Cloudy LBMake (Live Build Make) is a tool to build and package the Cloudy distribution. It bootstraps the root filesystem, includes the default packages and automates the creation of Cloudy live and installation .iso images.
Currently, LBMake supports the i386 and amd64 architectures. To install Cloudy on a device with another architecture (i.e. ARM-based mini-PCs), you may want to check the Cloudynitzar tool.
On a machine running an up-to-date Debian Jessie operating system, install the required packages:
sudo apt-get install build-essential live-build imagemagick curl debootstrap git unzip
Depending on which device you want to install Cloudy, you may choose one of the following build options:
The default build process generates 32 bits images for i586 processors (or newer):
sudo make
The generated images will likely be compatible with most i386-based 32 bits CPUs.
Most modern 32 bit x86 processors will likely benefit from the i686-pae build flavour:
sudo make FLAVOUR=686-pae
Most 64 bits x86 processors will likely be compatible and benefit from running the amd64 architecture images:
sudo make ARCH=amd64 FLAVOUR=amd64
If you are going to install Cloudy on a 64 bits computer, this one is probably your best choice.
Once the image has been created, you can test the live system with one of the following commands, depending on the architecture you specified at build time (the default is i386):
sudo apt-get install qemu
qemu-system-i386 -m 512 --cdrom devel/live-image-i386.hybrid.iso
--or--
qemu-system-x86_64 -m 512 --cdrom devel/live-image-amd64.hybrid.iso
If you have a relatively recent computer, appending --enable-kvm should take
advantage of hardware virtualization and make it work much faster. You may want to increase or decrease the amount of RAM memory used by the virtual machine (512 MB).
In order to test the installation and setup of the distro, you can create a disk image and use it as well:
qemu-img create -f qcow2 disk.qcow2 4G
qemu-system-i386 -enable-kvm -cdrom devel/live-image-i386.hybrid.iso -hda disk.qcow2
--or--
qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -cdrom devel/live-image-amd64.hybrid.iso -hda disk.qcow2
If you prefer to create a container instead of using a live CD image or a complete installation, you can generate a container image in your system by running:
sudo make container
--or--
sudo make ARCH=amd64 FLAVOUR=amd64 container
To create the container, the iso-hybrid image must have been created previously. Running the previous command also launches the creation of the iso-hybrid, if it has not been generated yet.