posts/catalyst.mdwn

   1 [[!template id=gitrepo repo=catalyst-swc]]
   2
   3 [Catalyst][] is a release-building tool for Gentoo.  If you use Gentoo
   4 and want to roll your own live CD or bootable USB drive, this is the
   5 way to go.  As I've been wrapping my head around catalyst, I've been
   6 [pushing][catalyst-spec-mail] [my][catalyst-spec] [notes][howto-mail]
   7 [upstream][howto].  This post builds on those notes to discuss the
   8 construction of [a bootable ISO][iso] for [Software Carpentry][swc]
   9 boot camps.
  10
  11 Getting a patched up catalyst
  12 =============================
  13
  14 Catalyst has been around for a while, but the user base has been
  15 fairly small.  If you try to do something that [Gentoo's Release
  16 Engineering team][releng] doesn't do on a regular basis, built in
  17 catalyst support can be spotty.  There's been a fair amount of patch
  18 submissions an [gentoo-catalyst@][] recently, but patch acceptance can
  19 be slow.  For the SWC ISO, I applied versions of the following patches
  20 (or patch series) to [37540ff][]:
  21
  22 * [chmod +x all sh scripts so they can run from the git checkout][chmod]
  23 * [livecdfs-update.sh: Set XSESSION in /etc/env.d/90xsession][90xsession]
  24 * [Fix livecdfs-update.sh startx handling][startx]
  25
  26 Configuring catalyst
  27 ====================
  28
  29 The easiest way to run catalyst from a Git checkout is to setup a
  30 [local config file][config].  I didn't have enough hard drive space on
  31 my local system (~16 GB) for this build, so I set things up in a
  32 temporary directory on an external hard drive:
  33
  34     $ cat catalyst.conf | grep -v '^#\|^$'
  35     digests="md5 sha1 sha512 whirlpool"
  36     contents="auto"
  37     distdir="/usr/portage/distfiles"
  38     envscript="/etc/catalyst/catalystrc"
  39     hash_function="crc32"
  40     options="autoresume kerncache pkgcache seedcache snapcache"
  41     portdir="/usr/portage"
  42     sharedir="/home/wking/src/catalyst"
  43     snapshot_cache="/mnt/d/tmp/catalyst/snapshot_cache"
  44     storedir="/mnt/d/tmp/catalyst"
  45
  46 I used the default values for everything except `sharedir`,
  47 `snapshot_cache`, and `storedir`.  Then I cloned the `catalyst-swc`
  48 repository into `/mnt/d/tmp/catalyst`.
  49
  50 Portage snapshot and a seed stage
  51 =================================
  52
  53 Take a snapshot of the current Portage tree:
  54
  55     # catalyst -c catalyst.conf --snapshot 20130208
  56
  57 Download a seed stage3 from a [Gentoo mirror][mirror]:
  58
  59     # wget -O /mnt/d/tmp/catalyst/builds/default/stage3-i686-20121213.tar.bz2 \
  60     >   http://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/x86/current-stage3/stage3-i686-20121213.tar.bz2
  61
  62 Building the live CD
  63 ====================
  64
  65     # catalyst -c catalyst.conf -f /mnt/d/tmp/catalyst/spec/default-stage1-i686-2013.1.spec
  66     # catalyst -c catalyst.conf -f /mnt/d/tmp/catalyst/spec/default-stage2-i686-2013.1.spec
  67     # catalyst -c catalyst.conf -f /mnt/d/tmp/catalyst/spec/default-stage3-i686-2013.1.spec
  68     # catalyst -c catalyst.conf -f /mnt/d/tmp/catalyst/spec/default-livecd-stage1-i686-2013.1.spec
  69     # catalyst -c catalyst.conf -f /mnt/d/tmp/catalyst/spec/default-livecd-stage2-i686-2013.1.spec
  70
  71 isohybrid
  72 =========
  73
  74 To make the ISO bootable from a USB drive, I used [isohybrid][]:
  75
  76     # cp swc-x86.iso swc-x86-isohybrid.iso
  77     # isohybrid iso-x86-isohybrid.iso
  78
  79 You can install the resulting ISO on a USB drive with:
  80
  81     # dd if=iso-x86-isohybrid.iso of=/dev/sdX
  82
  83 replacing replacing `X` with the appropriate drive letter for your USB
  84 drive.
  85
  86 With versions of catalyst after [d1c2ba9][], the `isohybrid` call is
  87 built into catalysts ISO construction.
  88
  89 [Catalyst]: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/releng/catalyst/
  90 [catalyst-spec-mail]:http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.catalyst/2006
  91 [catalyst-spec]: http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/catalyst.git;a=commit;h=0a99c494d4602ebb92f6d352f86ec519903fdc88
  92 [howto-mail]: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.catalyst/2107
  93 [howto]: http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/catalyst.git;a=commit;h=b7f2cf0f4c34af8d2dd9dcfa186930c17323e298
  94 [iso]: http://lists.software-carpentry.org/pipermail/discuss-software-carpentry.org/2013-March/000210.html
  95 [swc]: http://software-carpentry.org/
  96 [releng]: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/releng/
  97 [gentoo-catalyst@]: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/lists.xml#doc_chap1_sect2
  98 [37540ff]: http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/catalyst.git;a=commit;h=37540ff5e9db28e65a4f55b71c16cec1e7d294ec
  99 [chmod]: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.catalyst/2085/focus=2093
 100 [90xsession]: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.catalyst/2182
 101 [startx]: http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.catalyst/2187/focus=2191
 102 [config]: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.gentoo.catalyst/2111
 103 [mirror]: http://www.gentoo.org/main/en/mirrors.xml
 104 [isohybrid]: http://www.syslinux.org/wiki/index.php/Doc/isolinux#HYBRID_CD-ROM.2FHARD_DISK_MODE
 105 [d1c2ba9]: http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/catalyst.git;a=commit;h=d1c2ba9bdaf1a69078fcbcd6ec4210e829f99f0a
 106
 107 [[!tag tags/tools]]
 108 [[!tag tags/teaching]]