root/morphix/trunk/how_tos/morphix_docbook.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN" "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd">

<article lang="en">
<articleinfo>
    <title>Morphix Manual</title>
    <date>September 2006</date>
    <author>
        <firstname>www</firstname>
        <othername>Morphix</othername>
        <surname>Org</surname>
    </author>
    <authorinitials>BMS</authorinitials>

<revhistory><revision><revnumber>0.5</revnumber><date>September 2006</date><authorinitials>BMS</authorinitials></revision></revhistory>

</articleinfo>
<section>
<title>Dedication</title>
<simpara>To our benevolent dictator Alextreme, Debian and everyone at #morphix</simpara>

</section>
<section>
<title>Preface</title>
<simpara>This is an attempt to document some of ways to use Morphix. In particular to support a new Morphix LiveCD - MorphingMorphix.</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>Knoppix Hacks</primary>
</indexterm>
The following is an extract from Knoppix Hacks - 100 Industrial-Strength Tips and Tools describing Morphix.</simpara>

<section>
<title>A look at Morphix: The Hack-friendly Live CD</title>
<simpara>Given the popularity of Knoppix and the vast amount of people
working on derivative versions of Knoppix, it doesn't come as a
surprise that people have been working to make Knoppix easier to
modify and more flexible to use. In early 2003, Morphix was born out
of a number of Knoppix remasters' wishes to have a version of Knoppix
that was good at what they used Knoppix for: a base upon which to
build their own versions using Debian GNU/Linux.</simpara>

<section>
<title>What makes Morphix so special compared to other Live CDs</title>
<simpara>As you have seen in this book, there are a number of ways to change Knoppix to
your liking. However, these possibilities have always been, and probably always
will be, fairly limited. Knoppix was made for different goals: to detect your
hardware as fast and correct as possible, to be a good demonstration of Linux
and to include as much common-use Linux software as
possible. Morphix's goals however are different: Ease of
customization, ease of use, ease of installing. We are a lazy bunch,
but thanks to Klaus Knopper we had a solid place from which to work from.</simpara>

<simpara>Knoppix, and most Knoppix' derivatives, are fairly monolithic in
nature: They are essentially complete ready-made filesystems all
compressed into one file. Morphix on the other hand is built up around
the idea of modules: you have one module that boots your live CD and
detects your hardware, another that contains your live CD filesystem
and zero or more extra modules that can contain minor or major changes
and additions to the system. This way, Morphix promotes the reusing of
smaller, existing modules instead of one large /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX
file. Complicated? Well, a look at a typical Morphix live CD might
help. This is the structure of Morphix 0.4-1 LightGUI, one of the
Morphix flavours:</simpara>

<simpara><emphasis>&lt;pre&gt;</emphasis>
<emphasis>/base/boot.img</emphasis>
<emphasis>/base/morphix</emphasis>
<emphasis>/mainmod/MorphixMain-Light.mod</emphasis>
<emphasis>&lt;/pre&gt;</emphasis></simpara>

<simpara>While it seems quite empty, this is how we release typical versions
of Morphix. They are quite bare but offer users (or 'morphers', as we
call ourselves, as you will notice we have a strange lingo for the
uninitiated) more possibilities to change the resulting live CD. We
will take a closer look at these and other tricks in the hack \"Morphing
Morphix\" later on.</simpara>

<simpara>Morphix currently has four ready-to-burn \"combined ISOs\" available for
download and a list of extra modules available for whomever needs
them. All combined ISOs contain the Morphix installer, a graphical
tool for installing Morphix onto your harddisk, and a number of
other graphical and command line Morphix tools for various
purposes. Each of these live CDs has their own targeted audience&#8212;our
opinion has always been that we should offer (limited) choice to users
and as much choice as possible for developers:</simpara>

</section>
<section>
<title>Morphix LightGUI</title>
<simpara>Aimed at lower-end PCs, LightGUI features the XFCE4 desktop and
contains a reasonable amount of lighter tools. It was the initial
version of Morphix, and the aim has been to keep LightGUI small enough to
have it fit on 210MB CDR(W). LightGUI includes Abiword, Gnumeric, Dillo and
Firefox. For communication, Gaim and Xchat are included, and for
photo processing the GIMP has been added.</simpara>

