Tazlito Manual

NAME

Tazlito—SliTaz Live Tool.

SYNTAX

tazlito [command] [list|iso|flavor] [dir]

DESCRIPTION

Tazlito is a small utility to extract a LiveCD, rebuild the ISO image and regenerate the root filesystem of the LiveCD. Tazlito can also generate a distribution from a list of packages previously downloaded. To run, Tazlito uses the configuration file /etc/tazlito/tazlito.conf or an easily generated tazlito.conf found in the current directory. It specifies the name of the ISO, volume, maintainer and the paths of the packages to distribute and the generated ISO. Tazlito can also set up a directory containing additional files which will be copied to the LiveCD when generating the distribution.

Tazlito is distributed under the free GNU licence GPL v.3, installed by default on SliTaz and installed/successfully tested on Debian GNU/Linux. You will find additional information about creating a LiveCD in the Handbook.

COMMANDS

usage

The usage command displays a summary of available commands with a short description:

# tazlito usage

stats

stats displays the configuration variables, the paths to the various files and directories, and information on the ISO image:

# tazlito stats

gen-config

The gen-config command allows you to generate a configuration file ready to be edited. By default the file is created in the current directory, but can be in another directory if specified via the command line:

# tazlito gen-config
# tazlito gen-config /path/to/distro

configure

This command configures the system configuration file or one found in the current directory:

# tazlito configure

gen-iso

The gen-iso command can generate a new LiveCD image following modifications and additions to the root filesystem of the CD-ROM. To function, this command needs a directory containing the distro-tree of the Live system. This tree can easily be built with the extract-distro command, modified and rebuilt via:

# tazlito gen-iso

gen-initiso

The gen-initiso command will do the same work as gen-iso, but it rebuilds the initramfs compressed system prior. The initramfs contains the root filesystem and must be rebuilt if modified:

# tazlito gen-initiso

list-flavors

The list-flavors command downloads (if necessary) and displays a list of the different flavors available. You can force the download with the --recharge option:

# tazlito list-flavors
# tazlito list-flavors --recharge

get-flavor

The get-flavor command downloads (if necessary) and prepares the files for gen-distro to generate a flavor:

# tazlito get-flavor particular-flavor

show-flavor

The show-flavor command displays the description of the flavor and its size after regeneration. The options --brief and --noheader reduce the output displayed:

# tazlito show-flavor particular-flavor
# tazlito show-flavor particular-flavor --brief
# tazlito show-flavor particular-flavor --brief --noheader

gen-flavor

The gen-flavor command creates a description file of a new flavor from the results of generating a distro (gen-distro). The .flavor file can then be sent to slitaz.org:

# tazlito gen-flavor new-flavor

gen-liveflavor

The gen-liveflavor command creates a description file of a new flavor from the results of generating a distro based on the current system. The --help option provides more information:

# tazlito gen-liveflavor
# tazlito gen-liveflavor --help

upgrade-flavor

The upgrade-flavor command refreshes a flavor file by updating the list of packages with the latest versions available:

# tazlito upgrade-flavor this-flavor

extract-flavor

The extract-flavor command converts a flavor into an easily modifiable tree structure in /home/slitaz/VERSION/flavors which can be managed with mercurial: http://hg.slitaz.org/flavors. For example on cooking you will have the work directory in /home/slitaz/cooking.

# tazlito extract-flavor this-flavor

pack-flavor

The pack-flavor command converts a tree structure in /home/slitaz/VERSION/flavors into a flavor file (.flavor). It is inverse of tazlito extract-flavor:

# tazlito pack-flavor this-flavor

extract-distro

The extract-distro command is used to extract an ISO image from the LiveCD to rebuild the structure of the root CD-ROM and system. It is then possible to make the desired changes or additions and rebuild the ISO image via gen-iso or gen-initiso. Example of use:

# tazlito extract-distro slitaz-cooking.iso

gen-distro

The Generate Distribution command can generate the distro-tree and an ISO image via a list of packages. To function, this command needs a list of packages, a directory containing all the (.tazpkg) packages on the list, and a directory to generate the distribution. The list of packages can be extracted from a flavor with the get-flavor command. If one uses the LiveCD, the options --cdrom and --iso= permit the regeneration of packages that place files in /boot without being obliged to download them and recovers the additional files of the LiveCD. The path to the various directories are configured in the configuration file and packages can be downloaded from the SliTaz mirrors or generated by Cookutils. To generate a distribution:

