How to make Compressed ISO (.ci)
Forum: myDSL Extensions (deprecated)
Topic: How to make Compressed ISO (.ci)
started by: superdsl
Posted by superdsl on June 07 2004,15:41
Hello, I would like to know what are these compressed ISOs (.ci) and how to make my custom .ci
as mentioned in the mydsl page, there are now .ci available for openoffice and firefox but unfortunatly there is no information on how to create them.
Is there any special mkisofs command or any special parameters to create them ?
Posted by tecker on June 23 2004,02:42
Ditto! Hey roberts. How did you do that. I've got a great idea for a ci but don't know how to go about this.
Posted by roberts on June 24 2004,00:22
The hardest part of creating a ci has nothing to do with compressing them. The hardest part is to make a self-contained application under /opt. Because openoffice and firefox are pretty much self contained and are under /opt they were good test cases. I have since made python2.3.4 which works under /opt so to make it a ci is easy. Also, the ci has a limitiation of being read only. That is why there is an oouser.tar.gz. Those parts that require updates can be "linked" into a writeable directory. I see user Chris V made a firefox user file. Try to avoid making .dsl as they cause additional demands on the system. Sometimes, you will be required to make a shell wrapper to start the app. As being self contained implies that the app's libraries are also stored locally with the app. This usually implies requiring a LD_LIBRARY_PATH, thus the shell wrapper. Anyway, make the app. Test it as a .tar.gz. Once the app is working then to make a ci do the following.1. The app is installed into /opt in the your_app directory
1. become root
2. cd /opt
3. mkisofs -R -hide-rr your_app | create_compressed_fs - 65536 > /mnt/somedrive/your_app.ci
Note: there is currently a limit of 4 cloop devices available. So, I don't see a need for mnay .ci files unless the app is very large and is very popular.
Posted by softgun on Jan. 04 2005,19:18
I apologise for this late reply! I am new to the forum.I was interested to read what you said about uci extended compressed files, and the make of python.
I would lke to know your opinion on making zope web application server with Plone Zwiki and other apps iinto one as they are all placed in a single zope directory as far as know and is written in Python.
Posted by ico2 on Jan. 05 2005,10:03
i reckon it would be possible to turn even apps that are not from /opt into compressed iso extensions, with a script to symlink dirs within the uci to real dirs in the fs 
would be complicated though
Posted by henk1955 on Jan. 05 2005,10:49
| Quote |
would be complicated though |
it's not.
a *.uci has a user.tar.gz file. In this file you could have the symlinks.
they should be created similar to how /etc/init.d/mkwritable does.
then if you have loaded a *.dsl prior to the loading of the *.uci, it will work.
if the /usr/sbin/mountci was modified. ( allow the use of a user.dsl) some thing like:
| Code Sample |
if [ -f "/opt/$APP/user.tar.gz" ]; then busybox tar -C / -zxf "/opt/$APP/user.tar.gz" fi if [ -f "/opt/$APP/user.dsl" ]; then /etc/init.d/mkwritable busybox tar -C / -zxf "/opt/$APP/user.dsl" fi |
big *.dsl converted to this type of *.uci would need less ramdisk
i think.
Posted by ico2 on Jan. 05 2005,14:03
maybe that should be done sometime?i will try to make it work when i get home