mkimage-profiles(7)

MKIMAGE-PROFILES(mkimage-profiles)

NAME

mkimage-profiles - ALT distribution family metaprofile

SYNOPSIS

make [options] [ <goal> ... ]

DESCRIPTION

mkimage-profiles builds operating environment images based on ALT package repositories.

Run make help to obtain list of available goals.

PREREQUISITES

mkimage-profiles only needs make(1) and rsync(1) to generate the build profile; mkimage is used to actually run the build (which involves hasher(7) quite a few times).

git(1) will be used if available so that the generated profile is an annotated git repository; graphviz(1) can be used to obtain build dependency graphs.

RATIONALE

Long time ago when Linux distribution images were worked upon by hand there was little need for generalization and sharing the common base.

Building several "generic" ALT{, Linux} distros in a team and maintaining their educational flavours at the same time proved the need to be able to describe what's common and what's different in a way that doesn't resemble more or less complete forks.

Enter mkimage-profiles: choose what's closest to your dream image and add what's missing, or roll on your own using the rich library of existing parts and bits.

REQUIREMENTS

The next-generation image build system for ALT must:

1.: provide reasonable means to describe common/differing aspects within image families;
2.: ensure reproducible build results;
3.: support distribution family maintenance workflows observed in the wild (e.g., with mkimage-profiles-desktop or earlier);
4.: help out with diagnosing build problems.

ARCHITECTURE

mkimage-profiles implements four steps to achieve the above goals:

1.: initialize the off-tree mkimage profile (BUILDDIR);
2.: build up distribution's configuration there;
3.: copy over the needed subprofiles/features/lists/groups;
4.: build the ISO/VE/VM image.

This results in a compact "as-needed" style per-image profile that can be actually studied in a short amount of time and might get included into the generated image as a tarball for better reproducibility.

EXAMPLES

make syslinux.iso should result in a minimal bootable ISO image.

Another example is Regular Builds project yielding weekly images: https://en.altlinux.org/regular

AUTHOR

Written by Michael Shigorin <mike@altlinux.org>, Anton Midyukov <antohami@altlinux.org>

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to https://bugzilla.altlinux.org
(Sisyphus project, mkimage-profiles component).

COPYRIGHT

Copyright ©) 2010-2020 Michael Shigorin <mike@altlinux.org>, 2020-2024 Anton Midyukov <antohami@altlinux.org>
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO WARRANTY; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.