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Linux-factory: A framework used to create custom Linux Debian operating systems

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Re: Linux-factory: A framework used to create custom Linux Debian operating systems

#24

It's like Yocto but made saner (although with less options)

Yocto is fine if you are using a SOM and the vendor provides a yocto BSP. If are building your own board and developing a BSP, Yocto is a nightmare peeling away the onion layers. I find Buildroot much saner and easier to work with.

I completely agree; I worked on a project with a custom board and we tried Yocto at first because the silicon vendor pushed it, and it was indeed a complete nightmare. We finally switched to Buildroot and life was much easier.

Re: Linux-factory: A framework used to create custom Linux Debian operating systems

#25

It's like Yocto but made saner (although with less options)

Yocto is fine if you are using a SOM and the vendor provides a yocto BSP. If are building your own board and developing a BSP, Yocto is a nightmare peeling away the onion layers. I find Buildroot much saner and easier to work with.

IMO those are quite different.

I see buildroot for making a firmware, in the sense that I ship a bunch of tools that will run on a device (and I can flash updates).

Yocto is there to build a distro, where you have to manage packages, and potentially other people will be developing for it.

Of course if Yocto is overkill in your case, then buildroot will probably be a better fit.

Re: Linux-factory: A framework used to create custom Linux Debian operating systems

#26
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything with a learning curve steeper than "throw your files in a Dockerfile and call it a day" unfortunately tends to be considered "not sane". There is a whole market when it comes to making new tools for people who "don't have the time to RTFM". And then for tools helping to use those tools. (To be clear: I really like Yocto)

Any recommendations on getting started with Yocto? I want to build a custom image for a Jetson, and Yocto seems like the only good option.

https://github.com/OE4T/meta-tegra/

Re: Linux-factory: A framework used to create custom Linux Debian operating systems

#29
post #5

This sounds like something I'd be very interested in, though I'm not sure what it is. It'd be great if I could easily customize Debian (i3, vim, zsh, chrome, etc.) and distribute / share it with others. But I'm not sure what this does and cannot tell even after reading the first few sections of the README.

See also https://www.refracta.org/docs/readme.refractasnapshot.txt

Ah, very cool. Thank you :)

Re: Linux-factory: A framework used to create custom Linux Debian operating systems

#30

I prefer the approach of AntiX and MX Linux. Start from a clean live distro, mod it to your taste, master it to a new Live ISO. You can also start from a normal MX/antiX system and make a live ISO backup. You can also install those ISOs. Systemd is optional on MX and disabled by default. LOTS of live and remaster options on those systems. I find myself more on live than on installed systems now. It's basically like w…

If anyone wants to build with/atop Debian Live, I did a couple projects years ago where I wrote wrappers that might still be good starting points:

* LilDeb, a USB multi-tool designed for 256MB (like when you couldn't find a Linux box, but you could find a Windows PC), with careful separation between read-only OS, ephemeral data, and persistent data. One shell script builds the entire thing, including the various config files. https://www.neilvandyke.org/lildeb/

* Rackout, start to a living room media appliance project that was going to provide some examples for my (abandoned) Racket book. If you happen to want to use Racket to do things like repartition a disk or build a distro image, some of the libraries I wrote might come in handy. https://www.neilvandyke.org/rackout/

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