tde-remix

Purpose

This project is a TDE (Trinity Desktop Environment) remix and aims to be a complete system for personal computing with localization support. It is based on Debian (like a Debian Live). You can download a live image and try the software, and then install it in your PC if you want. You can also customize the image starting from available scripts.

Main goals of this remix are:

• lightweight enviroment suitable also for old PC
• adding common extra-repos
• supporting external devices (like printers and scanners)

How to build the LiveCD

See a detailed description about how to build a live media using kiwi-ng.

Prepare the working directories

Clone the project into your <source-path> to get sources:

$ git clone https://github.com/mbugni/tde-remix.git /<source-path>

Choose or create a <target-path> folder where to put results.

Prepare the build container

Install Podman:

$ sudo apt --assume-yes install podman containers-storage fuse-overlayfs

Create the container for the build enviroment:

$ sudo podman build --file=/<source-path>/Containerfile --tag=tdebuild:amd64

Initialize the container by running an interactive shell:

$ sudo podman run --privileged --network=host -it \
--volume=/<source-path>:/live/source:ro --volume=/<target-path>:/live/target \
--name=tdebuild-amd64 --hostname=tdebuild-amd64 tdebuild:amd64 /usr/bin/bash

Exit from the build container. The container can be reused and upgraded multiple times. See Podman docs for more details.

To enter again into the build container:

$ sudo podman start -ia tdebuild-amd64

Build the image

First, start the build container if not running:

$ sudo podman start tdebuild-amd64

Choose a variant (eg: workstation with localization support) that corresponds to a profile (eg: Workstation-l10n).

Available profiles/variants are:

• Console (command line only, mainly for testing)
• Desktop (minimal TDE environment with basic tools)
• Workstation (TDE environment with more features like printing and scanning support)

For each variant you can append -l10n to get localization (eg: Desktop-l10n).

Build the .iso image by running the kiwi-ng command:

$ sudo podman exec tdebuild-amd64 kiwi-ng --profile=Workstation-l10n --type=iso \
--debug --color-output --shared-cache-dir=/live/target/cache system build \
--description=/live/source/kiwi-descriptions --target-dir=/live/target

The build can take a while (20 minutes or more), it depends on your machine performances.

Remove unused containers when finished:

$ sudo podman container rm --force tdebuild-amd64
$ sudo podman image rm tdebuild:amd64

Note

The above is for building 64 bit images. Follow the i386 how to if you need to build a 32 bit image. See also low resources tips.

Transferring the image to a bootable media

You can use a tool like Ventoy to build multiboot USB devices, or simply transfer the image to a single USB stick using the dd command:

$ sudo dd if=/<target-path>/TDE-Remix.x86_64-<version>.iso of=/dev/<stick-device>

Post-install tasks

After installation, remove live system resources to save space by running:

$ source /usr/local/libexec/remix/livesys-cleanup

Per gli utenti italiani

Questo è un remix di TDE (Trinity Desktop Environment) per computer ad uso personale con il supporto in italiano. È basato su Debian (analogo ad una Debian Live). Nell'immagine .iso che si ottiene sono già installati i pacchetti e le configurazioni per il funzionamento in italiano del sistema (come l'ambiente grafico, i repo extra etc).

Il remix ha come obiettivi principali:

• un ambiente grafico leggero adatto anche a vecchi PC
• aggiunta dei repository comuni
• supporto per dispositivi esterni (come stampanti e scanner)

Change Log

All notable changes to this project will be documented in the CHANGELOG.md file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog.