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> Every operating system can do this, but none of them do it without downloading packages, for good reason. > And "downloading packages" is vague. I agree com
by Ericson2314 6y ago
> Every operating system can do this, but none of them do it without downloading packages, for good reason.
> And "downloading packages" is vague.
I agree completely
> Debian's tools are kinda clunky, but I think the funny thing is that you can ONLY use Debian to build a Debian ISO. Or Debian packages even. How else would you do it ???
So, with Nix (and probably Guix), one can configure the live CD the same way they'd configure a real installation. I think this gives us a way to improve the definition:
1. A distribution where all packages can be built from source or downloaded pre-built
2. installation media can be configured just like the regular installs
3. Customized installer media and reproduce augmented configuration packages in installations without network access
Nix and Guix satisfy all 3 parts of that revised definition.
- chubot 6y agoSo, with Nix (and probably Guix), one can configure the live CD the same way they'd configure a real installation Hm I don't get what this means... Is there a demo or documentation somewhere? I have rebuilt a Debian chroot inside Debian (which I think is pretty much the same process as building an ISO). It's a big shell script that downloads a more-or-less fixed list of .deb files, installs them, and does some fixups.
- Ericson2314 6y agoSee https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Creating_a_NixOS_live_CD https://nixos.wiki/wiki/Creating_a_NixOS_live_CD for a little flavor The > -I nixos-config=iso.nix in > nix-build '<nixpkgs/nixos>' -A config.system.build.isoImage -I nixos-config=iso.nix is basically saying "use this file instead of my regular `/etc/nixos/configuration.nix` entry point". The format of the two however is the same.
- ryukafalz 6y agoI run Guix System on my laptop. To change my system configuration (think installed packages, installed services, users, filesystem mounts, etc) I would run: 'guix system reconfigure ~/guix/system.scm' ...after editing that system config file. To build an ISO image from the same configuration, I would run: 'guix system disk-image ~/guix/system.scm' ...which would build a bootable ISO image of the same configured system. (Obviously I'd need to change things like the filesystem mounts to do this as they're specific to my laptop; it's possible to make more generic configs and inherit them per-machine but I only have one so haven't bothered yet.) Here's the config for my laptop: https://github.com/jfrederickson/dotfiles/blob/master/guix/guix/system.scm https://github.com/jfrederickson/dotfiles/blob/master/guix/g...