TazLiTo

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: 29.01.2016
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NAME

Tazlito — SliTaz Live Tool.

SYNTAX

tazlito [command] [list|iso|flavor] [dir]

DESCRIPTION

Tazlito is a small utility to extract a Live CD, rebuild the ISO image and regenerate the root filesystem of the Live CD. Tazlito can also generate a distribution from a list of packages previously downloaded. Tazlito uses the configuration file tazlito.conf(5).

Tazlito installed by default on SliTaz and installed/successfully tested on Debian GNU/Linux. You will find additional information about creating a LiveCD in the Handbook.

COMMANDS

usage

Display a summary of available commands with a short description.

$ tazlito usage

stats

Display the configuration variables, the paths to the various files and directories, and information on the ISO image.

$ tazlito stats

list-addfiles

Display the list of additional files in the rootfs.

$ tazlito list-addfiles

gen-config

Generate a configuration file ready to be edited.

By default the file is created in the current directory, but can be in another directory if specified via the command line.

$ tazlito gen-config
$ tazlito gen-config /path/to/distro

configure

Configure the system configuration file or one found in the current directory.

You will be asked for ISO name, volume name, paths to packages repository and to distro.

# tazlito configure

gen-iso

Generate a new Live CD image following modifications and additions to the root filesystem of the CD-ROM.

To function, this command needs a directory containing the distro-tree of the Live system. This tree can easily be built with the extract-distro command, modified and rebuilt via:

# tazlito gen-iso

gen-initiso

The same as gen-iso, but it rebuilds the initramfs compressed system prior.

The initramfs contains the root filesystem and must be rebuilt if modified.

# tazlito gen-initiso

list-flavors

Download (if necessary) and display a list of the different flavors available.

You can force the download with the --recharge option.

$ tazlito list-flavors
# tazlito list-flavors --recharge

get-flavor

Download (if necessary) and prepares the files for gen-distro to generate an ISO image.

Option --noup can be used to skip updating flavor (see upgrade-flavor command).

# tazlito get-flavor core

show-flavor

Display the description of the flavor and its size after regeneration.

The options --brief and --noheader reduce the output displayed.

$ tazlito show-flavor base
$ tazlito show-flavor justx --brief
$ tazlito show-flavor core --brief --noheader

gen-flavor

Create a description file of a new flavor from the results of generating a distro (gen-distro). The .flavor file can then be sent to slitaz.org.

# tazlito gen-flavor new-flavor

gen-liveflavor

Create a description file of a new flavor from the results of generating a distro based on the current system.

The --help option provides more information.

# tazlito gen-liveflavor --help
# tazlito gen-liveflavor flavor-name
# tazlito gen-liveflavor flavor-name flavor-patch-file

Format of the flavor-patch-file:

code	data

@	flavor description
+	package to add
-	package to remove
!	non-free package to add
?	display message

Example:

@ Developer tools for SliTaz maintainers
+ slitaz-toolchain
+ mercurial

iso2flavor

Create a flavor file from the ISO image.

# tazlito iso2flavor slitaz-cooking.iso mycooking

upgrade-flavor

Refresh a flavor description file. Sizes and actual number of packages will be re-calculated. List of unknown packages will be displayed if any, as well as list of important packages missed in the flavor (like syslinux or linux). Packages versions (presented in the legacy flavor format) will be stripped from the flavor package list.

# tazlito upgrade-flavor core

extract-flavor

Convert a flavor into an easily modifiable tree structure. Path to the extracted flavors repository specified by variable FLAVORS_REPOSITORY in the tazlito.conf(5) (by default /home/slitaz/cooking/flavors).

This repository can be managed with mercurial: http://hg.slitaz.org/flavors .

# tazlito extract-flavor core

pack-flavor

Convert a tree structure, extracted by extract-flavor into a flavor file (.flavor).

# tazlito pack-flavor core

Execute this command after changing existing flavor, or after preparing new flavor. File packages.list inside flavor tree structure can contain include directive at the beginning, for example:

@include justx

to include all the packages listed in the justx flavor.

extract-distro

Extract an ISO image from the Live CD to rebuild the structure of the root CD-ROM and system. It is then possible to make the desired changes or additions and rebuild the ISO image via gen-iso or gen-initiso.

