[Voyage-linux] voyage_custom.sh suggestions

[Danny Adair]

Hello,

(Note: I'm talking about voyage-current, not 0.2)

Background: I would like to have an automated build of a USB flash
drive booting Linux together with a newly developed application
(checked out from my SVN repository). My focus is on minimizing the
customizations (also in SVN), and Voyage Linux together with its new
customization framework seemed the ideal platform.

I've been installing Voyage Linux on a USB flash drive repeatedly now. :-)

I do have some suggestions for voyage_update.sh (to accomodate for the
quite different installation procedure - see
http://wiki.voyage.hk/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=how_do_i_install_voyage_on_a_usb_flash_drive
- namely putting /boot to the grub partition and adjusting all
relevant config files), but I'm currently using a post-installation
workaround which is quite painless.

But voyage_custom.sh still gives me some headaches.
I know it's still in active development, so here are some suggestions
from my experiences in the last days:

- apt sources: Although I adjust conf/apt.conf, packages are installed
from the .hk mirror - sources.list is updated later.

- Package cache: It would be nice to have a local apt cache for
repeated builds. I understand that apt/dpkg is run in the chroot
environment, so the package cache would have to be provided by
overlay_fs.

- (related) Local Debian packages: It would be nice if conf/dpkg-i.lst
allowed for local .deb files to be referenced, i.e. without wget.
Ideally these could be provided by overlay_fs (how could subsequent
deletion of the .deb file be configured?).
That way I could throw in my customized kernel package from
http://wiki.voyage.hk/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=how_do_i_install_voyage_on_a_usb_flash_drive
and automate such a customized installation (with exception of grub, see above)
The goal here is to allow for an offline build/installation which can
be a big performance plus when building repeatedly.
(Mmh, in the special case of the kernel package, conf/kernel.conf
seems to be the right place - example?).

- Documentation: scripts/chroot.d from the "mesh" example is not
documented in http://wiki.voyage.hk/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=customization.
Also, it would be nice to see the sequence in which the customization
steps are performed.

Cheers,
Danny