mkosi

mkosi stands for Make Operating System Image, and is a tool for generating an OS tree or image that can be booted.

Installation

Install mkosi or mkosi-git^AUR. Depending on what distribution you want to build install the following packages:

You can create an image by just running it without any arguments:

# mkosi

You can specify option as arguments or by editing files in the current folder.

The following command will create a bootable image with the latest Debian version and the package openssh-client installed:

# mkosi -d debian -t gpt_ext4 -b --checksum --password password --package openssh-client,vim -o image.raw

systemd-nspawn can boot the resulting image:

# systemd-nspawn -b -i image.raw

It can also be virtualized with QEMU/KVM:

$ qemu-system-x86_64 -m 512 -smp 2 -bios /usr/share/ovmf/x64/OVMF_CODE.fd -drive format=raw,file=image.raw

You can also write this image to a USB drive and use it to boot your computer.

The same image can be created by creating a configuration file:

Basic options can be specified as command-line arguments or in a file called in your current directory. Most important options:

Argument	Option in mkosi.default	Description
		The name of the distribution to install, supported are:
		The version of the distribution: jessie, 21, …
	[Output] Format=	Format of the image to create: gpt_ext4: Image file with GPT partition table and ext4 file system gpt_btrfs: Image file with GPT partition table and btrfs file system gpt_squashfs: Image file with GPT partition table and squashfs file system directory: A plain directory subvolume: A btrfs subvolume tar: A tar-ball of a plain directory
	[Output] Bootable=yes	Make the image bootable
		Size of the root file system
		List of packages to be installed into the image
		File/directory-Name
		Set the initial root password

gollark: We do not speak of TJ08.

gollark: *than before

gollark: Fewer palindromes before? This is clear evidence of a TJ08/TJ09 conspiracy.

gollark: Very palindromic!

gollark: TJ09 updating a thing is *not possible*.