ISO image is extracted by default to the path specified by variable DISTRO in the tazlito.conf(5). Desired path may be specified in the second argument.

# tazlito extract-distro /tmp/slitaz-cooking.iso
# tazlito extract-distro /tmp/slitaz-cooking.iso /tmp/extracted

gen-distro

Generate the distro-tree and an ISO image via a list of packages.

To function, this command needs a list of packages and other files provided by command get-flavor. List is expected to be the file distro-packages.list in the current directory, or can be specified in the command argument. If package list not given, new list distro-packages.list will be re-created in the current directory using all currently installed packages.

If one uses the Live CD, the options --cdrom and --iso= allows the regeneration of packages that place files in /boot without being obliged to download them and recovers the additional files of the Live CD.

The path to the various directories are configured in the tazlito.conf(5) and packages can be downloaded from the SliTaz mirrors or generated by Cookutils.

# tazlito gen-distro
# tazlito gen-distro --cdrom
# tazlito gen-distro --iso=slitaz.iso
# tazlito gen-distro package-list

clean-distro

Remove all files generated or extracts of the structure of the LiveCD.

# tazlito clean-distro

check-distro

Verify few configuration files in the generated rootfs (/etc/slitaz-release, /var/lib/tazpkg/mirror, /boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg).

TODO: Remove this function. First two files are maintained by tazpkg while it runs on rootfs, while last one file should be maintained by tazlito itself.

# tazlito check-distro

writeiso

Write the current filesystem to a cpio archive (rootfs.gz) and then generate a bootable ISO image. Writeiso can be used in a HD install or in live mode and will also archive your current /home directory.

This command lets you easily remaster and build your own Live CD image, just boot, modify any files, and then:

# tazlito writeiso [gzip|lzma|none]
# tazlito writeiso gzip
# tazlito writeiso gzip image-name

repack

Recompress the rootfs with the best possible compression.

# tazlito repack slitaz.iso

merge

Combine several flavors like nested Russian dolls. Each rootfs is a subset of the previous. The first rootfs is extracted from the ISO image used in the third argument. The flavor will then be chosen to launch at startup according to the amount of RAM available.

# tazlito merge 160M slitaz-core.iso 96M rootfs-justx.gz 32M rootfs-base.gz

build-loram

Create an ISO image flavor for low RAM systems from a SliTaz ISO image. You can build a flavor with / always in RAM or where / resides on the CD-ROM:

# tazlito build-loram slitaz.iso loram.iso
# tazlito build-loram slitaz.iso loram-cdrom.iso cdrom

Third argument can be one of the:

cdrom: Move rootfs to squashfs filesystem(s) to the CD-ROM writeable with aufs/overlayfs. These squashfs may be loaded in RAM at boot time. Rootfs are also copied to CD-ROM for tiny ramsize systems. Meta flavors are converted to normal flavors.
smallcdrom: TODO.
http: Create http bootstrap to load and remove loram_cdrom. Meta flavors are converted to normal flavors.
ram: Move rootfs to a squashfs filesystem into the initramfs writeable with aufs/overlayfs. Meta flavor selection sizes are updated.

emu-iso

Use the QEMU emulator to start and run SliTaz.

QEMU is used to test the newly built ISO image without burning to a CD-ROM or booting into frugal mode.

# tazlito emu-iso
# tazlito emu-iso path/to/image.iso

burn-iso

Burn an ISO image guessing the CD-ROM device and its speed.

The default ISO image is the one located in the current configuration file, but it's possible to specify a different image via the command line:

# tazlito burn-iso
# tazlito burn-iso slitaz-hacked.iso

LICENSE

Tazlito is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

Tazlito is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

AUTHORS

Christophe Lincoln <pankso@slitaz.org>
Pascal Bellard <pascal.bellard@ads-lu.com>
Paul Issott <paul@slitaz.org>
Eric Joseph-Alexandre <erjo@slitaz.org>
Claudinei Pereira <claudinei@slitaz.org>
Aleksej Bobylev <al.bobylev@gmail.com>

MAINTAINERS

Christophe Lincoln <pankso@slitaz.org>
Pascal Bellard <pascal.bellard@slitaz.org>

SliTaz Man Pages