Creating a custom Debian CD

[alvakoldo10]

Hi every one.
I am trying to prepare my own Debian install CD using simple-cdd. Does any one know if I can add my own deb packages instead of those got from standard mirrors ?

Besides, dows any one know how can I prepare a debian package so that at some point of the debconf scripts (preinst) I decide the path where to
install the app ?

Thanks in advance.

[Pick2]

Here is a good start:
http://forums.debian.net/viewforum.php?f=16

[MeanDean]

If you are interested in an alternative method of creating a custom Debian CD then I would suggest looking at live-helper.

[alvakoldo10]

Sorry for answering both here :

1.- Pick2, your link drives me to root of forum .... no concrete post

2.- MeanDean, do you mean that live-helper can do same, even add capabilities of liveCD, and could be easier and quicker to learn ?

[MeanDean]

Depending on what you are wanting to do then live-helper may be just the ticket.

might want to look at
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=38870

[alvakoldo10]

Depending on what you are wanting to do then live-helper may be just the ticket.

might want to look at
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=38870

well, i will try to explain my self a bit :
1.- I start from a base netinst
2.- I got my own SW packaged as .deb
3.- I need to install also a set of standard SW (apache, mysql ... etc) and all its dependencies
4. - As I want to keep always a frozen snapshot of my whole installation (CD install probably) my plan right now is to keep my own Debian repository with all the things I need (updating packages veeeeery slowly) and, from time to time, build a comprehensive CD for installations from such repository

.....not sure if i messed it all more or clarified it ...

[alvakoldo10]

sorry if a sound like being rude but, no response after I explained what I need? is it maybe that I said something like a mess?

[alvakoldo10]

Ok, let me try it another way :
1.- I create my own Debian repository with reprepro (hierarchy underneath pool dir.), lets say

Code: Select all

       /opt/debian/pool
       /opt/debian/db
       ....all the rest ...

2.- Such local-own repository contains standard packages and some extra of my own, all well referred in .../debian/Packages.gz
I check my repo is ok by substituting the normal sources.list with one of my own then apt-get update and all goes fine.
My test sources.list just contains :

Code: Select all

       deb     file:///opt/debian squeeze main contrib non-free

3.- I prepare a simple-cdd directory like ~/simple-cdd this way :

Code: Select all

              ~/simple-cdd/profiles/myprofile1
               ~/simple-cdd/profiles/myprofile2

4.- I issue next command to build my iso installer from my own local repository :

Code: Select all

build-simple-cdd --graphical-installer --profiles-udeb-dist squeeze --debian-mirror file:////opt/debian --dist squeeze --profiles myprofile1,myprofile2

At the end, simple-cdd fails with next error messages

Code: Select all

....stuff ....
Warning parsing ~/simple-cdd/tmp//mirror/conf/updates, line 3: unknown udeb component 'none' will be ignored!
Warning parsing ~/simple-cdd/tmp//mirror/conf/updates, line 9: unknown udeb component 'none' will be ignored!
Warning parsing ~/simple-cdd/tmp//mirror/conf/updates, line 15: unknown component 'none' will be ignored!
Warning parsing ~/simple-cdd/tmp//mirror/conf/updates, line 20: unknown udeb component 'none' will be ignored!
....stuff ....
ERROR: missing required packages from profile default:  less
ERROR: missing required packages from profile default:  simple-cdd-profiles
WARNING: missing optional packages from profile default:  grub popularity-contest localization-config console-tools usbutils acpi acpid eject lvm2 mdadm cryptsetup reiserfsprogs jfsutils xfsprogs type-handling debootstrap busybox syslinux-common syslinux
ERROR: missing required packages from profile myprofile1:  apache2 bzip2 chkconfig ifenslave-2.6 mysql-client-5.1 mysql-server-5.1 ntp ntpdate proftpd-basic rdesktop sudo sun-java6-jre telnet tomcat6 unzip vim wine
ERROR: missing required packages from profile myprofile2:  apache2 bzip2 chkconfig fluxbox ifenslave-2.6 mysql-client-5.1 mysql-server-5.1 ntp ntpdate proftpd-basic rdesktop sudo sun-java6-jre telnet tightvncserver tomcat6 unzip vim wine xserver-xorg xtightvncviewer

This is, building fails for absolutely all the sw i seek ... not just for some specific dependencies like explained about mplayer in simple-cdd howto

driving me mad at the moment

[MeanDean]

I can't help with simple-cdd because I have never had much luck with it. I think I succcessfully used it once or twice out of about ten tries so I gave up on it.

If you can explain what you want to do in general then it may be better than explaining exactly what you are doing with simple-cdd.

I am not sure if you want:
1 - a disk that installs debian along with extra packages
2 - a disk with the extra packages that you can use after you install debian
3 - a snapshot of your debian installation
3 - a snapshot of your debian installation along with extra packages that can be installed
4 - a combination of the above

I can help you do most any of those things but not with simple-cdd.

If you have a properly created repo then you can burn that to a cd and use it from the cd. You do not need a install cd just to have a repo on a cd.
If you want a snapshot of your installed debian system then live-helper is the best choice although other choices do exist.
If you want a snapshot of your installed debian system along with a repo of extra packages there a few ways to accomplish that.

You may also want to look at dfsbuild or debian-cd although I am not sure either of those will be any more successful.
I would suggest live-helper and the live project at http://live.debian.net/

[alvakoldo10]

Ok, to be concise :

1 - a disk that installs debian along with extra packages

But taking into account that this has to be mantained; this is, if i need to update some of the packages of my install-cd, i will do so (with all depends of course) in my own repo and then rebuild CD from there.

