mkimage-profiles/doc/mkimage-profiles.7

.\" Copyright (C) 2010-2020 Michael Shigorin <mike@altlinux.org>
.\" Copyright (C) 2020-2024 Anton Midyukov <antohami@altlinux.org>
.\"
.\" Documentation for mkimage-profiles project.
.\"
.\" This file is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
.\" it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
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.\" 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.
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.\" along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
.\" Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
.\" 
.TH "MKIMAGE-PROFILES" "mkimage-profiles" "ALT"
.SH "NAME"
mkimage-profiles \- ALT distribution family metaprofile
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.B make
.IR "" [ options ]
.I "" [ <goal> ... ]
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.BR mkimage-profiles
builds operating environment images based on ALT package repositories.

Run
.BR make\ help
to obtain list of available goals.
.SH "PREREQUISITES"
mkimage-profiles only needs
.BR make(1)
and
.BR rsync(1)
to generate the build profile;
.BR mkimage
is used to actually run the build (which involves
.BR hasher(7)
quite a few times).

.BR git(1)
will be used if available so that the generated profile is an annotated
git repository;
.BR graphviz(1)
can be used to obtain build dependency graphs.
.SH "RATIONALE"
Long time ago when Linux distribution images were worked upon by hand
there was little need for generalization and sharing the common base.

Building several "generic" ALT{, Linux} distros in a team and maintaining
their educational flavours at the same time proved the need to be able
to describe what's common and what's different in a way that doesn't
resemble more or less complete forks.

Enter mkimage-profiles: choose what's closest to your dream image
and add what's missing, or roll on your own using the rich library
of existing parts and bits.
.SH "REQUIREMENTS"
The next-generation image build system for ALT must:
.TP
1.
provide reasonable means to describe common/differing aspects within
image families;
.TP
2.
ensure reproducible build results;
.TP
3.
support distribution family maintenance workflows
observed in the wild (e.g., with
.BR mkimage-profiles-desktop
or earlier);
.TP
4.
help out with diagnosing build problems.
.SH "ARCHITECTURE"
.BR mkimage-profiles
implements four steps to achieve the above goals:
.TP
1.
initialize the off-tree mkimage profile (BUILDDIR);
.TP
2.
build up distribution's configuration there;
.TP
3.
copy over the needed subprofiles/features/lists/groups;
.TP
4.
build the ISO/VE/VM image.
.PP
This results in a compact "as-needed" style per-image profile that can
be actually studied in a short amount of time and might get included
into the generated image as a tarball for better reproducibility.
.SH "EXAMPLES"
.BR make\ syslinux.iso
should result in a minimal bootable ISO image.

Another example is Regular Builds project yielding weekly images:
.BR https://en.altlinux.org/regular
.SH "AUTHOR"
Written by Michael Shigorin <mike@altlinux.org>, Anton Midyukov <antohami@altlinux.org>
.SH "REPORTING BUGS"
Report bugs to https://bugzilla.altlinux.org
.br
(Sisyphus project, mkimage-profiles component).
.SH "COPYRIGHT"
Copyright \(co) 2010-2020  Michael Shigorin <mike@altlinux.org>, 2020-2024 Anton Midyukov <antohami@altlinux.org>
.br
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.
There is NO WARRANTY; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
.SH "FURTHER READING"
First and foremost:
.BR /usr/share/mkimage-profiles/QUICKSTART

Please refer to 
.BR README
files in the tree starting with the toplevel one for more
information; these can be assembled into a handbook using
.BR asciidoc(1)
(available at
.BR https://nightly.altlinux.org/docs/
as weekly HTML/PDF updates).

Specific topics are covered within
.BR doc/
subdirectory; e.g.
.BR make
options are described in
.BR doc/params.txt
file.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.br
.BR hsh(1),
.BR mkimage,
.br
.BR https://www.vimeo.com/23522095