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shamil

Member

Registered: 2017-06-16

Posts: 10  

Devuan image building tools question

I usually built debian live images with live-build, included the debian installer, and called it a day (what a great tool live-build still is). But, not necessarily patched to modern standards; a glaring one being uefi support. My motivation with uefi support is that we really shouldn't expect compatibility mode to be a feature in bioses for much longer.

Now I want to build devuan images in place of debian because systemd wants too much.

What tools are used to build devuan images that support uefi (I know refracta-snapshot is one such tool; what are the others?)?

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,486  

Re: Devuan image building tools question

There's live-sdk - https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=551
It's not yet set up to do uefi without adding some stuff, but I've done it, and it works. That's how the desktop-live isos were made.
It's also not yet set up to include the debian installer. Someone is working on that.

There's also a cheater's way to get what you want.
- mount and copy a netinstall iso
- mount your favorite live-iso
- copy the /live folder to the copy of the netinstall
- edit the boot menus in the copy of the netinstall
- repack the copy into a new iso.

shamil

Member

Registered: 2017-06-16

Posts: 10  

Re: Devuan image building tools question

One other question, what you specified will indeed make an image bootable on a uefi system.

The last hurdle is if that image is installable, and when installed, will be uefi bootable as well.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,486  

Re: Devuan image building tools question

If you use the debian/devuan installer, you will install from the repository if you do a netinstall or from the media if you used a DVD image instead of a netinstall and you don't choose a mirror. If you use refractainstaller, you will install the live iso. If the live iso has grub-efi-amd64 installed, it will be bootable on uefi.

If the live iso does not have grub-efi-amd64 installed, you should install that package in the live system before you run the installer. When it asks where you want the bootloader, don't choose a location. The installer will handle adding the bootloader (or let you do it manually if you like working in a chroot terminal.) Another option is to include grub packages in your iso and install whichever ones are needed when you install to hard disk. Oh yeah, if you hack the live iso into an installer iso, I think the grub packages are already there in /pool.

shamil

Member

Registered: 2017-06-16

Posts: 10  

Re: Devuan image building tools question

Cool, that answers my questions that should also solve problems with my current distribution. The end result is me wanting to move my distribution "debian mate" over to devuan.

garyz.dev1

Member

From: U.S.-South Carolina

Registered: 2017-06-15

Posts: 89  

Re: Devuan image building tools question

url  MrGreenJeans.net     has a Mate version !!!

shamil

Member

Registered: 2017-06-16

Posts: 10  

Re: Devuan image building tools question

There's also a cheater's way to get what you want.
- mount and copy a netinstall iso
- mount your favorite live-iso
- copy the /live folder to the copy of the netinstall
- edit the boot menus in the copy of the netinstall
- repack the copy into a new iso.

Highlighted in red is the portion that i do not understand. I am assuming that after editing the boot menus in the copy of the netinstall, that this is the portion where the new iso pumped out will know of the presence of the imported live directory.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,486  

Re: Devuan image building tools question

In the isolinux directory, edit menu.cfg to add a line that says "include live.cfg'
and add a file named live.cfg to the same directory with contents

label live
    menu label Live(or some other name)
    kernel /live/vmlinuz
    append initrd=/live/initrd.img boot=live

If you want something other than Graphical Install to be the highlighted choice at the boot menu, remove 'menu default' from gtk.txt and add it to the entry you want to be the default choice.