The problem with Penguins Eggs...

I don't mean to talk bad about a project. I just say this in hopes to see a project improve. I see great potential in Penguins Eggs, if done properly.

Penguins-Eggs, for those who don't know, is a remastering tool to create your own Linux ISO. It's one I was attempting to use in creating the Fearless Geek OS respin of MX Linux. Yes, MX Linux has MX Snapshot and its own live USB remastering tools. But Penguins Eggs, with its ability to use Calamares, would grant me better customization options, plus the ability to customize the bootloader screen on t he Live USB. These are things MX Snapshot doesn't offer.

The problem I faced, however, was Grub, the bootloader, did not install properly on real hardware from the ISO that was generated. I would finish the operating system install, then reboot, and couldn't boot into the drive. Now I could use MX Boot Repair to fix it and it would work perfectly. But this isn't ideal.

Come to find out in my discussion with Piero Proietti, the creator of Penguins Eggs...well I'll just quote what he said after I tried to work out what was ultimately going on, but ultimately moved back to MX Snapshot...

OK,

I test just on VMs, can't literally test on real hardware, first becouse I have just my machine, second - and probably more important - I haven't time to do that.

But as far as I know real users work with eggs, build ISOs and I suppose install it on VM and real hardware with more or less success.

Wait, seriously? You're creating a remastering tool, but not testing out the ISOs on real hardware? OK. But now someone is reporting there's an issue on real hardware. That someone was me. Should it not not be fixed?

I'm pretty sure most people are going to create the ISOs to work on real hardware, ultimately, not just in a virtual machine. If you're doing a project like this and don't have time to test that ISOs generated from this install properly on real hardware, delegate that to someone else. The Penguins Eggs project is ultimately kind of pointless, otherwise, if the ISOs can't install on real hardware.

Fearless Geek OS isn't just tested on a virtual machine, but on real hardware. And if I didn't have time to test it on both, nor had the ability to delegate testing on real hardware to someone else, I probably wouldn't do this project.

Virtual machines are great for testing certain things, but you really don't know if something is done right until you do it on bare metal. And it still may be the case that Penguins Eggs isn't fully compatible with MX Linux. But now I wonder even if things would work properly if I had started with pure Debian or Devuan.

So my conclusion is Penguins Eggs is fine if you only want an ISO that will install in a virtual machine. If you want an ISO which will install on actual hardware, use something else.

Update: 01/14/2024 2:40 PM

Apparently he does test on real hardware.

I understand you, but I can't test on specific hardware.

I installed with eggs a lot of real computers, users probably tons.

The rule of eggs is to let you replicate the system, add firmwares and so on is from your side, there are exceptions of course.

Once the ISO is generated and the ISO install on a VM from eggs side is OK, find the reasons why the ISO not work on a specific computer not.

From my side if have the right firmwares and so on it must work.

I understand he can't test on specific hardware that's not available to him. I get it. He previously told me he only tested in VMs, so that's what my response was based on. My new response...

I have no problems installing other ISOs not made with eggs. I'm not sure it's a firmware issue. I'm not expecting you to test it on every piece of hardware. That would be unreasonable.

OK, so you do test it on real hardware, because previously you said you only tested it on VMs.

What firmware do I need to add to get it to install properly on my system? But then how am I supposed to make sure it installs properly on other systems using my ISO I made with Penguin Eggs? Why don't I need to install this firmware for other Linux distributions I install on my system?

I'm sorry, but I kind of feel like Penguin Eggs isn't quite the tool for me. MX Snapshot works just fine. I wish I had more customization options with it, but it works.

So yeah. I'm sorry, something doesn't seem quite right about the Penguin Eggs project to me. But maybe it's just not for me. MX Snapshot works. I'd like to see more customization. And hey, maybe it's up to me to edit that code and make that happen. I maintain that Penguins Eggs is probably not fully compatible with MX Linux or anything based on MX Linux.

I also had different problems with Remastersys. Granted, the most recent maintainer just archived that, so no longer in development. Plus, they say "MX is not Debian". Well it's Debian based, but I get what they're saying. Remastersys would just fill up my drive and never create an ISO. That was not the intended result.

But I think going with MX Linux, it means certain remaster tools that would work on many Debian-based systems may not work. But I can work with MX Snapshot.

Considering the possiblity of doing a Debian or Devuan based respin at some point, I'll likely use Cubic for that. Now people do say Cubic only works with Ubuntu, not Debian. But According to Cubic, they do support Debian. It does sound like it has more challenges, however.