</section>
<section>
<title>Morphix Gnome</title>
<simpara>Formerly named Morphix HeavyGUI, this flavour was for some time the
only conterpart of LightGUI. Including Gnome, OpenOffice.org,
Mozilla, and the kitchen sink, Morphix Gnome was aimed at office users
with more recent machines. Even so, a normal Morphix Gnome ISO still
doesn't fill up the whole (650MB) CD-ROM, and recent versions weigh in at
around 500MB.</simpara>

</section>
<section>
<title>Morphix KDE</title>
<simpara>Although primarily focused on GTK/Gnome, the Morphix crew acknowledges
that users might prefer KDE instead (and looking at the number of
derivatives, a lot of users do!). Morphix KDE contains the whole KDE suite of
programs, as well as Mozilla and other applications. Morphix KDE
sits inbetween LightGUI and Gnome when it comes to size, and fills up
approximately 400MB of space on your CD-ROM.</simpara>

</section>
<section>
<title>Morphix Game</title>
<simpara>An odd-ball in Morphix, this flavour contains the very light IceWM and
a very large number of Open Source games. BZflag, Frozen Bubble, Freecraft
and many, many others are sure to entertain the kids (or entertain the
kid in you) for quite a few hours. Normally Morphix Game also includes
one or more demo versions or free full versions of commercial Linux
games, adding to the fun. Gaming on Linux a rarity? This hasn't been
the case for many years, no matter what kind of games you enjoy!</simpara>

<simpara>All the official Morphix live CDs contain the Morphix installer, as
stated above. This tool allows users to easily install their Morphix
(or derivative) live CD onto a hard disk. Often overlooked, the
difference between a live CD and a hard disk install is very small
indeed. The Morphix installer is also built in a flexible manner so
that derivatives can even rebrand the Morphix installer, although the
source itself is licensed under the GNU GPL. A graphical partitioner
and series of configuration tools have been under development and are
likely to be part of Morphix by the time this book comes off the press.</simpara>

</section>
<section>
<title>Morphing-Morphix</title>
<simpara>The purpose of <emphasis>Morphing-Morphix</emphasis> is to provide the quick way to start <emphasis>Morphing</emphasis> and making your own LiveCD. Just boot the CD and start Morphing, no need to install tools, compile applications or switch operating systems. All is required is some space on a connected hard drive. The aim is to be able make new Morphix LiveCDs using this LiveCD, as an introduction to Morphix. In fact this LiveCD was made using Morphing-Morphix.</simpara>

</section>
<section>
<title>Derivatives</title>
<simpara>A lot has been said about the number of Linux distributions recently. What
others see as a complicated mess, we see as a healthy, messy
eco-system. Morphix has quite a few offspring
and a lot of them are specially focussed at a single group of people
(ranging from Brazilian engineers, non-profit organizations or
self-proclaimed Hackers) or are providing a localized non-English
Linux distribution (ie. Chinese, Galicia/Spanish, Hindi, Arabic), the list
goes on and on. So, if the default Morphix Live CDs aren't to your
liking take a look on www.morphix.org for a list of related
projects. Even if you start 'morphing' from one of these derivatives,
you can be sure of a base to fall back to and a design that will get
your project 'live' and updated ASAP.</simpara>

<simpara>Happy Morphing!</simpara>

</section>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Morphix ISO README</title>
<simpara>If you're wondering what the directories on the cdrom do, this is the right
document. If not, take a look on morphix.org! (don't miss the FAQ or wiki)</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>boot</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>o /boot</emphasis> 
        contains the init ramdisk, grub menu and kernel</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>base</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>o /base</emphasis> 
        contains morphix, the module that detects/configures your hardware and
        contains your standard kernel modules.</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>mainmod</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>o /mainmod</emphasis>
        contains mainmodules, these are also cloop images, comparable to
        the /base/morphix file, but using a different structure
        see README.mainmod for info about the internal structure of these files
        In short: mainmodules contain your filesystem, except for your kernel,
        loadable kernel modules, and hardware detection scripts.</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>minimod</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>o /minimod </emphasis>
        contains minimodules, again these are cloop images.
        You don't need them, but you can add extra functionality by including
        extra minimodules. See README.minimod.</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>exec</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>o /exec </emphasis>
        If you place files in this directory, they will be executed at
        boottime. Note that this does not mean that programs using X
        will be executed, the proper way would be to add a line to .xinitrc
        for this. Place the following in /exec/script.sh for example:
          <emphasis>echo \"program\" &gt;&gt; /home/morph/.xinitrc</emphasis>
          <emphasis>echo \"program\" &gt;&gt; /home/morph/.xsession</emphasis>
        (Does Debian still use .xsession? not 100% sure, xinitrc should
        be enough&#8230;)
        Again, try this out. Exit from X, execute the script, and
        'sh /morphix/init.sh'</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>copy</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>o /copy</emphasis>
        If you place files in this directory, they will be copied over to the
        root of your filesystem. Use directories to place files in a certain
        directory instead. For example, have:
          <emphasis>/copy/home/morph/.xfce4/xfcerc</emphasis>
        to copy the xfcerc file to /home/morph/.xfce4/xfcerc at boottime.</simpara>

