Thank you for your answer. By inspecting catalyst examples specs, especially stage4 one, I figured that catalyst could do the job.
Right now I proceed by "cross-emerging" from a Gentoo host to a target dir with emerge's --root and --config-dir opts. With that, I can start with an empty target dir, and emerge into it baselayout, bash and glibc. That's all I need for now. Then I cross compile needed kernel to my target dir following Gentoo cross-dev guide : http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/cross-development.xml#doc_chap6 That's what I need. But that's all hand-crafted scripts to always build the same things. Plus, I will have to make my target dir a LiveCD just after, so I'll have to script more. I thought Catalyst could do the exact same thing with a more Gentoo-ish way and sort-of cache settings. But I'm still not sure. Plus I don't get the "stage"-related thing in spec. I read FAQ and get it a little more. Here are the 2 crucial points that I don't want to evade : 1) I do not want to build with a "deploy base Gentoo system, then remove" strategy (won't this break things ?). I really want to start from nothing, or from a almost-empty root dir/tar I define. Because I want my target system to be a "oneshot" system. It will not use portage, or gcc. It will just run applications. 2) I do not want my target system to bootstrap itselfs by compilating its binaries. I want my host system to build target things. Because of 1) reasons. Can catalyst still do the job ? Why exactly should I make a profile ? 2009/11/24 Peter Stuge <[email protected]> > Shinkan wrote: > > - I want to build barely-usable minimal systems that I call > > "guests" from my host. Guests would have to be setup on target > > machines using fdisk and tar only, or put on a Live{CD,DVD,USB}. > .. > > Did I have to use Catalyst ? How can I do this if it's the clean > > way ? > > You can certainly do it with a catalyst stage4 spec file. You'll also > need to prepare a kernel configuration for the guests, and reference > that in the spec file. You'll also spend some time on filling the > spec file with packages, files and directories that should be > unmerged and simply rm:ed from the final build. > > To make changes (like add another package to a guest) you would run > catalyst again. It starts over, but keeps a cache of binpkgs that > have been built so it runs well under an hour even on oldish systems. > > This is how I make custom distributions for customers. > > Since the guests will be very different from a standard Gentoo system > it may also be worthwhile for you to create a new, custom, profile > for the guests. > > > //Peter > > -- Pierre. "Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we think faster than we speak. Probably so we can think twice." - Bill Watterson
