Debian Live Manual

About

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About this manual

• 1.About this manual
  • 1.1 For the impatient
  • 1.2 Terms
  • 1.3 Authors
  • 1.4 Contributing to this document
    • 1.4.1 Applying changes
    • 1.4.2 Translation

About the Debian Live Project

• 2.About the Debian Live Project
  • 2.1 Motivation
    • 2.1.1 What is wrong with current live systems
    • 2.1.2 Why create our own live system?
  • 2.2 Philosophy
    • 2.2.1 Only unchanged packages from Debian “main”
    • 2.2.2 No package configuration of the live system
  • 2.3 Contact

User

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Installation

• 3.Installation
  • 3.1 Requirements
  • 3.2 Installing live-build
    • 3.2.1 From the Debian repository
    • 3.2.2 From source
  • 3.3 Installing live-boot and live-config
    • 3.3.1 From the Debian repository
    • 3.3.2 From source

The basics

• 4.The basics
  • 4.1 What is a live system?
  • 4.2 First steps: building an ISO hybrid image
  • 4.3 Using an ISO hybrid live image
    • 4.3.1 Burning an ISO image to a physical medium
    • 4.3.2 Copying an ISO hybrid image to a USB stick
    • 4.3.3 Using the space left on a USB stick
    • 4.3.4 Booting the live medium
  • 4.4 Using a virtual machine for testing
    • 4.4.1 Testing an ISO image with QEMU
    • 4.4.2 Testing an ISO image with VirtualBox
  • 4.5 Building and using an HDD image
  • 4.6 Building a netboot image
    • 4.6.1 DHCP server
    • 4.6.2 TFTP server
    • 4.6.3 NFS server
    • 4.6.4 Netboot testing HowTo
    • 4.6.5 Qemu
  • 4.7 Webbooting
    • 4.7.1 Getting the webboot files
    • 4.7.2 Booting webboot images

Overview of tools

• 5.Overview of tools
  • 5.1 The live-build package
    • 5.1.1 The lb config command
    • 5.1.2 The lb build command
    • 5.1.3 The lb clean command
  • 5.2 The live-boot package
  • 5.3 The live-config package

Managing a configuration

• 6.Managing a configuration
  • 6.1 Dealing with configuration changes
    • 6.1.1 Why use auto scripts? What do they do?
    • 6.1.2 Use example auto scripts
  • 6.2 Clone a configuration published via Git

Customizing contents

• 7.Customization overview
  • 7.1 Build time vs. boot time configuration
  • 7.2 Stages of the build
  • 7.3 Supplement lb config with files
  • 7.4 Customization tasks

Customizing package installation

• 8.Customizing package installation
  • 8.1 Package sources
    • 8.1.1 Distribution, archive areas and mode
    • 8.1.2 Distribution mirrors
    • 8.1.3 Distribution mirrors used at build time
    • 8.1.4 Distribution mirrors used at run time
    • 8.1.5 Additional repositories
  • 8.2 Choosing packages to install
    • 8.2.1 Package lists
    • 8.2.2 Using metapackages
    • 8.2.3 Local package lists
    • 8.2.4 Local binary package lists
    • 8.2.5 Generated package lists
    • 8.2.6 Using conditionals inside package lists
    • 8.2.7 Removing packages at install time
    • 8.2.8 Desktop and language tasks
    • 8.2.9 Kernel flavour and version
    • 8.2.10 Custom kernels
  • 8.3 Installing modified or third-party packages
    • 8.3.1 Using packages.chroot to install custom packages
    • 8.3.2 Using an APT repository to install custom packages
    • 8.3.3 Custom packages and APT
  • 8.4 Configuring APT at build time
    • 8.4.1 Choosing apt or aptitude
    • 8.4.2 Using a proxy with APT
    • 8.4.3 Tweaking APT to save space
    • 8.4.4 Passing options to apt or aptitude
    • 8.4.5 APT pinning

Customizing contents

• 9.Customizing contents
  • 9.1 Includes
    • 9.1.1 Live/chroot local includes
    • 9.1.2 Binary local includes
  • 9.2 Hooks
    • 9.2.1 Chroot local hooks
    • 9.2.2 Binary local hooks
    • 9.2.3 Boot-time hooks
  • 9.3 Preseeding Debconf questions

Customizing run time behaviours

• 10.Customizing run time behaviours
  • 10.1 Customizing the live user
  • 10.2 Customizing locale and language
  • 10.3 Persistence
    • 10.3.1 The persistence.conf file
    • 10.3.2 Using more than one persistence store
    • 10.3.3 Using persistence with encryption

Customizing the binary image

• 11.Customizing the binary image
  • 11.1 Bootloaders
  • 11.2 ISO metadata

Customizing Debian Installer

• 12.Customizing Debian Installer
  • 12.1 Types of Debian Installer
  • 12.2 Customizing Debian Installer by preseeding
  • 12.3 Customizing Debian Installer content

Project

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Contributing to the project

• 13.Contributing to the project
  • 13.1 Translation of man pages

Reporting bugs

• 14.Reporting bugs
  • 14.1 Known issues
  • 14.2 Do the research
  • 14.3 Rebuild from scratch
  • 14.4 Use up-to-date packages
  • 14.5 Collect information
  • 14.6 Isolate the failing case if possible
  • 14.7 Use the correct package to report the bug against
    • 14.7.1 At build time while bootstrapping
    • 14.7.2 At build time while installing packages
    • 14.7.3 At boot time
    • 14.7.4 At run time
  • 14.8 Where to report bugs

Coding Style

• 15.Coding Style
  • 15.1 Compatibility
  • 15.2 Indenting
  • 15.3 Wrapping
  • 15.4 Variables
  • 15.5 Miscellaneous

Examples

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Examples

• 16.Examples
  • 16.1 Using the examples
  • 16.2 Tutorial 1: A default image
  • 16.3 Tutorial 2: A web browser utility
  • 16.4 Tutorial 3: A personalized image
    • 16.4.1 First revision
    • 16.4.2 Second revision
  • 16.5 A VNC Kiosk Client
  • 16.6 A minimal image for a 256MB USB key
  • 16.7 A localized GNOME desktop and installer

Appendix

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Style guide

• 17.Style guide
  • 17.1 Guidelines for authors
    • 17.1.1 Linguistic features
    • 17.1.2 Procedures
  • 17.2 Guidelines for translators
    • 17.2.1 Translation hints

@Update for 2023.