Pseudo Full Install (testing)

[rockedge]

If anyone is interested I can share a ready made tar.xz archive containing a pseudo full install setup (for bookworm, trixie, daedalus) that just needs to be extracted on some Linux partition, and also some more info how to boot it with grub.

I'd like to try it out!

[rcrsn51]

That's why I'm starting to like very much the "Pseudo Full Install" concept: viewtopic.php?p=140394#p140394 (has the benefits of a frugal install but works the same as a full install)
No messing with whiteout files (they don't exist in the "pfull" directory), deleted files will be deleted directly there, not "masked".

In my Starter Kit install, I continue to use on-the-fly module loading via symlinks. This is a handy method that works well with small packages.

But it can go seriously wrong. If you build your own modules with apt2sfs, you may not be aware of what dependent stuff is being included. These files may collide with ones being loaded from modules at bootup or with packages loaded manually via apt-get. It can get worse if you also do an apt-upgrade.

When this happens, you can end up with a mess of whiteout files that are difficult to track down and repair.

It always worried me that some Starter Kit users must have experienced this, could not fix it themselves, never reported the problem and just abandoned the project.

Even hobby projects have an obligation to be reliable.

[fredx181]

If anyone is interested I can share a ready made tar.xz archive containing a pseudo full install setup (for bookworm, trixie, daedalus) that just needs to be extracted on some Linux partition, and also some more info how to boot it with grub.

I'd like to try it out!

Ok, nice, I'm curious what you think (or anyone), see here for download, info and instructions: https://github.com/doglinux/doglinux/re ... tag/pfull1

For now, I'm just sharing what I did already prepare for my own testing, it's a Trixie (Debian 13) build with "Tint2" Desktop Environment option (more info at above link).
See this as just an example of a pseudo full install setup (without any .squashfs modules, just pfull/filesystem in "live" folder). It can be anything of course that is built with mklive-* and transformed into a pseudo full install.
edit: did I say already that I like it myself ? Specially the simplicity of the concept, "what you see is what you get", all is in the live/pfull/filesystem directory.
(see also "pros and cons": viewtopic.php?p=140394#p140394 and @wiak 's post: viewtopic.php?p=115837#p115837)

edit: about the kernel: it's installed with apt, so dpkg registered, package linux-image-amd64 and installed is modified initramfs-tools package, see also about that here: viewtopic.php?p=140395#p140395
If there's a new version of the stock Debian kernel available, it will be installed (e.g. when doing apt upgrade) directly in pfull/filesystem and a new created initrd1.xz (and new vmlinuz1) will be installed in the "live" folder. (edit: but you can also install another kernel if preferred with apt or synaptic , e.g. real-time (rt)).
In other words, same as everything else, installing/updating the kernel works very similar as in a regular/official Debian full install.