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Building huronOS

huronOS is an immutable system which is built in layers and modules to provide all the functionalities it is designed for. This means that to build the system you'll firstly need to:

  1. Create a base system
  2. Install the base into a USB drive
  3. Build the rest of the system layers
  4. Build all the software modules

Building the base system​

  1. Install Debian:
    First, install Debian 11.6 in a computer with a minimal installation setup. Make sure to not install any extra software mentioned on the installer, and do not setup extra users other than root (if you do, erase them).

  2. Get huronOS-build-tools
    Clone this repo on the / root directory of your newly installed Debian with the following command

    git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/equetzal/huronOS-build-tools

  3. Compile the huronOS kernel
    huronOS needs a kernel that supports AUFS, so we need to replace the kernel. To do so, run as root:

    cd builder-scripts/kernel/
    chmod +x build-kernel.sh
    ./build-kernel.sh --build-kernel

    Then reboot your computer and run 

    cd builder-scripts/kernel/
    ./build-kernel.sh --clean-kernel ## To delete all the other kernels in the system
    ./build-kernel.sh --clean-packages ## To remove all the packages installed for building the kernel

    Note: After building your kernel, you'll get a .tag.gz file with your compilation. To restore it on a system just run:

     ./build-kernel.sh --restore-kernel

    *Alternatively, you can also download one of the kernel packages available at https://archive.huronos.org/builds/kernel/

  4. Build the base ISO
    To build the base system (01-base.hsl) and the huronOS bootable skeleton filesystem, run as root: 

    chmod +x base-system/base.sh
    ./base-system/base.sh

    Afterwards, you will find a similar directory on /tmp:

    huronOS-build-tools-67321/ ## Suffix of the PID
       ├── iso-data/
       └── make-iso.sh

    By default, make-iso.sh will have a field ISO_DATA=/tmp/huronOS-build-tools-67321/iso-data and ISO_OUTPUT=/tmp/huronOS-build-tools-67321/huronOS-b2023.00xx-amd64.iso. If you're planing to move the directory, please make sure to update this routes accordingly.

Building the system layers​

After you've got the base system, the huronOS toolkit should be available, but you'll need to install the base OS into a USB drive to continue with the building of the system. For this task, you have 2 options:

  1. Use sysforge to automate the build process; or
  2. Build each layer manually (Useful in case that you only want to build certain layers)

In any case, you will need to install huronOS at a temporal USB drive, so go ahead and run:

./make-iso.sh # This step is necessary as it will calculate the checksums of the files
./iso-data/install.sh # You just hit enter when prompt for directives URL and directives server IP

After this, please boot up the installed system with the boot option *No-sync mode.

  1. Setup sysforge:
    Sysforge is a utility that automatically queue the build scripts, wait for internet connectivity, saves the modules or system layers and reboot the system for building the next layers. In order to successfully run it, you need to:

    • Have the huronOS-build-layers available in a disk and checked out in the branch/commit you want to build the system with.
    • Have a wired internet connectivity with DHCP connected to the computer you're booting huronOS with.
    • Have the path were you want to mount the disk with the huronOS-build-tools repository.
    • Have the pull path of the mount point + the huronOS-build-tools directory.

    Example:

    Configuration:
    DISK_WITH_HBT="/dev/sda1"
    DISK_MOUNT_POINT="/media/disk"
    PATH_TO_HBT="/media/disk/src/huronOS-build-tools"

  2. Run sysforge:
    After you have this data, boot on the system and run:

    ## Alternatively, omit a flag if you do not desire to build the system layers or the modules
    sysforge --system-layers --software-modules

    Fill the prompts. After this, wait for the system to finish building the system.

  3. Copy the system to the iso-data:
    After finishing the execution of sysforge, copy all the contents of huronOS/base and huronOS/software from the USB drive to the huronOS-build-tools-67321/iso-data/ directory. Then proceed to run the ./make-iso.sh script to create the ISO image for your system.