
    CREATING YOUR OWN WMLIVE ISO IMAGE

The wmlive-desktop archive located here contains the exact copy of the
very build tree which was used to create the ISO image used to install
the current wmlive system. You will need the already included xz/unxz
utility to unpack it.

To get started creating your own ISO, you might need to make sure that
this wmlive build tree is still up to date to properly match the ever
evolving live-build scripts, unless it stays at the package version
level already provided with this release.

Some of the Debian binaries used for this version of wmlive and expected
for the creation of wmlive would normally need first to be compiled from
the sources provided in the extras/sources folder on the ISO. But if you
cringe at the idea of doing all this yourself, be assured that all those
specific deb files will be recreated from the already installed packages
using the included dpkg-repack command by the build scripts.

To get you started, once the whole build tree has been unpacked into the folder
/usr/local/src/wmlive/wmlive-desktop, switch into this directory and execute
the command ./mkwmlive in order to be shown how to go on.  For example

    ./mkwmlive amd64 | tee buildlog_$(today)-0.log 2>&1

will run the whole build process until finally an amd64 ISO has been created
and moved into the /usr/local/src/wmlive/ directory.

Make sure that the included apt-cacher-ng is properly configured and updated as
a caching proxy for all the required deb files. Depending on your network
connection speed, the first time running the build should take quite a while
for the initial download of approximately 1.5GB for all the required Debian
packages. As the downloaded package files will be cached for the future, it
will work much faster for all subsequent runs.

For making actual use of this build tree, you are basically on your own.
The scripts it contains are currently its own documentation. So if you
are not able to manage at least some basic shell scripting then there is
currently no separate documentation to provide an understanding about how
this all works. Sorry about that.

To facilitate understanding how and why the build tree is constructed as
it is, you definitely might want to refer to the Debian Live manual at
http://live.debian.net/manual/4.x/html/live-manual.en.html for further
reference.

Maybe if i find some more free time in the future i might be able to
write some useful notes, but please don't hold your breath while
waiting. On the other hand, the best documentation is usually written by
third parties, and if you feel so inclined, don't hesitate doing it.

Enjoy!

Paul Seelig <wmlive@users.sf.net>
http://wmlive.sourceforge.net
