Hello Simon, On 04/01/2026 11:37, Simon Josefsson wrote:
I see nothing about 'mmdebstrap' in the live-build source code, manual or open bug reports. Is using mmdebstrap instead of debootstrap supported, and if so how? Are there any known deal-breakers for this?
There are even 2 MRs: https://salsa.debian.org/live-team/live-build/-/merge_requests/343 https://salsa.debian.org/live-team/live-build/-/merge_requests/370 And 2 bug reports: #1031929 and #1065463The initial merge request came at a time that there were issues with debootstrap, where the d-i installer would not work, even when the live image would be generated with mmdebstrap.
I've not continued commenting on both MRs, given that the d-i installer uses debootstrap and therefore the debootstrap functionality always needs to be checked and working.
Then there is https://salsa.debian.org/live-team/live-build/-/merge_requests/420#note_699243 which uses an unshare environment to run the whole live-build script in. That approach is even nicer, since the build can be totally decoupled from the host.
However, there were some issues IIRC with rebuilding d-i, so that is not final either.
For me, this would add the ability to download packages from archives that only supports Packages.zst files, which apt+mmdebstrap supports both not debootstrap.
git grep "Packages\." This shows a few locations that (currently) only work with gzip.Would it be suitable in your use-case to run debootstrap for a minimal bootstrap, and then continue with the chroot-phase, for which I assume that apt has the suitable zst support?
With kind regards, Roland Clobus
OpenPGP_signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature
