debian-live-image

Scripts to build a custom Debian USB live image with persistent and encrypted /home.

Pre-requisites

GNU/Linux Debian (stable or testing).

The following packages need to be installed:

• live-build
• ovmf
• qemu-kvm

Alternatively you can replace live-build package by open-infrastructure-system-build but it does not built image with UEFI support yet (as of 2017-08).

Usage

Edit packages.list and adds the packages you want.

Build the ISO:

sudo ./build_debian_live.sh

Write to an USB key:

sudo ./write_debian_live.sh /dev/your_device

WARNING (1): /dev/your_device should be the device not the partition. Example: not /dev/sdz1 but /dev/sdz.

WARNING (2): Please CAREFULLY choose the USB device (/dev/your_device) because everything stored will be erased (partitions, data, ...) after the previous command.

To test your image with QEMU/KVM:

sudo ./kvm_debian_live.sh /dev/your_device

To clean the repository (everything but the cache):

sudo ./clean_debian_live.sh

To remove cache:

sudo rm -rf ./cache

Limitations

Currently the produced image is built from Debian buster and will be localized in french.

To build from Debian sid:

• edit build_debian_live.sh and replace "--distribution buster" by "--distribution sid".

Modify the following to have a different language support:

• edit build_debian_live.sh and replace "fr_FR.UTF-8" occurences by your desired locales (type locale to have your current locale on your machine);
• edit 0051-initramfs-keymap.chroot and replace "fr" by your desired XKB layout.

License

All codes are under BSD-3 license.

Links

• http://debian-live.alioth.debian.org/live-manual/stable/manual/html/live-manual.en.html
• http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?t=95342&start=15 (maybe outdated)
• https://lescahiersdudebutant.fr/tools/HOWTO-livebuild-stretch.pdf (in french)