Minimal Raspbian build using live-build

[simonpoole]

I've been experimenting with Debian's "live-build" tool to build a bootable minimal Raspbian-based disk image, and I thought it was worth sharing.

Build code:
https://github.com/simonpoole1/raspbian-live-build
Example disk image (tested only on my own model-B Pi so far):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m9rbkou09gb9f ... 1.img?dl=0

It's built using the raspbian.org and raspberrypi.org APT repositories, so it's the exact same software you get in a Raspbian image - just less of it. It's trivial to configure a list of packages to include in the build (see the README).

It's installed into a read-only Squashfs image, with a non-persistent read-write overlay (in-memory using aufs), but it should be possible to tweak the build to use a persistent overlay.

The image currently includes:
* The PI firmware/bootloader
* The very miminal core of Raspian - the basic Debian packages you need for a working OS plus apt-get.
* Basic networking tools (e.g. ifconfig, dhclient, ifup)
* rpi-update

It boots to a command-line login prompt (user:pi, pass:pi), and from there you can install more packages with "sudo apt-get".

Hopefully that's of use to someone.

Simon

[alwanbi]

Hi Simon,
Thanks for doing this for the raspberry pi community!
I was just wondering where to go next with my distro experiments.
Currently I am using piCore for a specific application but I don't know how to compile the kernel to get a specific v4l-dvb module I need.
I will test this distro out later tonite when I get home from work and let you know how it goes.

Alan

[diederik]

This is awesome, thank you very much

[alwanbi]

Hi Simon,
I am currently testing out your image.
Do you have plans for incorporating persistence in the future?

Alan

[simonpoole]

Alan - I've had a brief play with persistence and it worked easily for certain directories like /etc and /home, but not the root folder ("/"). It fails to boot - I haven't had time to dig into why. I really want a persistent overlay for the root folder so that apt installs/updates will stick. What did you want persistence for?

The live-build system lets you take other approaches - e.g. it should be possible to generate an image with a regular read-write root partition instead of a read-only squashfs file. But I'm keen on the squashfs approach because it should be possible to make the Pi more robust against filesystem corruption.

[alwanbi]

Morning Simon,
We are tracking on the same thing, lol.
I also would like /home, /etc, and any apt-get installs to stick.
I like your approach to making the Pi more robust against filesystem corruption.
With /etc persistent it will help beef up security for ssh and save some initial typing after booting up the system.

Alan

[simonpoole]

I haven't got time to take this any further at the moment. I've posted a 'TODO' list of possible next steps (https://github.com/simonpoole1/raspbian ... er/TODO.md). If anyone wants to improve on what I've done so far and send any fixes/changes my way, I'd be happy to roll them in.

[whoami]

This is actually very useful for security purposes. Can use this to boot a pi and then chroot into a full fledged raspbian on another partition.

[beta-tester]

I've been experimenting with Debian's "live-build" tool to build a bootable minimal Raspbian-based disk image, and I thought it was worth sharing.

Build code:
https://github.com/simonpoole1/raspbian-live-build

thank you very much... sounds very interesting.

BTW: at the Install instruction is written:

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install pv
pv pi-minimal.img | sudo dd of=/dev/path-to-your-sd-card bs=16M

why installing and using pv?
isnt is possible to use dd alone like:

Code: Select all

sudo dd if=pi-minimal.img of=/dev/path-to-your-sd-card bs=16M

it looks not so complicated

[bash21]

hi, tried to build an own image (no changes made in your config) and i got the following error:

Code: Select all

lb config: unrecognized option '--bootstrap-flavour'
Makefile:66: recipe for target 'config' failed
make: *** [config] Error 1

does someone know what's going wrong?

[bash21]

hi, tried to build my own image, but i got the following error (i didn't change anything in the configuration):

Code: Select all

lb config: unrecognized option '--bootstrap-flavour'
Makefile:66: recipe for target 'config' failed
make: *** [config] Error 1

what's going wrong?