's Custom Debian Distribution, sort of: http://freegeek.org) if you'd like to see what the next generation of freegeek computers will look like, or are interested in trying out simple-cdd to create your own custom installer CD, this might be a simple place to start: http://lists.freegeek.org/pipermail/distro/2005-January/001285.html enjoy :) live well, vagrant signature.asc Description: Digital signature
