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idle

Member

Registered: Today

Posts: 2  

Steps required to upgrade the desktop-live .ISO ?

Hello folks,

Requesting help in considering that with this use-case:

• booting from DEVUAN desktop-live .ISO often

• up to several concurrent instances, several times per day

• with zero persistence

and keeping devuan-security in mind, that it might be good to "not wait" for next .ISO release before updating packages.
Also, I suggest that it would "not be sane" to burn up bandwidth by performing apt upgrade upon each boot.

That leads me to believe that several of you must already have a routine for: upgrading the DEVUAN desktop-live .ISO

So let us say that the upgrade will be done from "inside" the booted .ISO and that we expect the high-level steps to include:

• Burn to DVD the latest DEVUAN desktop-live .ISO file. (or write it to USB) https://www.devuan.org/get-devuan

• Boot computer (or virtual-machine) from this new DEVUAN desktop-live media.

• If not already connected, insert some storage-media with enough free space for a copy of the new filesystem and an .ISO file.

• Connect to network (INTERNET)

• To update the operating-system, open Terminal Emulator and run:

  sudo apt -y update && sudo apt -y upgrade

• Optionally pause here to make more changes: add/remove packages; update settings to personal-preferences, e.g. browser-configuration; add files; etc.

• Then to create an .ISO of this improved state of the operating-system, open Terminal Emulator and run:

  sudo refractasnapshot

• Burn to DVD the freshly-upgraded DEVUAN desktop-live .ISO file. (or write it to USB)

(I've spent a bit of time trying the above, and have learned that it is not quite as simple as stated, e.g. issues with updating kernel and initramfs; minor-changes required in /etc/refractsnapshot.conf; ...???...)

So I ask those in-the-know, if you could please share the complete steps.  Or bring forward any helpful hints.  Thanking you in advance.

Separately, if there is any how-to info out there on doing automated builds of the desktop-live .ISO, please share those links here as well.

Last edited by idle (Today 03:55:43)

idle

Member

Registered: Today

Posts: 2  

Re: Steps required to upgrade the desktop-live .ISO ?

(inb4 Fred posts his "two ways to make a live-iso" links)

found several forum-links pointing to fsmithred's topic: Make a live-CD with live-sdk

• While not an answer to the immediate question, it is one possible solution to the problem at hand.

continuing...

Last edited by idle (Today 04:32:02)

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,895  

Re: Steps required to upgrade the desktop-live .ISO ?

live-sdk downloads all the packages every time it runs. If you have a fast internet connection, that's not bad. It's especially good if you want to make several isos with different content. You just use different config files for the different builds. The downside is that if there's anything wrong in the build setup, or if you list a package to be installed when that package doesn't exist, the whole build fails and you have to start it again.

My preferred workflow is to install a system into a VM and make the snapshot there. Then I can upgrade the VM any time I want and make a new iso. It doesn't have to download the whole system every time.

Then, if I want to use a live, read-only system, I just boot the iso file inside a VM and use that. Then I don't have to reboot the computer to switch to read-only. When the VM shuts down, everything from that session is gone.