Collection of Remastering Tools by Various Forum Members

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musher0
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Collection of Remastering Tools by Various Forum Members

#1 Post by musher0 »

Hi people.

I had the attached lying around in a directory.

With all the "huff and puff" ( correct expression ? ) about the woof-CE process,
remastering gets neglected and forgotten as a valid process to make your own Pup.

Remastering remains a basic, tried and true, technique to build a Pup to fill your
needs.

Woof-CE or Woof-Next are fine, but they are a kind of robots. Once you've
defined the parameters, you hit Enter and away it goes. It creates a standard, ex-
factory Puppy, of breed X, Y or Z. Not necessarily the Pup you need.

Doing a remaster, you really get a handle on things. Speaking for myself,
I learned more about how Puppy works doing remasters than with the woof-CE.
Doing a remaster, you have to pay a great deal of attention to details.

We do need both approaches, I want to be clear about that.

I sorted what I had in that dir by author. Here's the "manifest" or contents:
Remastering-Tools
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof/peebee-perdido
[1.3K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof/peebee-perdido/iso_delta2pet_v1.tar.gz
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof/shinobar
[ 57K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof/shinobar/mkdist-1.3.tar.gz
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof/wiak
[8.7K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof/wiak/makepup.zip
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/jpeps
[8.6K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/jpeps/gnewpet-6.5.pet
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/jrb
[3.9K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/jrb/0_pupbuild_tools_2.tar.gz
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/nic007
[2.1K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/nic007/Quick_Remaster_Rev3.zip
[5.9K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/nic007/Remasterpup_BaseSFS.zip
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/sc0ttman
[ 27K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/sc0ttman/woofy-0.91.pet
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/shinobar
[ 17K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/shinobar/remasterx-1.0.pet

10 directories, 9 files
They are a set of remaster tools that I use now and then. This list is by no means
complete, this forum being huge.

I encourage you to search for other remastering tools using the the forum's search
engine. Please list other remastering tools below as you find them. TIA.

IHTH
Attachments
Remastering-Tools.zip
(135.18 KiB) Downloaded 265 times
Last edited by musher0 on Tue 21 May 2019, 05:47, edited 1 time in total.
musher0
~~~~~~~~~~
"You want it darker? We kill the flame." (L. Cohen)

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nic007
Posts: 3408
Joined: Sun 13 Nov 2011, 12:31
Location: Cradle of Humankind

#2 Post by nic007 »

nicOS-Remaster-Suite.pet for mine.

musher0
Posts: 14629
Joined: Mon 05 Jan 2009, 00:54
Location: Gatineau (Qc), Canada

#3 Post by musher0 »

Thanks, nic007.
musher0
~~~~~~~~~~
"You want it darker? We kill the flame." (L. Cohen)

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NeroVance
Posts: 201
Joined: Wed 10 Oct 2012, 23:00
Location: Halifax, Canada

#4 Post by NeroVance »

I'm personally partial to Woofmastering, best of both worlds

s243a
Posts: 2580
Joined: Tue 02 Sep 2014, 04:48
Contact:

Re: Collection of Remastering Tools by Various Forum Members

#5 Post by s243a »

musher0 wrote:Hi people.

I had the attached lying around in a directory.

With all the "huff and puff" ( correct expression ? ) about the woof-CE process,
remastering gets neglected and forgotten as a valid process to make your own Pup.

Remastering remains a basic, tried and true, technique to build a Pup to fill your
needs.

Woof-CE or Woof-Next are fine, but they are a kind of robots. Once you've
defined the parameters, you hit Enter and away it goes. It creates a standard, ex-
factory Puppy, of breed X, Y or Z. Not necessarily the Pup you need.

Doing a remaster, you really get a handle on things. Speaking for myself,
I learned more about how Puppy works doing remasters than with the woof-CE.
Doing a remaster, you have to pay a great deal of attention to details.

We do need both approaches, I want to be clear about that.

