[Opencd-devel] my own variation on bick

[Doug M. <fil...@sb...>]

Just an FYI-  I've been developing a tool/project that may be useful for 
this project.  I'm basically ready to release an alpha version, though 
I'm still polishing.

Its several projects really.  I break it up into 3 layers.

Layer 1 - VirOS -

A tool that converts an installed system, and munges it onto a bootable 
CD.  I started using bblcd, then switched to bick with the philosophy- 
assume 2.4 tmpfs and devfs because they are g00d.  I ended up tweaking 
bick so much, that I rewrote a similar project from scratch.  It 
currently doesn't support the big bick feature of booting up sparc as 
well as x86 (on the same CD), though with enough work, that could be 
added back in.  My primary divergence with the bick methodology is that 
I optomize less for storage space, and more for ease of use.  Bick uses 
3 very tight C programs for its stages.  I optomized this into two 
stages, that use (my patched version of) nash scripts.  Nash scripts are 
just nicer to work with than no library C code.  My other main 
improvement over bick comes in the form of a new 3rd stage, run 
immediately before handing off to the real /sbin/init, which does 'g00d 
stuff'.  The main 'g00d stuff' is that it automounts readonly, all 
supported partitions it finds, and puts them under 
/mnt/local/disc?/part?.  If it finds one with enough free space (say, 
1G), it will automatically temporarily mount it readwrite, and dump an 
image of the CD there.  Thus in the typical case when you have /usr (or 
more, viros is very flexible here) mounted from the cdrom, now these can 
be mounted via loop from the local disk, thus freeing up the cdrom drive 
for user functionality (read: ripping music).

Layer 2 - Gendist_mdk82 -

This is a script, which given as input a spec file, and the mandrake-8.2 
source media, with *generate* a minimal installed system.  Obviously for 
the use of handing to VirOS above.  The specfile covers a few things, 
though mainly, it is a list of rpm's to be added with urpmi (unless 
requested, urpmi and its rpms are removed after they have been used to 
install the rpms).  Thus in the spec file, you don't have to worry about 
dependencies, you just say "I'd like a minimal distribution, but with 
xmms, xmame, WindowMaker, etc...".  Also simple 'patches' (i.e. sets of 
files to just be copied onto the system) are supported as well.

Layer 3 - TVOS -

As a first proof of concept app, I wanted a bootable CD that served a 
very narrow purpose.  Turn a random spare 300MHz+ PC with 128+M ram, 
into a living room jukebox PC.  I wanted (it works now :) a CD which 
boots the PC straight up into xmms, having searched the cdrom, PC's 
local disks, and network for music.  With full screen eyecandy as the 
default display.  I optomized this 'system' for 640x480 resolution, 
figuring thats what most tv-out video cards play nicest with, and that 
can be fed trivially to hdtv's as well.  And it keeps the fonts nice and 
big enough to read from a couch, even if its a crap 14" monitor thats 
being used.  IR remote controls are supported, but for now, just the 
kick ass ast/logitech one.  Grip is also started, configured for brain 
dead autoripping.

Autodetection -
============
Most basic funtionality here is autoconfigured.  Lan (defaults to dhcp 
client, if 2 nics, defaults to simple masq firewall).  Videocard - none 
of this vesafb crap, I use XFree86 -configure, with 
autodetection/autoinstall/autoconfigure of the binary nvidia driver. 
 Thereby booting straight up into 3d supported if available.  Sound is 
autodetected with sndconfig --quiet, as well as just blindly loading all 
modules reported by pcimodules.  Mice are currently not autodetected, 
except that I assume a logitech/ast IR remote acting as a mouse.

User Experience
=============
The main goal of all this is to provide a useful system/app (living room 
jukebox) for the user, with absolutely no user 
installation/configuration required. They just drop the CD in the PC as 
if it were a game cd for an xbox (I would love someday for my project to 
run on an xbox :).  Then they get a splash screen saying "system 
loading"  (no text mode at all, just a few splash screens while loading, 
ala tivo).  The user does have to wait awhile, as loading from CD is 
very very slow, and caching to the harddrive is also slow (dd 
if=/dev/cdroms/cdrom0 of=...).  But if the CD has already been cached, 
it is a very quick bootup.  Anyway, the loading splash screen fades to 
an X splash screen as the user is told "just a few seconds more" while 
xmms, mozilla, grip and kin are loaded into X (behind the users splash 
screen).  For simplicity, I load each app onto its own desktop.  As I 
personally dislike the whole
*windows* aspect of GUI's, which certainly have no business on a living 
room jukebox TV display.

Anyway, it sounds like this could be a good base for a rapid prototype 
(and beyond perhaps) for opencd.  I'll try to get it hosed on 
sourceforge in the near future.  Here is an example of my specfile to 
give you an idea-

gd_mdk_basedir="/mdk82"
gd_mdk_updatesdir="/mdk82-updates"
gd_mdk_customdir="/root/viros/gendist/basemedia/contrib"
gd_urpmilist="
devfsd
file
losetup
pciutils
bootsplash
autologin
lirc
sndconfig
emu10k1-tools
aumix
syslinux
dhcpcd
frozen-bubble
tuxracer
XFree86-server
xinitrc
xinput
WindowMaker
xmms
xosd
xmms-more-vis-plugins
xmms-mesa
xmovie
iptables
rp-pppoe
mozilla
grip
eject
gzip
bzip2
openssh-clients
rxvt
nmap
strace
Mesa-demos
libgcc3.0
xli
urw-fonts
samba-client
xmame-SDL
xmame-xgl
"
gd_patchlist="
viros
hack-tvos-bootsplash
nvidia
uemacs
tvos
tvos-lirc-logitech
tvos-mozilla
tvos-home-hack
music-acdc-back_in_black
music-black_sabbath-we_sold_our_soul_for_rock_n_roll
music-pink_floyd-animals
music-the_doors-an_american_prayer
music-tori_amos-to_venus_and_back
sendxevent
tvos-mameroms
x10
xmms-lirc
xmms-goom
XmmsChannels
xvkbd
snake3d
"
gd_remove_rpm=1
gd_prunelist="
/1
/var/lib/rpm
/lib/modules/2.4.18-6mdk/kernel/drivers/video/riva
"