PS:
Maybe snapshots could be interesting to fit my requirements but as i started the option of an install CD built from own maintained repo, currently i must end this line.

[MeanDean]

more questions...

Did you want:
1 - a disk that installs debian first and then after reboot you can use the same cd to install those extra packages
or
2 - a disk that installs debian along with the extra packages at the same time


What is the end result you are looking for? What is this going to be used for? Who is going to be using this? How will they be using it?

[alvakoldo10]

well to speak honestly, as i have just known the --profiles option of the build-simple-cdd (you know the one that makes the installer to offers several profiles of software to install like server, desktop, etc), I will say option 2 and so at the only one install time, after all settings like locale, network, time etc, then I would choose my prefab profile/set of custo packages.

[MeanDean]

I would probably just install those packages, configure everything the way I wanted, and then create a live installable snapshot of the system.

But you might have a look at the live manual where it talks about customising package installation...
http://live.debian.net/manual/en/html/packages.html

[alvakoldo10]

I actually cannot afford to have one computer always available for that purpose; whenever updates were required I would have to install again the system or have that frozen computer.
Besides, I need the profiles capability at install time.
is there any other way I may build my own debian CD with install profiles?

[TobiSGD]

You don't need to have a special computer to maintain your live-CD. Just use Virtualbox.

[MeanDean]

I actually cannot afford to have one computer always available for that purpose; whenever updates were required I would have to install again the system or have that frozen computer.
Besides, I need the profiles capability at install time.
is there any other way I may build my own debian CD with install profiles?

In that situation I would just create a repo/cd for the updated packages

But you wouldn't need one computer, all you would need is a partition

Actually you could just unpack the iso, unpack the live system, chroot into it and update/change it and then repack the live system and repack the iso. But that is a bit manual....and a bit of a process.

If it was me and I did not want to bother with the live cd then I would create a cd from my custom repo. Then I would just do a normal debian install and then use my custom repo cd.

[alvakoldo10]

VirtualBox could be, what about the profiles? does l-h handle it?

[alvakoldo10]

If it was me and I did not want to bother with the live cd then I would create a cd from my custom repo. Then I would just do a normal debian install and then use my custom repo cd.

mmmhh, I feel a bit confused now; that is exactly what i'm seeking from the begginning of this post but question is what tool or how do I create such CD live or not? Now you tell me not to use live ....
sorry maybe I am missunderstanding you

[nadir]

VirtualBox could be, what about the profiles? does l-h handle it?

I do that in Vbox with live-helper and -in general- it does work.
(in general: i got problems to set the keyboard to german and keep it on the live/install-CD i create. -> easy password required. As an example).
Nothing of that is kind of a drawback, but a bit "annoying".
The good thing: I keep the VBox installation, but don't do much with it. If i want to add stuff i boot into VBox, add the stuff, run the two lh commands and got my new iso/live-CD. That way it is getting better and better . I use Refracta for that, but it is not necessary (only comfortable, and only for me, cause i use 17 anyway)

Make sure to have got enough space in Vbox (about 3x the space your installation in Vbox is. Squashfs-stuff gets unpacked and moved around, hence you need much space. For me that are about 8GB)

I know none of the other tools (besides remastersys), but live-helper does a nice job for such stuff.
I use it on a low-level. Depending on what you want your mileage may vary.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
site note (Dean is the live-helper master, just give you some of my experiences here:)
Instead of installing and re-configuring again you might also rsync your installation from hard-disk to vbox-disk, but leave away the huge users-data. Then rsync the hidden home-configs and then run the two live-helper commands. You need to boot into VBox from a live-cd, mount the vbox-disk-installation, rsync the OS, kinda like this:

Code: Select all

mount /dev/vbox_sda /media/backup
rsync -auv -e ssh -n --delete-after \
--exclude="/home/username/[a-zA-Z0-9]*
--exclude="/proc/*"  --exclude="/lost+found/*" \
--exclude="/dev/*"  \
--exclude="/mnt/*" \
--exclude="/media/*" \
--exclude="/sys/*" \
--exclude="/tmp/*" \
root@debian-harddisk-ip:/ /media/backup >dry.txt

Remove -n and >dry.txt if you are ready to go.
Then rsync the users hidden configs (seems more easy to mv the data to a backup-dir then to go for --exclude:

Code: Select all

rsync -auv -e ssh debian --exclude="all data" --exclude=".VirtualBox"  root@debian-harddisk-ip:/home/username/ /media/backup/username

chroot into it and re-install grub. edit fstab. perhaps edit or remove /etc/udev/rules/70-persistent-net.rules
This, of course, is the short/wrong version. This is just to give you the idea. Don't simply copy and paste. For a long time project it is worth the trouble. It is rather easy, but not that easy to explain. Rsync is the way to go.

PS: in case this post was confusing: sorry.

[nadir]

If it was me and I did not want to bother with the live cd then I would create a cd from my custom repo. Then I would just do a normal debian install and then use my custom repo cd.

mmmhh, I feel a bit confused now; that is exactly what i'm seeking from the begginning of this post but question is what tool or how do I create such CD live or not? Now you tell me not to use live ....
sorry maybe I am missunderstanding you

We both posted at the same time.
Create a 10GB Vbox hard-disk and install a small Debian.
Follow this how-to:
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=38870
After that you know if it is the right thing or not. You don't have to do much, but wait a bit (ca an hour)