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Re: Debian utility live distribution (was Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux)

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Till stretch release, live build did had a standard rescue package.

It's not there anymore.

--sent from OnePlus device--

Check out newly released IIoT Gateway
https://sourceforge.net/projects/iiot-gateway/files/20_may_2020/

On Fri, 12 Jun, 2020, 9:01 AM Ryan Finnie, <ryan@finnie.org> wrote:

> Quoth pabs:
> > On Fri, Jun 5, 2020 at 7:46 PM Philip Hands wrote:
> >
> > > Of course, Grml isn't a direct output of the Debian project, so perhaps
> > > people might take issue with having that as the "Debian Recovery
> > > Option", but it is closely based on Debian, and includes a couple of
> > > ways of installing vanilla Debian, having booted into Grml.
> >
> > Debian used to publish a "recovery" variant of Debian Live, but that
> > was dropped due to lack of maintenance at one point. I note there are
> > several Debian derivatives producing rescue/recovery live media (Grml,
> > rescatux, Finnix come to mind), I wonder if any of them would be
> > interested in forming a new Debian rescue/recovery team to publish
> > console and GUI recovery variants of Debian Live images.
>
> As the developer of Finnix, I'm open to a few ideas and this will be a
> bit of a ramble going off in a few directions.  But first, a bit of an
> introduction.  Finnix is a utility Live CD, in production since 2000[0].
>  I recently released Finnix 120[1] after a 4+ year gap, but thanks to
> the updated work of Debian's live-build by Lyndon Brown making it easier
> to maintain a derivative[2], I've committed to regular releases again.
>
> Finnix's goals are feed into one another:
>
> - Text-based live distribution.
> - Boot to root shell prompt as quickly as possible.
> - As many system utilities as possible.
> - Relatively small size.
>
> Grml's goals are similar but we diverge on a couple of philosophies, but
> that's perfectly fine.  To that end, I think a first-party (to Debian)
> utility live distribution would be fine as well.
>
> Let's say Debian wants to do a utility live distribution, using Finnix's
> goals as a model.  So let's start with a package list, which is simple
> to do based on Finnix's list[3], and could easily become e.g. a
> live-task-utility metapackage to go along with the rest of the
> live-task-* packages.  I would be willing to maintain such a
> metapackage, to keep it from going stale.
>
> Now, pretty much the only other thing the Finnix build repository[4]
> does is execute some hooks; everything else is wrapping live-build.
> Those hooks are[5]:
>
> - systemd: Defines finnix.target.  Also disables as many services as
> possible in the name of speed.  For example lm-sensors.service since
> lm-sensors is installed; the service does nothing in Finnix, but these
> take a bit of time to do nothing and add up.
> - bash-profile: Makes a stylized PS1, couple other aliases/tweaks.
> - distro: Standard derivative distro info diversions.
> - getty: One of the largest changes IMHO.  Strips out the non-superuser
> getty generator and puts in its own getty overrides to go straight to
> root bash prompt.
> - gpm: Sets up and enables a gpm service for useful console mouse access.
> - live-config: Finnix-specific live-config defaults, and disables
> openssh-server key generation (see below).
> - remove-packages: Currently removes rsyslog in favor of having no
> syslog (just systemd's journal).
> - ssh: Overrides ssh.service so key generation is done if the user tries
> to start ssh.service, as opposed to at boot time, saving seconds if the
> user has no intention of starting an SSH server.  Also sets up a
> per-user shared SSH agent, to be shared by the multiple VTYs.
> - s390-kernel: Heh.  Currently a hack to get around s390x kernel + QEMU
> currently being broken in sid[6], it manually downloads a vanilla-ish
> kernel from Ubuntu.
> - recompress: Something hacky that I'm quite proud of: it goes through
> all .gz files in the chroot, decompresses them and recompresses them at
> level 0 (gzip header + original data).  It also needs to mess around
> with the dpkg md5sums as a result.  Why?  mksquashfs xz produces better
> compression than stacked gz + mksquashfs xz, so a larger looking
> internal chroot results in a smaller overall ISO.
>
> Which of those hook modifications would be needed for a Debian utility
> live distribution?  Arguably, none, as they all fall under 1) branding,
> 2) efficiency/speed, or 3) convenience.  IMHO they are all useful to
> Finnix, but some of the features would be nice to upstream to Debian,
> such as the recompression logic, shared console SSH agents, etc.  But I
> imagine things such as an automatic root prompt would be a source of
> contention for an official Debian image, so it would make more sense for
> it to boot into the standard live user.
>
> I would be willing to discuss a utility distribution with Debian Live.
> One complication is the current live builds don't use live-build, but
> instead live-wrapper which AIUI doesn't even use live-build at its core
> anymore.  I certainly haven't had a chance to look at it, nonetheless.
> Currently the sid live-build is the only system I "know", and if I were
> to step up to maintaining a Debian utility live distribution (for
> anything beyond a dependency metapackage), I would need to learn the
> current system.
>
>
> [0] Making it the oldest Live CD still in production, and one of the
> first few full stop, after DemoLinux and LinuxCare's BBC off the top of
> my head.  Maybe Yggdrasil's installer if you want to count that as a
> live disc.  I'm dating myself, aren't I?
> [1] https://www.finnix.org/Finnix_120_release_notes
> [2] Finnix was previously a Debian derivative, but used a completely
> bespoke kernel/initrd/early boot system.  I wrote a bit more about this
> at https://blog.finnix.org/2020/05/19/behind-the-scenes-of-finnix-120/ .
> [3]
>
> https://github.com/finnix/finnix-live-build/blob/master/lists/finnix.list.chroot
> [4] https://github.com/finnix/finnix-live-build
> [5] https://github.com/finnix/finnix-live-build/tree/master/hooks
> [6] https://bugs.debian.org/961838
>
>

