Caprice Linux Live Builder

This script just makes a live disc out of a given squashfs file. To build the whole thing, You need to follow the instructions of this document.

Live Disc From a Hard Disk Install

TO BE COMPLETED

Live Disc From a Bootstrapped Install

Prerequisties

You need to have thse packages installed :

• mtools
• debootstrap
• xorriso
• grub-pc
• squashfs-tools

And you also need a Debian or Ubuntu host. If you use other types of Debian (such as Devuan, which ships without systemd) or other Linux distributions (such as Fedora, OpenSUSE, Arch Linux) do the instructions at your own risk. This steps are tested in an Ubuntu machine and works fine with Debian (with systemd) and Ubuntu.

Bootstrapping

Just clone this repository and go to its directory then create a folder and call it chroot, then use the following command to create a bootstrapped installation of the Debian GNU/Linux.

sudo debootstrap --arch=amd64 testing chroot/ http://deb.debian.org/debian

NOTE: You can change the repository to your desired one, as well as the architecture and even the chroot directory.

Installing the kernel

After bootstrapping finished, you just need to do this :

sudo chroot chroot/

NOTE: If you use any shells other than bash and it's not installed in your chroot environment, you need to do sudo chroot chroot/ /bin/bash to access the shell without any problems.

After going to the bootstrapped installation shell, you just need to do this :

apt update
apt dist-upgrage 
apt install -y linux-image-amd64
apt install live-boot

Necessary tools for a live disc

After you installed the live disc, what you need is a bunch of tools for editing configuration files, accessing to a network, etc. So, we have to install these packages:

apt install --no-install-recommends -y network-manager net-tools wireless-tools curl openssh-client

For now, you have a very basic system which can be used and booted from a bootable medium.

Live Disc Customization

It's not a hard thing to do, you can just install everything you want using chroot.

Important notes

In case of installing libreoffice or any other Java programs, do this before chrooting to the directory :

sudo mount --bind /dev chroot/dev
sudo mount --bind /dev/pts chroot/dev/pts
sudo mount -t proc proc chroot/proc
sudo mount -t sysfs sysfs chroot/sys

And after you finished your customization/installations, unmount these using umount and then go for the ISO.

Building the ISO

Copying the kernel and init images

First, just do this :

cp chroot/boot/vmlinuz-* isotmp/live/vmlinuz

Then :

cp chroot/boot/initrd* isotmp/live/initrd.img

Final ISO build

To build an iso, for example for Caprice Linux, you just need to execute this command :

./build_image.sh Caprice_Linux.iso isotmp CAPRICELINUX chroot

TODO

• Providing a script for bootstrapping the system
• Providing a script for installing different desktop environments or window managers.
• Providing explanations for build_image.sh paramaters (high priority)
• Providing a persian translation for this document.