Work in progress

I just recently started going through my notes... I had quite some attempts and problems with spells (dependencies, some fixes for install root; special new architecture stuff). A good idea to be prepared for troubles is reading the LinuxFromScratch book.

Before finishing this, I have to check what parts of the spell hacking I did are still needed with current (test!) grimoire. I had to fix interdependencies of basesystem spells and the occasional INSTALL (to work with INSTALL_ROOT).

Another common issue are missing system accounts; generally stuff that the ISO provides without comment. Much of that could be fixed in current grimoire (at least will be soon, when I have revised my notes), some stuff needs manual care. System accounts are notorious since during the first chroot cast phase, the host account database is being modified (as it is needed for subsequent chown to really work).
On entering chroot, account database will be empty!

Note: There is an attempt to freshen up the grimoire account code to be more sane and perhaps handle this situation, too.

Introduction

This is an attempt to remember and describe what I did to get Sourcemage installed on my Alpha box. This may be interesting to you, too - not because it is an Alpha box but because I needed to install without Sourcemage ISO or chroot tarball. That left installation of another Linux Distribution (Gentoo) and building a new Sourcemage one from within this system as the most easy route.

I call this method

It is about the process of Sourcemage taking possession of a box; entering with the help of some host and then breaking free to take over control.

The steps:

  1. Installation of Host system with toolchain
  2. Installation of sorcery
  3. Configuration of sorcery
  4. Cast minimal spell set for having a chroot (baresystem)
  5. Entering the chroot and rebuild / build the rest of basesystem
  6. Make it bootable

Installation of Host system with toolchain

You need something to start with installed on the system you want to be possessed. I'm not talking about cross-compiling; I talk about having a working (current) linux environment on the very same box you want to have your SMGL system on or one with compatible architecture if you want to prepare the root filesystem and copy it over later.

You need

  1. GNU toolchain: gcc, glibc with headers

  2. bash (sorcery really wants that;-)

  3. installwatch if you want to be able to dispel stuff in the early phase

  4. gnupg if you want to verify downloaded sources

It could prevent trouble to ensure that you have a system on a comparable level of freshness with Sourcemage. I don't know where the border line is there, but I used the current gentoo at the time and already had stuff failing to run with installed libs after having been dynamically linked to host ones (readline/ncurses - duh!).

Installation of sorcery

Get sorcery tarball, extract, run 

./install

to install the sorcery scripts in your host system. That itself should not do any harm.

Configuration of sorcery

...to install to some directory (partition), unless you want to infect and rebuild the system in itself Also setting up LDFLAGS and CPPFLAGS to search in INSTALL_ROOT and for static linking... more on that later when I figured out what was the final working approach.

This is in fact the tricky part;-)

Cast minimal spell set for having a chroot (baresystem)

        scribe add test

Should give you a grimoire for sorcery to work with...

I prepared a stripped basesystem spell (called baresystem) that omits stuff that is needed for a basic system but that is not needed for entering the chroot and (re)building, with following DEPENDS: 

depends  bash               &&
depends  binutils           &&
depends  bzip2              &&
depends  coreutils          &&
depends  cpio               &&
depends  dialog             &&
depends  diffutils          &&
depends  file               &&
depends  findutils          &&
depends  gawk               &&
depends  gcc                &&
depends  glibc              &&
depends  gnupg              &&
depends  grep               &&
depends  gzip               &&
depends  installwatch       &&
depends  less               &&
depends  make               &&
depends  nano               &&
depends  ncurses            &&
depends  patch              &&
depends  procps             &&
depends  readline           &&
depends  sed                &&
depends  shadow             &&
depends  smgl-archspecs     &&
depends  smgl-fhs           &&
depends  tar                &&
depends  texinfo            &&
depends  unzip              &&
depends  util-linux         &&
depends  wget               &&
depends  zlib

That's not too different from current basesystem and omissions coud be dealt with by fixing spells... but anyway, it maybe a good idea to separate a basic build system out of basesystem. For now, just be warned that spells not on this list may have issues with being casted into some $INSTALL_ROOT (from non-SMGL system).

Problems that occur are mostly because of

Entering the chroot and rebuild / build the rest of basesystem

Note: You may choose erase the installed spell database / not having it stored in the chroot in the first place to make sure everything is built (again), otherwise I'd do a sorcery rebuild.

In an ideal world spells would create all the accounts they need and would create files like /etc/ld.so.conf and /etc/modules ... not sure how far we are there yet. I should make it sure;-) Just make sure you checked the basic sanity of your system (in /etc, mainly).

Oh, and you may have the subconscious desire to compile/install a kernel - feel free to follow it;-)
That would be 

cast linux

with the spell or just downloading/extracting a linux source tarball and configuring/building yourself.

Make it bootable

Don't forget your /etc/fstab!

well, 

cast <bootloader>

and configure/install it. When you want that kind of install you probably know how to install a bootloader;-)

last edited 2006-08-01 10:45:35 by ThomasOrgis