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Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Jonathan Carter <jcc@debian.org> - 2020-06-03 18:10 +0200
  Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2020-06-03 18:50 +0200
  Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Felix Lechner <felix.lechner@lease-up.com> - 2020-06-03 19:20 +0200
  Re: FW: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Mark Pearson <markpearson@lenovo.com> - 2020-06-03 20:50 +0200
    Re: FW: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Jonathan Carter <jcc@debian.org> - 2020-06-03 22:50 +0200
      Re: FW: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Mark Pearson <markpearson@lenovo.com> - 2020-06-04 00:10 +0200
        Re: Re: FW: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Hideki Yamane <henrich@iijmio-mail.jp> - 2020-06-05 08:30 +0200
    Re: FW: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Philip Hands <phil@hands.com> - 2020-06-05 21:50 +0200
      Re: FW: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2020-06-06 05:40 +0200
        Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Marc Haber <mh+debian-project@zugschlus.de> - 2020-06-09 17:20 +0200
          Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Jonas Smedegaard <dr@jones.dk> - 2020-06-09 18:20 +0200
          Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux RP <reyadmin@gmail.com> - 2020-06-09 19:30 +0200
            Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Steve McIntyre <steve@einval.com> - 2020-06-09 21:40 +0200
              Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux RP <reyadmin@gmail.com> - 2020-06-10 02:50 +0200
                Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux Michael Kesper <mkesper@schokokeks.org> - 2020-06-10 14:20 +0200
                Re: [External] Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux RP <reyadmin@gmail.com> - 2020-06-10 17:40 +0200
        Re: Debian utility live distribution (was Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux) Harshad Joshi <firewalrus@gmail.com> - 2020-06-12 07:20 +0200
        Re: Debian utility live distribution (was Re: ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux) RP <reyadmin@gmail.com> - 2020-06-12 07:50 +0200
  Debian hardware support and enablement for newer devices (was ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux) Hector Oron <zumbi@debian.org> - 2020-06-04 00:10 +0200
    Re: Debian hardware support and enablement for newer devices (was ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux) Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> - 2020-06-04 05:10 +0200
      Re: Debian hardware support and enablement for newer devices (was ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux) Ansgar <ansgar@debian.org> - 2020-06-05 12:40 +0200
        Re: Debian hardware support and enablement for newer devices (was ThinkPad laptops preinstalled Linux) Noah Meyerhans <noahm@debian.org> - 2020-06-05 19:20 +0200

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