[Announce] Rebuild/Refresh a custom SoaS iso from a running stick

[Frederick Grose]

We are a good ways closer to being able to
"Support cloning of a customized SoaS image directly from that running
image", which is the SoaS spin F15 feature proposal #4 on this page,
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Soas_V5/

If your SoaS machine has 4+ GiBytes disc space (as is commonly available on
an attached hard drive that you could mount in your SoaS instance), then
this alpha version python script, edit-liveos.py,
http://people.sugarlabs.org/fgrose/edit-liveos

(based on the livecd-tools, edit-livecd), and a copy or rsync will let you
build a new, custom installation .iso file from your running SoaS instance.

I've tested the script on SoaS in F13 and F14, and with some filesystem
hacks (this is my first python project), it will run to completion.

I've booted the F14 version and confirmed that the system overlay file was
refreshed and the system and user customizations had transferred. See this
screenshot of 'About my Computer':
http://people.sugarlabs.org/fgrose/My%20computer.png

Customization of SoaS spins have been a long-sought goal of the project.
 See, for example,
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Feature_SoaS_customization, and all
the work Satellit has contributed toward the Sugar Creation Kit,
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Creation_Kit

There remain many supporting tasks to be completed before we have an
integrated product.

1. The edit-liveos.py script depends on rsync, which has to be
   installed on SoaS first.
2. The livecd-iso-to-disk script needs to be amended to transfer the
   home.img file from the new source.iso
3. Other supporting installation scripts and a Sugar Activity are
   needed to simplify the use of the onboard image builder.

Some of the above are addressed in Sugar Clone,
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/Sugar_Clone
which is a quick way to achieve customization without any disc resources
beyond those on the Sugar Stick itself.

I imagine that further refinements of these tools will allow us to
automatically monitor the system overlay consumption and advise the Learner
to "run a refresh" rebuilds their personal system or provides a fresh one
from the School Server.

Please see the Sugar Clone page to see the project goals and plans, and
please help test the new, edit-liveos script!

       --Fred

[Frederick Grose]

Announcing: SoaS-remix

SoaS-remix is a bundle of edit-liveos.py and supporting scripts to make
testing and use easier.

SoaS-remix includes a late alpha version of edit-liveos.py with a
launcher named 'livecd-disk-to-iso', and temporary versions of fs.py,
live.py, creator.py (pending livecd-tools acceptance).

The SoaS-remix bundle will inject itself into the image, unbundle itself
into /tmp, launch edit-liveos.py (with editable options), then cleanup
/tmp on completion.

The Sugar Clone extensions are now in a Sugar on a Stick repository
clone at http://git.sugarlabs.org/~FGrose/soas/sugar-clone-extensions.

Get the SoaS-remix bundle:

  wget http://people.sugarlabs.org/fgrose/SoaS-remix

See more about the project and a usage recipe at:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/Sugar_Clone

Testing would be appreciated.

     --Fred

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 4:07 AM, Frederick Grose <fgrose(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote:

>  We are a good ways closer to being able to
>  "Support cloning of a customized SoaS image directly from that running
>  image", which is the SoaS spin F15 feature proposal #4 on this page,
>  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Soas_V5/
>
>  If your SoaS machine has 4+ GiBytes disc space (as is commonly available on
>  an attached hard drive that you could mount in your SoaS instance), then
>  this alpha version python script, edit-liveos.py,
>  http://people.sugarlabs.org/fgrose/edit-liveos
>
>  (based on the livecd-tools, edit-livecd), and a copy or rsync will let you
>  build a new, custom installation .iso file from your running SoaS instance.
>
>  I've tested the script on SoaS in F13 and F14, and with some filesystem
>  hacks (this is my first python project), it will run to completion.
>
>  I've booted the F14 version and confirmed that the system overlay file was
>  refreshed and the system and user customizations had transferred. See this
>  screenshot of 'About my Computer':
>  http://people.sugarlabs.org/fgrose/My%20computer.png
>
>  Customization of SoaS spins have been a long-sought goal of the project.
>   See, for example,
>  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Features/Feature_SoaS_customization, and all
>  the work Satellit has contributed toward the Sugar Creation Kit,
>  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Creation_Kit
>
>  There remain many supporting tasks to be completed before we have an
>  integrated product.
>
>  1. The edit-liveos.py script depends on rsync, which has to be
>     installed on SoaS first.
>  2. The livecd-iso-to-disk script needs to be amended to transfer the
>     home.img file from the new source.iso
>  3. Other supporting installation scripts and a Sugar Activity are
>     needed to simplify the use of the onboard image builder.
>
>  Some of the above are addressed in Sugar Clone,
>  http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick/Sugar_Clone
>  which is a quick way to achieve customization without any disc resources
>  beyond those on the Sugar Stick itself.
>
>  I imagine that further refinements of these tools will allow us to
>  automatically monitor the system overlay consumption and advise the Learner
>  to "run a refresh" rebuilds their personal system or provides a fresh one
>  from the School Server.
>
>  Please see the Sugar Clone page to see the project goals and plans, and
>  please help test the new, edit-liveos script!
>
>         --Fred
>