<literallayout class="monospaced">Interesting things can be done with adding files to locations like: +
  '/copy/morphix/init.sh'
or
  '/copy/morphix/loadmod.sh'</literallayout>
<literallayout class="monospaced">as these files are executed after being swapped. Great fun ;)</literallayout>
</section>
<section>
<title>Fast Introduction to building your own Morphix based livecd</title>
<section>
<title>Really Fast Introduction</title>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Get a Morphix Base iso
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Add "deb http://www.morphix.org/debian ./" to your /etc/apt/source.list
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
apt-get update ; apt-get install morphing-tools
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Edit mymainmod.xml
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
mmaker mymainmod.xml myprograms.mod
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
make-iso /path/source myfirstlivecd.iso
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section>
<title>Fast Introduction</title>
<section>
<title>Foreplay</title>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Use a Debian based Linux distro [preferably Debian sid, aka unstable, but every recent one should do]
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Get a morphix based .iso [or better: just a base .iso, preferably a stable one atm, like 0.5-pre5 or an autobuilded base .iso]
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Open a root terminal [su -, you get the point]
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
mount -t iso9660 -o loop nameoftheisoyoudownloaded.iso /mnt/whatever
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
cp -a /mnt/whatever/* /path/to/the/extracted/stuff [like /scratch/iso]
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section>
<title>Setting up the build environment</title>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Add "deb http://www.morphix.org/debian ./" to your /etc/apt/source.list
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
apt-get update
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
apt-get install morphing-tools
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section>
<title>Creating your own mainmodule</title>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
See this manual about mmaker for building an .xml file describing your mainmodule, which will basically be your system
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
If you're done with the .xml file [e.g., mymainmod.xml], type "mmaker mymainmod.xml myprograms.mod" or whatever you like to name them
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section>
<title>Building an .iso out of it</title>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Now, remove the files in /scratch/iso/mainmod
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Copy/move your myprograms.mod into /scratch/iso/mainmod
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
make-iso /scratch/iso myfirstlivecd.iso
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Done. Burn to cd with your favorite burn program or run with "qemu -cdrom myfirstlivecd.iso" in the qemu emulator, for example
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section>
<title>More advanced stuff</title>
<simpara>If you manually modify some stuff in /tmp/libmorphix-&lt;randomsequence&gt; (e.g., /tmp/libmorphix-9oVKWq) , you have to use the following command to recompress the mainmod: "module-builder /tmp/libmorphix-9oVKWq aquamorph_20051120a.mod" (or whatever you want to call the mainmodule).</simpara>