I sorted what I had in that dir by author. Here's the "manifest" or contents:
Remastering-Tools
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof/peebee-perdido
[1.3K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof/peebee-perdido/iso_delta2pet_v1.tar.gz
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof/shinobar
[ 57K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof/shinobar/mkdist-1.3.tar.gz
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof/wiak
[8.7K] Remastering-Tools/Para-woof/wiak/makepup.zip
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/jpeps
[8.6K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/jpeps/gnewpet-6.5.pet
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/jrb
[3.9K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/jrb/0_pupbuild_tools_2.tar.gz
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/nic007
[2.1K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/nic007/Quick_Remaster_Rev3.zip
[5.9K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/nic007/Remasterpup_BaseSFS.zip
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/sc0ttman
[ 27K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/sc0ttman/woofy-0.91.pet
[4.0K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/shinobar
[ 17K] Remastering-Tools/Remaster-proper/shinobar/remasterx-1.0.pet

10 directories, 9 files
They are a set of remaster tools that I use now and then. This list is by no means
complete, this forum being huge.

I encourage you to search for other remastering tools using the the forum's search
engine. Please list other remastering tools below as you find them. TIA.

IHTH
I'm impressed at how many tools have been created for this purpose. Thankyou for sharing :)

Anyway, for another approach I noticed that darry uses isomaster sometimes for remastering. Regarding puppies remasterpup2 script one thing that I don't like about it is that it seems to not include any settings from the /etc folder beyond what was in the original ISO.

What I would like to see is a smarter script that can better identify which files/folders in both /etc /root to keep "as modified" vs "as was on the original ISO".

Do any of the above listed tools do this?
Find me on [url=https://www.minds.com/ns_tidder]minds[/url] and on [url=https://www.pearltrees.com/s243a/puppy-linux/id12399810]pearltrees[/url].

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nic007
Posts: 3408
Joined: Sun 13 Nov 2011, 12:31
Location: Cradle of Humankind

#6 Post by nic007 »

Yes, choose whether to customise/keep current settings for use with the same computer or not. Use the options version tool of the nicOS-Remaster-Suite. There's really nothing "smart" about this, it's a simple choice you make. Apart from the choice you even have a chance to manually change/alter things if you so wish, so all bases/scenarios are really covered. BTW - You will not be able to do a remaster which include manually installed applications, etc. by using IsoMaster.

s243a
Posts: 2580
Joined: Tue 02 Sep 2014, 04:48
Contact:

#7 Post by s243a »

nic007 wrote:Yes, choose whether to customise/keep current settings for use with the same computer or not. Use the options version tool of the nicOS-Remaster-Suite. There's really nothing "smart" about this, it's a simple choice you make. Apart from the choice you even have a chance to manually change/alter things if you so wish, so all bases/scenarios are really covered. BTW - You will not be able to do a remaster which include manually installed applications, etc. by using IsoMaster.
I will start a new thread shortly and the following code isn't debugged yet but it might give you and idea of what I was thinking of:

Code: Select all

#/bin/bash
TargetBase=/tmp
SourceBase=''
if [ -h "/initrd$SAVE_LAYER" ]; then
  SourceBase="/initrd$SAVE_LAYER"
elif [ -h /initrd/pup_ro1 ]; then
  SourceBase="/initrd/pup_ro1"  
fi

