replacing grml-debootstrap / debos build platform

This may be useful for simplifying the build script and/or supporting arm builds.

debos - a rootless alternative to debootstrap that can create images for all the architectures supported by qemu user.

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I don’t think we are remotely close to having reached a dead-end with grml-debootstrap yet.

There is a ton of such tools.

https://wiki.debian.org/SystemBuildTools

There are two sorts of VM image creation tools:

  • [A] those that use virtualiaztion, boot the image and do things
  • [B] those that use chroot (or maybe systemd-spawn)

[A] is a very big deal breaker due to files being created during boot such as entropy seeds and whatnot. Much less clean. Not suitable for redistribution.

In either case we’d have to diff:

  • the image created by grml-debootstrap vs the new tool.
  • create an image twice using the new tool and viewing the diff.

Related:

debos uses fakemachine a library that setups qemu-system allowing you to work in the image

That sounds like [A].

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Great explanation. I want to link it to a dev page FAQ.

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grml-debootstrap also works mostly for arm if you use qemu-debootstrap in the config file or DEBOOTSTRAP variable.

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OK added to wiki.

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Debian security advises not implemented in whonix (discussion/clarification) - #3 by Patrick

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Partially related, is there any documentation for custom builds? I looked around a bit but found nothing on how to build with custom packages, etc.

Is reading a few thousand lines of bash a requirement to get started?

Probably unrelated to grml-debootstrap. More of a question how to customize derivative-maker.

What kind of package? Package from packages.debian.org, third-party repository, Debian package built from source code, …?

http://forums.dds6qkxpwdeubwucdiaord2xgbbeyds25rbsgr73tbfpqpt4a6vjwsyd.onion/t/building-qubes-whonix-workstation/17684

Then this is unrelated to grml-debootstrap because the Qubes build process is based on Qubes builder which doesn’t use grml-debootstrap at time of writing.

Only Non-Qubes-Whonix build process which is based on derivative-maker is using grml-debootstrap.

I’ll reply your other forum thread.