</section>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>HowTo: Building a new LiveCD in two commands</title>
<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>HowToLiveCD</primary>
</indexterm>
<anchor id="BuildingLiveCDtwocommands" xreflabel="[BuildingLiveCDtwocommands]"/></simpara>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<link linkend="SettingUptheBuildEnvironment">Setting Up the Build Environment</link>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<link linkend="GettingtheTemplatesandmainGraphicsFile">Getting the Templates and main Graphics File</link>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<link linkend="IsoMakerExmaple">Two Commands</link>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<link linkend="HowDoesItLook">Volia One LiveCD</link>
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<section id="SettingUptheBuildEnvironment">
<title>Setting up the build environment</title>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Add "deb http://www.morphix.org/debian ./" to your /etc/apt/source.list
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
apt-get update
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
apt-get install morphing-tools
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section id="GettingtheTemplatesandmainGraphicsFile">
<title>Getting the Templates and main Graphics File</title>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<ulink url="http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/morphix/trunk/mmaker/templates/basemod-2.6.9.xml?view=markup">Base Module Tempate</ulink>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<ulink url="http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/morphix/trunk/mmaker/templates/morphix-livekiosk.xml?view=markup">MainModule Template</ulink>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
MiniModule Templates, <ulink url="http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/morphix/trunk/scripts-mini/MorphixMini-KioskSetting.xml?view=markup">1</ulink> <ulink url="http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/morphix/trunk/scripts-mini/MorphixMini-KioskAddins.xml?view=markup">2</ulink>
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<note>
<title>Note on Templates</title>
<simpara>These templates may point to a local mirror of the debian repository. Un-comment the remote repository and comment out the local repository.</simpara>

<simpara>For example replace the lines</simpara>

<literallayout class="monospaced">&lt;!--   &lt;repository type="debian"&gt;ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian&lt;/repository&gt; --&gt;
&lt;repository type="debian"&gt;http://127.0.0.1/sid/&lt;/repository&gt;</literallayout>
<simpara>With the lines</simpara>

<literallayout class="monospaced">&lt;repository type="debian"&gt;ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian&lt;/repository&gt;
&lt;!--  &lt;repository type="debian"&gt;http://127.0.0.1/sid/&lt;/repository&gt; --&gt;</literallayout>
</note>
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<ulink url="http://www.morphix.org/doc/how_tos/images/MorphixLiveKiosk.png">Graphics file used for Rebranding</ulink>
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<example>
<title>Graphics File used for Rebranding</title>
<simpara><inlinemediaobject>
  <imageobject>
  <imagedata fileref="../images/MorphixLiveKiosk.png" contentwidth="400pt"/>
  </imageobject>
  <textobject><phrase>Rebranded Boot Splash Background</phrase></textobject>
</inlinemediaobject></simpara>

</example>
</section>
<section id="IsoMakerExmaple">
<title>Two Commands</title>
<simpara>Run isomaker then morphix-rebrand (The magic two commands)</simpara>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
isomaker -b ./basemod-2.6.15.xml -m ./morphix-livekiosk.xml -n ./MorphixMini-KioskSetting.xml -n ./MorphixMini-KioskAddins.xml -r http://www.morphix.org/debian -p grub-gfxboot-iso-udeb -p morphix-cdrom-misc-udeb -p morphix-grub-menulist-udeb -p morphix-iso-grubtheme ./morphix-livekiosk.iso
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
morphix-rebrand ./morphix-livekiosk.iso ./MorphixLiveKiosk.iso ./MorphixLiveKiosk.png
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section id="HowDoesItLook">
<title>Volia One LiveCD</title>
<simpara>Isomaker can take about 45 minutes to run. Morphix-rebrand about 2 minutes.</simpara>

<simpara>After this fun you should have a bootable LiveCD</simpara>

<section>
<title>Boot Menu</title>
<simpara><inlinemediaobject>
  <imageobject>
  <imagedata fileref="../images/RebrandBootMenu.png"/>
  </imageobject>
  <textobject><phrase>Rebranded Grub Menu</phrase></textobject>
</inlinemediaobject></simpara>

</section>
<section>
<title>Boot-Up Screen</title>
<simpara><inlinemediaobject>
  <imageobject>
  <imagedata fileref="../images/RebrandBootSplash.png"/>
  </imageobject>
  <textobject><phrase>Rebranded Boot Splash</phrase></textobject>
</inlinemediaobject></simpara>

<simpara>Or if you press F2</simpara>

<simpara><inlinemediaobject>
  <imageobject>
  <imagedata fileref="../images/RebrandBootUp.png"/>
  </imageobject>
  <textobject><phrase>Rebranded Boot Splash Backround</phrase></textobject>
</inlinemediaobject></simpara>

</section>
<section>
<title>X-Background / Wallpaper</title>
<simpara>Should be the same as the Graphics file.</simpara>

<simpara><inlinemediaobject>
  <imageobject>
  <imagedata fileref="../images/MorphixLiveKiosk.png"/>
  </imageobject>
  <textobject><phrase>Rebranded Boot Splash Backround</phrase></textobject>
</inlinemediaobject></simpara>

