this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2024
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I know you can build a Debian system with debootstrap. Using debootstrap it should be possible to create a custom image. The main partition could be read only with separate mounts for anything that need to be read write.

Using containers it should be possible to create a filesystem image. I think the tricky part it testing the image and then updating the existing partition. Maybe some custom ostree tool could do the trick. If not there is always rsync and btrfs snapshots.

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[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Does it have to be Debian based? Otherwise uBlue is a great project!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 week ago

I'm using NixOS, it's really freaking awesome and super repeatable but it's also like smashing myself in the face with a brick every time I want to do something slightly unusual.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

uBlue is good, but only if you follow the official templates. I was following some other thing which did things very differently and my custom iso ended up broken i.e Anaconda was crashing and installation was impossible.

Edit: the thing is called Bluebuild. I'd recommend to steer clear of Bluebuild and just using the official template on Github. I'm still yet to do that myself but it seems like it might actually work, unlike Bluebuild.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I use Silverblue on my main machine. I want something lightweight for my other machine.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago

Well, uBlue can be as light as you want it to be.

Some other projects I'm thinking of:

  • VanillaOS (Debian based)
  • NixOS
  • Fedora CoreOS
  • uCore (based on CoreOS)
  • openSUSE MicroOS
  • EndlessOS (Debian based)
  • blendOS

Is it for a personal computer or a server?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Obviously, lightweight is open to some interpretation but Silverblue can be made very lightweight by simply uninstalling the default flatpaks. You'll be left with a very basic GNOME shell and greeter, without any of the common GNOME extras. From there you could easily install your own window manager, greeter, and whatever apps you need.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Also, not Debian, but https://github.com/cleanroom-team/cleanroom is very a DIY unusable system. I didn't build (most) off it, but I use it on my daily driver and a couple of other machines.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

unusable

I hope that's autocorrect?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's like a whole nother level of immutable.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Can't break it if you can't use it!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

I use unusable Linux btw.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

mount -o remount,ro /

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Hi!

I made my own inmutable distro using buildroot (https://buildroot.org): https://simplek8s.org

This distro is just an AIO kernel image that will bootstrap everything in RAM. You can mount additional devices for data persistence (for example you can mount your storage in /var).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)