Building overview

There are two major steps involved in building KaarPux:

  • Use an existing Linux distribution (called the Host System) to build a minimal, bootable version of KaarPux
  • Boot into the minimal KaarPux version to build a complete KaarPux distribution.

Different ways to build KaarPux

Kaarpux can be build in many ways; here we describe three:

Step-by-step

The steps involved in building KaarPux (as described in more detail in the following sections) are:

Get ready

  • Install required packages on the host: Make sure the tools needed to build KaarPux are installed on the Host System
  • Formatting disks: Format the disk partition(s) KaarPux will be install onto.
  • Download and Prepare KaarPux: Download the bleeding edge or stable version of KaarPux as a tarball.
  • Configure KaarPux: Create a configuration file with suitable options for your system and build
    • mount disks
    • prepare a host directory for KaarPux
    • unpack tarballl
    • configure KaarPux
    • create scripts
    • download packages
    • add a dedicated build user

Bootstrap

Build

Use it

  • Reboot, and KaarPux is at your service
  • Post installation: Add a final touch to KaarPux

All the above steps are described in detail in Build KaarPux on your own machine

Easier ways to build KaarPux

In order to automate the building of KaarPux further, you can use a virtual machine:

KaarPux Build Duration

KaarPux can be build in less than 5 hours on this reference installation:

  • Intel Core i7-3970X Extreme, 6-Core, 3.5GHz CPU
  • ASUS P9X79 WS motherboard
  • 64 GB 1333MHz CL-9-9-9-24 memory

Host and target where run under kvm with testing disabled, using tmpfs for build directories.

Durations for each phase:

phase duration
bootstrap 40 minutes
linux base 40 minutes
xorg 10 minutes
gnome 1 hour
desktop 1 hour
libreoffice 45 minutes
programming 30 minutes