</section>
</section>
</section>
<section>
<title>Morphix tools</title>
<simpara>A number of commandline tools and scripts are provided in order to help
you morph. You can find all of these in the Morphix repository,
see <ulink url="http://www.morphix.org/debian">http://www.morphix.org/debian</ulink> for details.</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>module-builder</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>- module-builder (morphix-modulebuilder)</emphasis>
        Constructs a module from a directory</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>module-extractor</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>- module-extractor (morphix-moduleextractor)</emphasis>
        Extracts files from a module to a directory</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>make-iso</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>- make-iso (morphix-make-iso)</emphasis>
        Creates a bootable ISO from a directory, detects multiple base versions.</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>isomorph</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>- isomorph (morphix-isomorph)</emphasis>
        Lists modules on an ISO, adds or removes modules from an ISO, and more!</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>mmaker</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>- mmaker (morphix-mmaker)</emphasis>
        Creates a base or main module, using template files. Examples are in /usr/share/mmaker/templates.
See <ulink url="http://www.morphix.org/wiki/index.php/ModuleMaker">http://www.morphix.org/wiki/index.php/ModuleMaker</ulink>
and documentation in /usr/share/doc/mmaker for details.</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>isomaker</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>- isomaker (morphix-mmaker)</emphasis>
        Creates an iso, using one or more mmaker template files.
        See documentation in /usr/share/doc/mmaker for details.</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>make-mini</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>- make-mini (morphix-mmaker)</emphasis>
        Commandline tool for building homedir and language minimodules.</simpara>

<simpara><emphasis>- install2mainmod (morphix-install2mainmod)</emphasis>
        Converts a running hdd install into a mainmodule.</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>minimodgen</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>- minimod-gen (morphix-minimodgen)</emphasis>
        Provides a commandline interface for building simple minimodules.</simpara>

<simpara><emphasis>- addtoiso (morphix-addtoiso)</emphasis>
        Add file to an iso, without having to copy the file all within the image</simpara>

<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>morphix-rebrand</primary>
</indexterm>
<emphasis>- morphix-rebrand (morphix-rebrand)</emphasis>
        This script Re-brands a Morphix CD image using a single graphics file.</simpara>

</section>
<section>
<title>HowTo: Some Examples to help you start Morphing</title>
<simpara><indexterm>
  <primary>MorphingMorphix</primary>
</indexterm>
Some <emphasis>updated</emphasis> How Tos to help you get started with Morphing. These HowTos are available on interacive <emphasis>How To</emphasis> LiveCD called <emphasis>Morphing-Morphix</emphasis>, much better than a boring document.</simpara>

<section>
<title>A look at MorphingMorphix 0.3</title>
<simpara>The purpose of MorphingMorphix is to provide a quick way
to start Morphing and to showcase all the Morphix tools
- a LiveCD contruction kit. Just boot the CD and start
Morphing, no need to install tools, compile applications or
switch operating systems. All that is required is some space
on a connected hard drive.</simpara>

<simpara>You do not have to use MorphingMorphix you just need a debian based system and <link linkend="SettingUptheBuildEnvironment">Set Up the Build Environment</link></simpara>

<simpara>On MorphingMorphix there are a number of interactive
HowTo/examples. The examples work best if you work though
them in order. First configure MorphingMorphix so that some
extra disk space is available. Then work through the
examples in order.</simpara>

<simpara>Some of the examples, such as using mmaker and isomaker
require access to the internet, so that software can be
downloaded from repositories to build new parts of a
MorphixCD. The examples are very machine intensive,
using lots of disk space, memory, and bandwidth.</simpara>

<simpara>The following Morphs can be completed from the LiveCD.</simpara>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<link linkend="Introduction">Introduction to isomorph</link>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<link linkend="Remove">Remove Modules</link>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<link linkend="MiniMorphExample">MiniMorph Example</link>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<link linkend="HomeDir">Saving files in /home/morph</link>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<link linkend="AutoBuilding">Mmaker Example</link>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<link linkend="MainModule">Chrooting a Main Module</link>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<link linkend="Rebrand">Rebrand an ISO</link>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<link linkend="BuildingwholeISO">Building a whole ISO from Scratch</link>
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
<link linkend="TestQemu">Testing an iso using Qemu</link>
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</section>
<section id="Introduction">
<title>Introduction</title>
<simpara>LiveCD are stored as .iso files. Which can then be written
to a CD. One of the morphing-tools is isomorph. This can be
used to manipulate morphix iso files.</simpara>

