[Gnewsense-dev] Re: gen-livecd failure

[Simon Josefsson]

Karl Goetz <address@hidden> writes:

>> Hi!  I've successfully built a distribution using do-update on a
>> machine running gnewsense 2.2.  No additional packages were needed
>> beyond those mentioned under 'Step 3' on
>> <http://www.gnewsense.org/Builder/HowToCreateYourOwnGNULinuxDistribution>
>> so the instructions seems fine to me.
>
> Glad to hear. They do need lots of updating, as the last time i fixed
> them was probaby > 40 code commits ago.

Ok.

Btw, step 5 was a bit confusing, as you can't really leave REPOAPT
alone.  Although if we modify builder/config, the wiki page will be
correct... So how about using $DISTRONAME_L instead of gnewsense in more
places?  And using the same URL to the ubuntu repository as is suggested
on the wiki page.  Something like this:

Index: config
===================================================================
--- config      (revision 241)
+++ config      (working copy)
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
 
 ## UPSTREAM
 # Where to get upstream packages from. Currently only supports http
-MIRROR=http://localhost/~bbrazil/srv/ubuntu
+MIRROR=http://localhost/ubuntu
 MIRRORDIST=hardy
 
 ## DISTRO SPECIFIC CONFIGURATION
@@ -45,10 +45,10 @@
 
 ## MID STREAM
 # Where things go on the filesystem
-BASEDIR=/srv/gnewsense
+BASEDIR=/srv/$DISTRONAME_L
 
 # Where the buildscripts and livecd pull sources from
-REPOAPT=http://127.0.0.1/~bbrazil/srv/gnewsense/gnewsense
+REPOAPT=http://127.0.0.1/$DISTRONAME_L/$DISTRONAME_L
 
 ## LIVE CD
 LIVECD_VERSION=2.2
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@
 # Security host will be security.$DOMAIN and CC.security.$DOMAIN
 # Launchpad queries are redirected to lp.$DOMAIN
 # Bittorrent will use http://torrent.$DOMAIN:6969/announce
-DOMAIN=gnewsense.org
+DOMAIN=$DISTRONAME_L.org
 
 # Optional bittorrent announce list (btmakemetafile.bittornado --help)
 BITTORRENT_ANNOUNCE_LIST=''

>> The only problem was that the postix package asked me a debconf
>> question, despite the DEBIAN_PRIORITY=critical in update-chroot.  I
>> assume that is a postfix packaging bug?  I chose 'No configuration'.
>
> Theres a bug about this at http://bugs.gnewsense.org/Bugs/00274

Ok great.  I've mentioend the workaround in case others run into this.

>> However, using gen-livecd fails, see output below.  Any ideas?  There
>
> This is bug http://bugs.gnewsense.org/Bugs/00275
> The META_*  namespace used to have a mix of hard coded gnewsense and
> ${DISTRONAME_L}. We (well, I) decided to change them all to
> ${DISTRONAME_L}. Since the custom packages are stored in
> packages/deltah/ and are all hard coded to *gnewsense* by changing from
> 'gnewsense' as $DISTRONAME_L without renaming those dirs you lack
> distro specific branding, and the cd wont build.
> This is just my understanding, I havent tested this heavily to confirm.
>
>> is no package gnonsense-desktop package as far as I can tell.  Btw, my
>> distribution is called 'gNonSense'.  Two gnonsense packages appears to
>> have been built by do-update:
>
> Its because your distro isn't called 'gnewsense' (see above)

Yes, I see why this happens now...

I think the best thing would be if the artwork was auto-generated from
the distroname, at least when possible.  Thoughts?

A first attempt at a workaround is this to 

1) copy the gnewsense packages under packages/ to new name with your
   distro name in it
2) replace all occurrences of the package new in file contents and
   file names in the new directories

I've run do-update successfully with this, and gen-livecd is currently
working past the older problem.

I guess some of the images under packages/ are gnewsense-specific, but
at least the above means I get a CD image.  Branding can always be
improved later...

Hm.  Maybe the above is too complex, and the simplest solution is to
revert the change to config that used $DISTRONAME_L in the package
names.  The package names are hard coded in the paths today anyway, so
the change to config is an half-baked solution.  Then the packages under
packages/ can be seen to apply to all gnewsense-derived distributions?
Of course, then the question is where to put artwork specific for my
distribution...  maybe auto-generating artwork is the right approach
anyway?

/Simon