Create LiveCD config.kiwi with bootsplash bootloader like as old openSuSE 13.2 / 42.1

red7.nikotin · June 10, 2023, 8:50pm

How to correctly create a single kiwi file in openSUSE 15.5 to get exactly the same boot menu of openSUSE 42.1 Live in such a way that it was:

Boot from LiveCD
Install from LiveCD
Boot from HDD
Memtest
The screen resolution was not the standard 800x600, but the ones I needed, for example, 1024x768
The language should not be by default, but let’s say “de”
The background picture at startup was at startup in the form of a light bulb glowing as in openSUSE 42.*
The background image of the loader itself is not new as it is now in openSUSE 15.5, but the one I need, let’s say it will also be openSUSE 42.* well, or I could install my own.

Please tell me how to do it, I’ve already broken my head in the documentation Image Description Elements — KIWI NG 9.24.61 documentation it’s not really clear, there are no examples

I don’t know what parameters to set in
bgrt
plymouth
openSUSE
none
openSUSE
text

lucathecomputerwiz · June 11, 2023, 2:40pm

One rout you could take to try and solve this issue is to make your iso in kiwi with default grub settings. Then, download your old opensuse install iso and coppy the grub configuration and theme files across, replacing the ones that were there by default on your custom install image from kiwi. You may need to play arround with the grub config files a bit to get it to work but appart from that it should be smooth sailing.

The alternate method is to transpant your new install functions like memtest and the boot from devices into the old opensuse 42 install iso, replacing the stock ones to give you the classic feel in grub…

NOTE: I have not tested if these will work but in theory they do… If you encounter any issues feel free to reply and I will try my best to help

red7.nikotin · June 11, 2023, 3:19pm

Yes, I considered this option as the most extreme, but I would like to do everything correctly.

At the moment, this option only shows me a new graphical download menu, but there are no settings like I need, no screen resolution adjustment or language selection, and of course the most important thing is only one option to download Live without installation

<bootsplash-theme>bgrt</bootsplash-theme>
<bootloader-theme>openSUSE</bootloader-theme>
<type
image="iso"
volid="MyBuild_linux_image"
firmware="uefi"
primary="true"
hybridpersistent_filesystem="ext4"
hybridpersistent="true"
hybrid="true"
bootprofile="default"
kernelcmdline="splash=silent quiet system.show_status=yes"
flags="overlay"
mediacheck="true"
/>

in bootloader-theme, apparently you need to put openSUSE because bgrt does not work, and I do not know what else to put there

tried adding a section

<bootloader name="grub2" console="gfxterm" timeout="10"/>

but nothing works either

lucathecomputerwiz · June 11, 2023, 3:28pm

does it give you an option to use a default or plain settings for grub? if you start out with the default grub you may be able to modify it and set the bacground immage ect a bit more easily

red7.nikotin · June 11, 2023, 4:09pm

As far as I understood in config.kiwi can control the appearance of the loader using the following blocks

<bootsplash-theme>***</bootsplash-theme>
<bootloader-theme>***</bootloader-theme>
<type kernelcmdline="***">
<bootloader name="***" console="***"/>
</type>

Instead of ***, you need to insert some values, but I do not know exactly which ones,
there are a lot of options for such combinations, and in the documentation
kiwi_doc
almost nothing is said, there are no examples there.

The only thing I could get was this:

PS: How simple and clear it was in openSUSE 10-12 when there was a GUI program for
KIWI builds on your local machine without any problems.

arvidjaar · June 11, 2023, 4:28pm

It is not quite clear what you mean. Your subsequent description matches installation image bootloader menu, in which case this menu is not generated by kiwi - it is part of skelcd-installer-openSUSE package which is the content of installation ISO sans repository. Unfortunately, how exactly kiwi is using the content of this package is not documented anywhere and image type (product) used for openSUSE installation images is not documented either.

You can provide your own bootloader configutation using grub_template attribute. It completely replaces default grub configuration file used by kiwi. See Image Description Elements — KIWI NG 9.24.61 documentation

lucathecomputerwiz · June 11, 2023, 4:28pm

I am not wawre of how easy to use the old kiwi app was as I was not using linux at that time. you could theoretically install an old version of opensuse to run it or find a package to install on your current os however it may not work / have the updated features.
The kiwi documentation is unlikely to have information about tweaking the bootloader because it shoulc be using the stangard grub commands for those, I would reccomend looking up a guide related to grub configuration commands or reak the wiki/docs like you seem to be able to do spectacularly…

it appears like the configuration happens in the spesific theme file so I would reccomend diving through that to tweak and get the desired boot theme. you could extract the sefault opensuse theme from an old build of the os and place it in your kiwi build: this is most likely to work and would be theoretically quite simple.

failing this, clone the default opensuse theme and rename it… you can then mess arround with it and set your new theme as the one yto use with the

<preferences>
  <bootloader-theme>openSUSE</bootloader-theme>
</preferences>

option. this should also work for the bootsplash and other configurable screens

red7.nikotin · June 11, 2023, 4:50pm

I’ve read the documentation, but there are no examples and I can’t figure out how to create my kiwi file based on this documentation on http://osinside .github.io/kiwi/image_description/elements.html#preferences-bootloader-theme

And the documentation I understood only that I need to create a block
and specify in it:

name=”grub2
console=“gfxterm”
timeout=“10”

And then there is this option

grub_template=”filename”

and what should I write in it, I did not understand which file to specify, what should I add to the build in build.opensuse.org except the config file.kiwi need to add some more file or what?