<simpara>Isomorph can list, add, del and get files on the Morphix
LiveCDs.</simpara>

<simpara>Isomorph is used in all of the other examples.</simpara>

<simpara>For example we will now run the command</simpara>

<literallayout class="monospaced">isomorph --list MyMorph.iso</literallayout>
</section>
<section id="Remove">
<title>Remove Modules</title>
<simpara>We have now got our CD Image file, by copying this running
CD. As you have seen in the last example, this image
contains the MainModule and lots of MiniModules.  The easy
way to make a new LiveCD is to build new MiniModules and a
new MainModule.</simpara>

<simpara>Hence the first task is to delete the MainModule and
MiniModules from the LiveCD image.
Remove Modules</simpara>

<simpara>We will again use isomorph</simpara>

<literallayout class="monospaced">isomorph --del-all main ./MyMorph.iso ./tmp.iso
mv ./tmp.iso ./MyMorph.iso
isomorph --del-all mini ./MyMorph.iso ./tmp.iso
mv ./tmp.iso ./MyMorph.iso</literallayout>
</section>
<section id="MiniMorphExample">
<title>MiniMorph Example</title>
<simpara>The next Morph is making the MiniModule to auto run an
application once the window manager has loaded.</simpara>

<simpara>This Morph is to demonstrate the use of one of the morphix
tools - morphmini. This is mmaker's little brother. As in
other examples this makes use of XML template files.</simpara>

<screen>&lt;comps&gt;
 &lt;group&gt;
  &lt;minimod&gt;
   &lt;version&gt;0.0.1&lt;/version&gt;
   &lt;description&gt;MorphMini launch Morphing-Morphix-GUI&lt;/description&gt;
   &lt;minitag&gt;MorphixMini-Launch-MM-GUI&lt;/minitag&gt;
   &lt;maintag&gt;ALL&lt;/maintag&gt;
   &lt;bootoption&gt;ALL&lt;/bootoption&gt;
   &lt;root&gt; &lt;!-- Files or Packages to be overlaid on the rootfile system - good for saving ramspace --&gt;
    &lt;files&gt;
     &lt;local&gt;
      &lt;from&gt;/home/morph/morphix/trunk/morph-scripts/mmorphix/morphing-morphix-gui.sh&lt;/from&gt;
      &lt;to&gt;/usr/sbin/morphing-morphix-gui&lt;/to&gt;
     &lt;/local&gt;
     &lt;local&gt;
      &lt;from&gt;/home/morph/morphix/trunk/morph-scripts/mmorphix/MorphingMorphix.xpm&lt;/from&gt;
      &lt;to&gt;/usr/share/morphing-morphix/&lt;/to&gt;
      &lt;/local&gt;
    &lt;/files&gt;
   &lt;/root&gt;
   &lt;commandlist&gt; &lt;!-- Commands to be started from minimodule --&gt;
    &lt;X&gt;         &lt;!-- Commands to run in X windows --&gt;
     &lt;command&gt;/usr/sbin/morphing-morphix-gui &amp;amp; &lt;/command&gt;&lt;!-- &amp;amp; is xml format for &amp; --&gt;
    &lt;/X&gt;
   &lt;/commandlist&gt;
  &lt;/minimod&gt;
 &lt;/group&gt;
&lt;/comps&gt;</screen>
<simpara>We will now build the MiniModule then add the MiniModule to
the the LiveCD.</simpara>

<literallayout class="monospaced">morphmini ./MorphixMini-Launch-MM-GUI.xml ./MorphixMini-Launch-MM-GUI.mod
isomorph --add mini ./MorphixMini-Launch-MM-GUI.mod ./MyMorph.iso ./tmp.iso
mv ./tmp.iso ./MyMorph.iso</literallayout>
<simpara><ulink url="http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/morphix/trunk/scripts-mini/">Other templates for morphmini are available</ulink></simpara>

</section>
<section id="HomeDir">
<title>Morphing the Home Directory</title>
<simpara>The next Morph is to save the files in the users home
directory.</simpara>

