[freegeek-distro] howto: freekbox3 installer with simple-cdd

[Vagrant Cascadian]

i just wanted to document the process for using simple-cdd to make a
debian-installer CD for the freekbox3

here we go!

this assumes you have a debian sarge system, and sarge is still not yet
released as "stable" (groan).  it should probably also work on a
sid/unstable system, but no guarantees :)

simple-cdd needs a few packages installed to work properly:

apt-get install subversion rsync debian-cd

from unstable, you need to get a package that isn't yet in sarge:

wget http://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/d/debpartial-mirror/debpartial-mirror_0.2.10_all.deb

dpkg -i debpartial-mirror_0.2.10_all.deb

(if a newer version is available, grab that instead, unless it's 0.2.90
or newer)

for those who use pinning(you know who you are), you can simply do this:

apt-get -t unstable install debpartial-mirror


now we need to get simple-cdd:

svn co svn://svn.debian.org/svn/debian-np/people/vagrant/simple-cdd

change to the newly created directory:

cd simple-cdd


edit the CONF.sh file:

change:

profiles="default freekbox3"

uncomment(and change to use appropriate language/country settings):

export KERNEL_PARAMS="preseed/file=/cdrom/simple-cdd/default.preseed languagechooser/language-name=English countrychooser/shortlist=US"

change debpartial_debian_mirror to use a mirror close to you(or leave as
the default):

debpartial_debian_mirror="http://debian.oregonstate.edu/debian/"

edit the profiles/default.preseed file to change some default values:

simple-cdd simple-cdd/profiles multiselect default freekbox3
d-i netcfg/get_hostname string freekbox
d-i netcfg/get_domain string 
console-data console-data/keymap/qwerty/layout select US american
console-data console-data/keymap/family select qwerty
console-common console-data/keymap/family select qwerty
# change to your timezone
base-config tzconfig/choose_country_zone/US select Pacific

alright, enough of that, let's build the CD image!

./build-simple-cdd

depending on the speed of your internet connection, this will take a
while- it needs to download around 600MB of files and packages.  you
might want to use a proxy (such as squid) and set http_proxy in CONF.sh
to reduce the amount of time to re-download new packages.

when all is said and done, you should have a shiny new CD image in the
"images" directory!

i highly recommend testing it with qemu before burning to CD, there are
instructions for how to do this in the README, as well as a bunch of
other potentially useful information.

good luck!

live well,
  vagrant
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