Building a new boot image
-
[LIST=1]
[*][CENTER][URL=‘http://sourceforge.net/users/brycez/’][SIZE=13px][COLOR=#555555]brycez[/COLOR][/SIZE][/URL][URL=‘http://sourceforge.net/users/brycez’][SIZE=13px][COLOR=#0077aa][IMG]http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/77846d7ed0f7675ee6553ce27c377080.png?s=48&r=pg&d=http%3A%2F%2Fa.fsdn.com%2Fsf%2Fimages%2Fdevelop%2Fsf-profile-blank.gif[/IMG][/COLOR][/SIZE][/URL][/CENTER]
[RIGHT]2011-07-15 12:06:24 PDT[/RIGHT]
I am currently in the process of building a new boot image for my FOG implementation to add some functionality (such as fsarchiver, iperf, etc.) but I have been running into issues compiling with buildroot (strange issues most likely a result of my nonexistent experience in building filesystems). One of the options I’ve been considering is modifying tinycore linux to fit my needs, with the added bonus that it has a gui (I have dozens of users who aren’t very familiar with a shell, so building graphical interfaces might cut down on confusion) and presently weighs in at 10MB. I’m wondering if anyone else out there has been doing any heavy modifications to the boot image, or completely replaced it, and what all they’ve done to it (‘how’ would be nice to). I’m also wondering what utilities people might find useful in the boot image. I’ve created other boot options in the past, like booting into Ubuntu mounted over NFS, but this time I’m looking to actually extend the FOG boot image. Any input would be greatly appreciated.
[*][CENTER][URL=‘http://sourceforge.net/users/brycez/’][SIZE=13px][COLOR=#555555]brycez[/COLOR][/SIZE][/URL][URL=‘http://sourceforge.net/users/brycez’][SIZE=13px][COLOR=#0077aa][IMG]http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/77846d7ed0f7675ee6553ce27c377080.png?s=48&r=pg&d=http%3A%2F%2Fa.fsdn.com%2Fsf%2Fimages%2Fdevelop%2Fsf-profile-blank.gif[/IMG][/COLOR][/SIZE][/URL][/CENTER]
[RIGHT]2011-08-17 08:09:48 PDT[/RIGHT]
I’ve built a boot image using MicroCore, the stripped down version of TinyCore, and was able to get it working really well for unicast deployment. It’s fast and clean and simple enough to reproduce (assuming some vague level of general linux knowledge), but I haven’t been able to get UDPcast to compile against it. For some reason GCC complains missing arguments. My team is currently preparing for a mass reimage (around 1200 computers, over 250 locations, 2-3 weeks), so I probably won’t have much time to work on this, but if anyone out there has some experience with compiling on TinyCore and can point me in the right direction that would be great. For the time being we’re going to continue with the official boot image. My goal is to have a completely documented process for rebuilding the boot image with an active distro, hence using TinyCore/MicroCore instead of building a custom OS with Buildroot. One of the big reasons for this is the need to make FOG function over SSL, which requires extended functionality of wget or curl, neither of which is in the standard boot image. Any questions, comments or complaints are welcome.
[*][CENTER][URL=‘http://sourceforge.net/users/brycez/’][SIZE=13px][COLOR=#555555]brycez[/COLOR][/SIZE][/URL][URL=‘http://sourceforge.net/users/brycez’][SIZE=13px][COLOR=#0077aa][IMG]http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/77846d7ed0f7675ee6553ce27c377080.png?s=48&r=pg&d=http%3A%2F%2Fa.fsdn.com%2Fsf%2Fimages%2Fdevelop%2Fsf-profile-blank.gif[/IMG][/COLOR][/SIZE][/URL][/CENTER]
[RIGHT]2011-09-07 12:01:43 PDT[/RIGHT]
About a week or so back I was able to get UDPcast to compile for MicroCore. I was overlooking the compiletc extension requirement for TinyCore/MicroCore. Unfortunately I haven’t had the time to setup a proper test for this, so I can’t say for sure that it is working; I just wanted to put the update out there that I have made some progress on this.
[/LIST] -
I cannot wait until this is up and working.
We need a documented kernel build process