<simpara>The following will be saved</simpara>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Any files and directories in /home/morph
</simpara>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<simpara>
Hidden system files. (These are the files beginning with a . e.g. .icewm)
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<simpara>The following will not be saved</simpara>

<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<simpara>
The X server setting - these are generated on boot up.
</simpara>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
<simpara>Basically all the files and directories in /home/morph will
be zipped into placed in to a self-extracting MiniModule.</simpara>

<simpara>So feel free to save some files, settings, etc within the
home directory before continuing.This is really useful for
setting default homepages, menus etc.</simpara>

<simpara>The power of a MiniModule is that they are very simple to
build, but really useful to change the whole impression of
the cd.</simpara>

<simpara>We make the mini-module using one of the morphix-tools
make-mini, along with isomorph to add the MiniModule to the
image file.</simpara>

<literallayout class="monospaced">make-mini --homedir --hidden MorphixMini-MM-Saved-Home.mod
isomorph --add mini MorphixMini-MM-Saved-Home.mod ./MyMorph.iso ./tmp.iso
mv ./tmp.iso ./MyMorph.iso</literallayout>
</section>
<section id="AutoBuilding">
<title>Mmaker Example</title>
<simpara>MMaker is a tool that is quite simple in nature. Using a
so-called template, an xml file with all the information
about the module you want to build, you can auto-build a
Morphix MainModule.</simpara>

<simpara>That's it kids, we will just have a look at
morphing-morphix.xml used to build this MainModule
currently running.</simpara>

<simpara>We will then use mmaker to build a new version of the
MainModule. Unless you one of the lucky people who has a
local repository, you will be using the main Debian repository.</simpara>

<simpara>You need a fast connection to Debian repository and a lot
of space to build the MainModule before it is compressed.</simpara>

<simpara>This step could take up to 45 minutes, but hey it is
automated!</simpara>

<simpara>We will use these commands</simpara>

<literallayout class="monospaced">mmaker /usr/share/morphing-morphix/morphing-morphix.xml /tmp/morphing-morphix.mod
isomorph --add main /tmp/morphing-morphix.mod ./MyMorph.iso ./tmp.iso
mv ./tmp.iso ./MyMorph.iso</literallayout>
<simpara>As you might have guessed, the template is the key to all of this. A look at one for Morphix LightGUI: [note to editor: the template uses an xml notation, so might not appear when viewing in html]</simpara>

<literallayout class="monospaced">&lt;comps&gt;
&lt;groups&gt;
&lt;version&gt;0.5&lt;/version&gt;
&lt;id&gt;lightgui&lt;/id&gt;
&lt;name&gt;Morphix LightGUI&lt;/name&gt;
&lt;repositorylist&gt;
&lt;repository type="debian"&gt;ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian&lt;/repository&gt;
&lt;repository type="plain"&gt;http://www.morphix.org/debian&lt;/repository&gt;
&lt;/repositorylist&gt;
&lt;description&gt;Morphix LightGUI mainmodule. Includes XFCE4, Firefox,
Abiword and a host of other goodies&lt;/description&gt;
&lt;type&gt;mainmod&lt;/type&gt;
&lt;suite&gt;sid&lt;/suite&gt;
&lt;packagelist&gt;
&lt;packagereq&gt;abiword&lt;/packagereq&gt;
&lt;packagereq&gt;xfce4&lt;/packagereq&gt;
&lt;packagereq&gt;mozilla-firefox&lt;/packagereq&gt;
&lt;!-- ... other goodies here ... --&gt;
&lt;/packagelist&gt;
&lt;/groups&gt;
&lt;/comps&gt;</literallayout>
<simpara>NB This is a partial template see <ulink url="http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/morphix/trunk/mmaker/templates/">http://svn.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.cgi/morphix/trunk/mmaker/templates/</ulink> for template examples.</simpara>

<simpara>Seems simple, doesn't it? The actual template for MorphingMorphix is quite a bit longer (and contains a package to start xfce4 at boot time), but it's very simple to specify which repositories you want to use, what Debian suite you want, what type of Morphix module you want to autobuild and naturally the packages you want. Currently, MMaker can only build base and main modules . A few tags might need some extra explaining:</simpara>