# tazlito gen-distro
# tazlito gen-distro --cdrom
# tazlito gen-distro --iso=slitaz.iso
# tazlito gen-distro package-list

clean-distro

Removes all files generated or extracts of the structure of the LiveCD:

# tazlito clean-distro

check-distro

This command simply verifies if files installed by the packages are present on the system:

# tazlito check-distro

writeiso

This command will write the current filesystem to a cpio archive (rootfs.gz) and then generate a bootable ISO image. Writeiso can be used in a HD install or in live mode and will also archive your current /home directory. This command lets you easily remaster and build your own LiveCD image, just boot, modify any files, and then:

# tazlito writeiso [gzip|lzma|none]
# tazlito writeiso gzip
# tazlito writeiso gzip image-name

check-list

Checks if the distro-packages.list is updated with the latest package versions:

# tazlito check-list

repack

Recompresses the rootfs with the best possible compression:

# tazlito repack slitaz.iso

merge

Combines several flavors like nested Russian dolls. Each rootfs is a subset of the previous. The first rootfs is extracted from the ISO image used in the third argument. The flavor will then be chosen to launch at startup according to the amount of RAM available:

# tazlito merge 160M slitaz-core.iso 96M rootfs-justx.gz 32M rootfs-base.gz

build-loram

Creates an ISO image flavor for low RAM systems from a SliTaz ISO image. You can build a flavor with / always in RAM or where / resides on the CD-ROM:

# tazlito build-loram slitaz.iso loram.iso
# tazlito build-loram slitaz.iso loram-cdrom.iso cdrom

emu-iso

The emu-iso command uses the Qemu emulator to start and run SliTaz. Qemu is used to test the newly built ISO image without burning to a CD-ROM or booting into frugal mode:

# tazlito emu-iso
# tazlito emu-iso path/to/image.iso

burn-iso

burn-iso will guess the CD-ROM device and its speed, and wodim (part of cdrkit) will begin to burn an ISO image. The default ISO image is the one located in the current configuration file, but it's possible to specify a different image via the command line:

# tazlito burn-iso
# tazlito burn-iso slitaz-hacked.iso

FLAVORS

A .flavor file contains just a few KB of information needed to (re)manufacture a custom LiveCD of SliTaz.

Manufacture a flavor

You can choose the flavor to (re)manufacture from among those available:

# tazlito list-flavors

List of flavors
================================================================================
Name              ISO   Rootfs  Description
================================================================================
base               6.9M  13.1M  Minimal set of packages to boot
core-3in1         31.5M 105.6M  SliTaz core system with justX and base alternatives
core              31.5M 104.6M  SliTaz core system
eeepc             31.2M 105.4M  SliTaz eeepc system
justX             16.1M  51.2M  SliTaz with a minimal X environment

We will start by remanufacturing the eeepc flavor which uses 105.4M of RAM and has a CD-ROM size of 31.2M:

# tazlito clean-distro
# tazlito get-flavor eeepc
# tazlito gen-distro

Create a flavor

To create a flavor, you must:

Post a flavor

Because a .flavor file contains just a few KB, it can be easily sent via the mailing list.

The results of tazlito extract-flavor can also be put in mercurial. This method is preferred because the tree will be directly visible with the mercurial web interface.

This tree includes:

Adapt a flavor

It is often easier to modify an existing flavor than to create one from scratch. To adapt the eeepc flavor for example:

# tazpkg get-install mercurial
# cd /home/slitaz
# hg clone http://hg.slitaz.org/flavors
# cd flavors
# cp -a eeepc myslitaz

Files in myslitaz can then be changed, and:

# tazlito pack-flavor myslitaz

Will simply create the new flavor.

Tip: you can skip mercurial installation by extracting a flavor. Using the previous example:

# tazlito get-flavor eeepc
# tazlito extract-flavor eeepc.flavor
# cd /home/slitaz/flavors
# cp -a eeepc myslitaz

Meta flavor

A meta flavor contains several flavors like nested Russian dolls. The flavor will be launched at startup according to the amount of RAM available. The ROOTFS_SELECTION variable defines the minimum RAM and corresponding flavor parameters, example:

ROOTFS_SELECTION="160M core 96M justX 32M base"

A meta flavor doesn't contain a list of packages (packages.list). SliTaz kernels prior to 2.6.30 do not support meta flavors.

MAINTAINER

Christophe Lincoln <pankso at slitaz.org>
Pascal Bellard <pascal.bellard at slitaz.org>