Ubuntu derivatives : howto ?

[Colin Watson]

On Thu, Nov 25, 2004 at 10:41:16PM +0100, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 07:44:48PM +0000, Colin Watson <cjwatson at canonical.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, Nov 22, 2004 at 04:49:00PM +0100, Lucas Nussbaum wrote:
> > > - A custom list of packages
> > 
> > Modify debootstrap-udeb for the base system. For the desktop, either
> > change the packages that have "Task: ubuntu-desktop" lines in
> > /dists/warty/main/binary-$ARCH/Packages* (fiddly) or modify base-config
> > (lib/menu/pkgsel).
> 
> If I :
> - modify ubuntu-desktop so that it depends on the "my-pkgs-list" package
> - create "my-pkgs-list", and add dependancies to all the packages I need
> 
> Wouldn't it work ?

No, because base-config installs the ubuntu-desktop task, not the
ubuntu-desktop package. (We keep the two in sync.)

I would recommend not modifying the ubuntu-desktop package, because that
will create upgrade issues if somebody wants to upgrade from one of your
CDs to plain Ubuntu. Just have base-config install the extra packages
you want.

> From debian-cd's POV, it will work, since it checks for dependancies.

Not in our installation; we have a tool called germinate that works out
what should be on the CD, and we disable debian-cd's
dependency-checking.

> But if I understand the solutions you proposed correctly, the installer
> doesn't handle dependancies, right ?

That depends what you mean. debootstrap doesn't, but you didn't seem to
be talking about that.

> > That feature was committed to Debian too late for Warty, but it's
> > already in Hoary. Hoary is unlikely to be suitable for you yet, though.
> > 
> > You'll need to add ntfstools-udeb, and probably backport most of
> > partman. Taking all the partman* packages from Hoary might well be the
> > simplest approach; they should work as long as you take the lot.
> 
> How would you recommend to do this ? put them manually in the pool and
> edit dists/warty/main/debian-installer/binary-i386/Packages by hand ?

That's one way, but if you're rebuilding the CD anyway then just put
them in the local tree and let debian-cd take care of that.

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                    [cjwatson at canonical.com]