for aUser in root; do #remaster script should create a folder of user dirs instead of just root.
                      #In which case we also add the following to the loop: spot puppy fido etc.
  aHOME=$(eval echo "~$aUser")
    if [ ! -z "$SourceBase" ]; then 
      cd "$SourceBase"
    else
      cd /
    fi  
    cd ".$aHOME"      
  while read aFile; do
    if [ ! -z "$SourceBase" ]; then 
      cd "$SourceBase"
    else
      cd /
    fi
    cd ".$aHOME"  
    do_echo=0 #It doesn't really matter how we intialize this because we cover all cases below
    aDIR="${aFile#./}"
    aDIR="${aDIR%%/*}"
    case "$aDIR" in
    .cache) do_echo=0 ;; #Likely private browser settings in here
    .config)  do_echo=1 ;; #TODO we should probably look at the specific files in this directory   
    Choices|.icons|.jwm) do_echo=1 ;; #These folder will probably only change if you change the theme
    Desktop) do_echo=1 ;; # here normally shouldn't be private info here but maybe we need to consider this further. 
    Download) do_echo=0 ;; #Exclude this stuff from the iso
    .local) do_echo=0 ;; #Potential meta data in here that we want to exclude (e.g. /recently-used.xbel)
    .mozilla) do_echo=0 ;; #Probably firefox profile info here
    .pbookmarks|pfavorites) do_echo=0 ;; #Probably not much to wory about here but lets not copy since it probably isn't that useful.  
    geany|gtk-3.0|ptheme) do_echo=1 ;;
    rox.sourceforge.net) 
      if [ -d /root/rox.sourceforge.net ]; then
        do_echo=1
      else #Because of the way find works this should never actually happen
           #However, this folder might be symlinked to allow users to share rox settings. 
        do_echo=0
      fi    
      ;;
    pkg) do_echo=2 ;; #Let's make this directory if it doesn't exist. 
    .pkg) do_echo=1 ;;
    .pRecent) do_echo=0 ;; #Possible metadata here that we want to exclude
    .ptheme) do_echo=0 ;; #This seems to be only temporary files used in the theme change. Perhaps we should even delete this stuff if exists on the live cd. 
    puppy_reference) do_echo=1 ;; #This stuff might be usefull
    .ssh) do_echo=0 ;; #Exclude this folder since it contains private keys
    .subversion) do_echo=0  ;; #Possibly private keys in here. Further experimentaiton will be required to see if we need anything here. 
    #The following are actually files
    .bashrc|.gtkrc-2.0|.jwmrc|.profile|.xinitrc) #These are actually files
      do_echo=1  ;; #Some of these files are auto generated such as .gtkrc-2.0, .jwmrc 
    *)
    do_echo=0
  esac 
  
  if [ $do_echo -eq 1 ]; then
    if [ "$aFile" -nt "$TargetBase/$aFile" ] || \
       [ ! -e "$TargetBase/$aFile" -a ! -h "$TargetBase/$aFile" ]; then
       cd "$SourceBase"
       echo ".$aHOME/$aFile" | cpio -pd "$TargetBase"
    fi
  elif [ $do_echo -eq 2 ]; then
    mkdir -p "$TargetBase$aHOME/$aDIR"
  fi
  done < <(find "." -name '*')
done
https://pastebin.com/A2mGDjRT

Once I create the new thread, all comments will be welcome about which files/directories to include or exclude.

Edit: I also have some preliminary untested code for copying from the etc folder:
https://pastebin.com/VY4BtTEw
Find me on [url=https://www.minds.com/ns_tidder]minds[/url] and on [url=https://www.pearltrees.com/s243a/puppy-linux/id12399810]pearltrees[/url].

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nic007
Posts: 3408
Joined: Sun 13 Nov 2011, 12:31
Location: Cradle of Humankind

#8 Post by nic007 »

I don't see the point of this as far as any changes to /etc and /root are concerned as these folders can be manually accessed and edited to your heart's content during the remaster process with the current tools available, if needed. Just my thoughts, don't let me put you off. In fact, you can access and edit all folders concerned with making a newly remastered iso before or during running the current scripts. Also - It's impossible for a single remaster script to cover every possible scenario. Take for instance the /root folder which inter alia includes personal configuration files for your software. You may for some reason not want to include all or some of them in a new remaster or you even want to edit some of the files.

musher0
Posts: 14629
Joined: Mon 05 Jan 2009, 00:54
Location: Gatineau (Qc), Canada

#9 Post by musher0 »

@s243a and all:

Although very useful if needed as the last step of a remaster, isomaster
is not a remaster tool per se.

It enables one to juggle with / replace the contents of an existing iso: the sfs's,
kernel, init file, syslinux or grub, and the like, and create a new iso with a
different name.

At least that's the way I use it within the Puppy context. But of course one
can put anything in an iso file.

BFN.
musher0
~~~~~~~~~~
"You want it darker? We kill the flame." (L. Cohen)

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