RE: Mini guide to build Manjaro ISO

[M78]

[root tip] [How To] Mini guide to build Manjaro ISO

Build Manjaro ISO Prerequisites lots of diskspace (skip this if your root is sufficiently large) installing the tools tools configuration building Diskspace You need a lot diskspace - 15-20G per iso you intend to build The tools Install the manjaro-tools needed for building an ISO sudo pacman -Syu git manjaro-tools-iso-git Configure tools With the tools installed copy the default tools configuration to your home cp -R /etc/manjaro-tools ~/.config Modify the tools configuration to poin…

Hello Frede,
I’m building a custom Manjaro ISO using buildiso and encountering an issue with /etc/skel/ content not appearing in the live environment.

Problem Description:

• I place custom files and configurations in /home/$USER/iso-profiles/custom/myxfce/live-overlay/etc/skel/
• These files do not appear when booting the live ISO
• This happens even with a completely fresh clone from the git repository
• The files exist in the profile directory before building, but the user (manjaro) doesn’t have access to them in the live environment

What I’ve Tried:

• Copying files to live-overlay/etc/skel/ with correct permissions (644 for files, 755 for directories)
• Setting owner as root:root
• Building with fresh clones from gitlab.manjaro.org/profiles-and-settings/iso-profiles
• Various combinations of chown and chmod

Build Output:
The build completes successfully, and calamares installs properly, but the live user (manjaro) doesn’t have any custom files from /etc/skel/.

Question:

1. Is this related to the new manjaro-live-setup in recent versions? It worked fine since Jan.
2. Are there configuration parameters I’m missing to enable /etc/skel/ population in the live environment?
3. Is there a documented workflow for properly including custom user files in the live ISO?

I’m aware that /etc/skel/ is typically used as a template for new user homes during installation, but I need custom configurations available in the live environment itself.

Any guidance on the proper way to include custom skeleton files in the live ISO would be appreciated.

Kind regards,
Michael

[M78]

ok, found a solution that worked for me:

In: /home/$USER/iso-profiles/custom/myxfce/live-overlay/etc/systemd/system/:

Datei: copy-user-skel.service

[Unit]
Description=Copy custom skel to live user
After=systemd-user-sessions.service

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c 'cp -af /etc/skel/. /home/manjaro/'
User=root
RemainAfterExit=yes

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

In profile.conf:

enable_systemd_live=('manjaro-live' 'mhwd-live' 'pacman-init' 'mirrors-live' 'copy-user-skel')

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Mod edit:- General tidy. No charge. @M78 – Please note that the forum uses markdown – whenever you type an # it is interpreted as HTML heading one (<h1>).

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[linux-aarhus]

What you are doing is technically correct - I have been using these features in many situations - and this has always worked.

In your iso-profiles folder - all content should be owned by your user

sudo chown $USER:$USER ~/iso-profiles

@M78

Question:

1. Is this related to the new manjaro-live-setup in recent versions? It worked fine since Jan.

Quite possible

@M78

Question:

2. Are there configuration parameters I’m missing to enable /etc/skel/ population in the live environment?

Not that I know of

@M78

Question:

3. Is there a documented workflow for properly including custom user files in the live ISO?

There is very little documentation on the subject, what I know comes from hard work.

I would refer to the wiki - but it is so unstable that it has been disabled.

The ISO is a layered cake.

The layers are built using the Packages-<layer> package lists and the <layer>-overlay folders is used to inject customisation not available in any package.

The layers are built into separate folders configured by the chroots_dir in manjaro-tools.conf

# build dir where buildpkg or buildiso chroots are created
chroots_dir='/var/lib/manjaro-tools'

The build process has a -x argument which stops the process before generating the squash file systems.

This allows for editing the source file systems before building the ISO.

This can be used for various purposes e.g. to troubleshoot a stubborn configuration.

To resume the build session run with -zx arguments to build the file system. You can even use this for a repeated troubleshooting - where you tweak a given configuration - then regenerate the ISO - the script will know rebuild the part you touched without having to rebuild all file systems over and over.

I used the live-overlay quite extensively by injecting modified versions of the final scripts. I also work with trimmed down package lists and sometimes omitting mhwd completely.

[robin0800]

If you put it in the desktop file it will still work in the live one as both are loaded.