Knoppix

[Brian Kelsay]

>>> "Brian Densmore" <DensmoreB at ctbsonline.com> 08/12/04 01:22PM >>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Brian Kelsay
>> 
>> An online LiveCD builder would be sweet.  I think I heard 
>>  some guys were working on something like this.  I've seen a 
>>  couple of websites that build a custom firewall floppy.  If 
>>  you had a full Debian mirror available and have the web app 
>> add the selected programs to a group that is in turn fed to 
>>  cloop to compress and then fed to mkisofs, then have it save 
>>  to a new directory that has your name from the online form, 
>>  then email you when it was done with the path to the new iso. 
>> Any of you programmers want to take this on?
>> Could Java do this?  I think so.  Or a php or python script.  
>>  Making the user interface would probably be the hardest part.

>I've got a few ideas on this. I was thinking, of building a page where
>users select several types of things. Like:
>+----- Desktop ----------------------+
>| [] I want a lightweight desktop   |
>| [] I want a fullblown desktop      |
>| [] I want no desktop                   |
>+--------------------------------------+
> etc. 
>
>Then I could have a couple of premade iso directories and also some 
>"package groups" of certain apps. Then when the user has selected
>all of the families they want I could add to the basic iso with the custom
>apps. I'm not sure you can actually add to an iso or not. But then
>you could have a small group of premade iso's and rather quickly build
>complete isos. Of course, you would also want to have an "expert let me
>pick everything" option. Which of course you'd want to build a drop down
>list based on standard categories (net,core,multimedia,X,etc.)

In a script, you will most likely not want unpack and repack an iso image (too much time and CPU).  
 I like the idea of the  base images (that's what Morphix does).  Now you would want the list of 
apps in those premade iso files to be editable by the user choice portion of the program and build 
the iso from scratch.  This would help to build the iso from the latest version of each app in the 
repository, unless you wanted the packages to stay frozen for some reason.  Each category would add 
preselected packages to the list and then the user expert mode would edit the final list.  I wonder 
if dependencies would still be met in this fashion.  You will probably want to tie in to dpkg or 
apt with your script.  Look at how the current Debian Net installer works.  It doesn't build an ISO 
on the fly, but allows the lang. choice and package choice.  maybe you just need to add the ISO 
creation to the end of that rather than have it install to HDD and remove their GUI front-end for a 
web-based one.  Or tie-in to theirs with the web front-end if possible.   The Progeny kickstart 
project might be another avenue.  They have been altering the Redhat mass installer to work w/ 
.debs and a Debian system.  Kickstart is basically scripting for repetitive, duplicate installs.
 
>> Brian, which version did you try to install to disk?  I used 
>> 3.4 - 5/17/2004 and it worked fine. I have had to tweak the 
>> /etc/apt/sources.list to make it point to US mirrors and drop 
>> some of the weird apt-pinnings.  It has one of the most 

>It was 3.1 or 3.2 I think, but I'm fairly sure I did something wrong.
>I currently have Mepis Linux installed on my systems at home. Except for
>the firewall, which is a hardened linux. Mepis is like Knoppix-lite.
>It installs some things I don't like though, and have been stripping
>them out slowly, but unfortunately it's leaving dangling particles everywhere.
>It also highly customized some of the debian packages.

I like Mepis.  I don't like Kopete or IIRSSI or whatever that IRC client is called.   I think I 
told you before that they turn off some of the bells and whistles that Knoppix has on by default.  
I  know they customized some of the packages.  If you used one of the beta versions, expect some 
change before the final version.  Due to the way they run when Live, some packages must be altered 
to run and a lot of times the man pages are left out to save space.  An apt-get update && apt-get 
upgrade should fix most of that.

>I speak a little German,
>Ein, Zwei, Drei, Bier!

I've been Verschlunging my way through it.

Brian Kelsay