Well, let’s say you need to add a file, and what file extension and name should be, and what should be written inside this file, there are many options listed in the documentation that seem to be there, but I don’t understand whether they are all mandatory or not, I can’t specify exactly what needs to be prescribed there, because we manage the assembly the kiwi web service and only he knows which ones are there and which ones are needed for the kernel file and so on

Here are examples of ready-made official assemblies

but there are only Live ISO and Live Rescue, which if you assemble, you will get essentially what I did, but on this page there is no configuration for the official creation of DVD ISO for openSUSE 15.5, which just has the appearance I need and the ability to configure and install (there is only no Live mode, but I would think about it later, because 50% of what I need would already be there, but there is no ready-made kiwi file to create an official DVD)

red7.nikotin · June 11, 2023, 4:54pm

Of course, I tried to install the old version of openSUSE 10-12, but the program is a GUI for building kiwi does not work even for that version, because there is no online support for old distributions, and updating the system as a whole also does not solve the problem, because everything stops working at all.

I didn’t understand which files to look at and where to write what.

If it doesn’t bother you, please give an example

arvidjaar · June 11, 2023, 4:55pm

Installation images are built in Show openSUSE:Leap:15.5 / 000product - openSUSE Build Service

It should be the full grub configuration file which can have parameters as described in documentation, these parameters will be replaced by kiwi using other options.

Do it step by step. First make sure you can create the needed image locally.

red7.nikotin · June 11, 2023, 4:56pm

Here’s what I need

Please tell me someone, give an example of a configuration file or several files. I need examples, I haven’t been able to find them for a long time, and I’m tired of going through all the endless options in search of a more or less normal solution.

lucathecomputerwiz · June 12, 2023, 9:36am

have you got an iso of that install medium? if you upload it one of us can extract the grub configuration and theme files

red7.nikotin · June 12, 2023, 11:47am

This hint helped a lot, I remembered that a long time ago I watched something similar for openSUSE 13 and 42, but it was difficult to figure it out.

Now I have more knowledge and it has become a little easier to understand exactly what is written there.

In fact, the guys from openSUSE decided to separately upload Live builds in the normal kiwi style of version 5-7, familiar to everyone, but they decided to do their official builds for DVD and NET in the old way using kiwi version 4, besides using undocumented features.

In general, the screenshot that I showed at the beginning is that I collected it a long time ago based on just the same official configuration file that I found at one time among others in the official openSUSE repository, now I don’t have this image (it was very fat 4+Gb) and the configuration file itself, too, alas, has not been preserved.

Studying these files, it is just clear that apparently the loader is built on the basis of syslinux in the old versions, in any case, I have not yet understood in the new ones, but in both cases, undocumented packages are used again

<repopackage name="skelcd-installer-net-openSUSE" medium="0" removearch="src,nosrc" onlyarch="x86_64"/>
<repopackage name="skelcd-installer-openSUSE" medium="0" removearch="src,nosrc" onlyarch="x86_64"/>
<repopackage name="skelcd-control-openSUSE" medium="0" removearch="src,nosrc" onlyarch="x86_64"/>
<repopackage name="skelcd-openSUSE" medium="0" removearch="src,nosrc" onlyarch="x86_64"/>
<repopackage name="installation-images-openSUSE" medium="0" removearch="src,nosrc" onlyarch="x86_64" />
<repopackage name="instlux-local" medium="0" removearch="src,nosrc" onlyarch="x86_64" />
<repopackage name="instlux-net" medium="0" removearch="src,nosrc" onlyarch="x86_64" />
<repopackage name="openSUSE-images" medium="0" removearch="src,nosrc" onlyarch="x86_64" />
<repopackage name="skelcd-control-openSUSE" medium="0" removearch="src,nosrc" onlyarch="x86_64" />
<repopackage name="skelcd-openSUSE" medium="0" removearch="src,nosrc" onlyarch="x86_64" />
<repopackage name="yast2-slide-show-SuSELinux" medium="0" removearch="src,nosrc" onlyarch="noarch" />

At the moment I am considering openSUSE NET and DVD 15.5, it turns out that I need to combine them somehow,
and to upgrade the internal Rescue image that is created in them so that it contains the packages I need - this is like one of the options, but it will not have a menu item for installing a ready-made fully configured system of mine, i.e. the installation mode from DVD or NET involves installing from scratch, which of course is also useful if there is time to ram there is an Internet connection for installation and configuration.

The second option that I am considering is to replace the file inside any of the official Live openSUSE-Leap-15.5-KDE-Live-x86_64-Build10.40-Media.iso\LiveOS\squashfs.img assemblies with my own, naturally change all the names in openSUSE-Leap-15.5-KDE-Live-x86_64-Build10.40-Media.iso\boot\grub2\grub2.cfg
but this is only part of the work, because next you need to come up with how to add the installation of my finished image to this assembly (in principle, this is probably achievable if you look at how any standard kiwi assemblies with the oem flag are created.
And finally, then the main question remains, but how to change the loader itself so that it has the buttons I need for permission settings, language, and so on.

In general , I have not found a ready-made simple solution yet and I continue to dig immediately wherever I can

lucathecomputerwiz · June 12, 2023, 4:50pm

can you not replace the bootable images inside the old suse installer with those you have made from kiwi

red7.nikotin · July 4, 2023, 9:44am

To change the finished ISO file, I use the UltraISO program. If I change any of the elements in the ISO file: a text file or an image I have, I save it and then when loading, only the loader itself is displayed correctly, and then nothing works, either the black screen or it reaches a certain point and everything freezes.

And of course I tried to change the LiveOS\squashfs.img file itself, and of course I got the expected result - nothing worked except the boot menu itself.

The ISO file itself I used both my own and all available official Live and NET builds for version 13.2 15.0 15.5, and I always get the same result - except for the boot menu, nothing loads!!!