Installing debian onto pyra

[ljones]

Edit: Changed title from "pandora" to pyra. Why do I still want to type pandora? x.x ..... anyway....

Hello all!

Just a quick question here. Does anyone know how installing an OS (debian) onto the pyra will work? So for example would the pyra have its own version of the debian installer?

I just ask as I must confess I'm not a big fan of "pre-rolled" desktops. Looking over to the raspberry pi website for their machine they have their modified debian OS (now called raspberry pi os) but they have it not as an installer but as two microsd image files. One has a full desktop and all the bits 'n' pieces and the other one (that I use) is a "blank" version; just a command line. I use that and then usually just build up the system from "blank" to some sort of gui (on the pi I use the TDE desktop for example) with apt-get to manually install the various needed packages.

Is the same thing planned for the pyra at all?

ljones

 

[elw3]

The pyra ships with debian....

 

[ljones]

Yep understood .... but it will presumably come automatically installed with a desktop? That's what I was meaning really -- not having any desktop just a command line and then add on the bits and pieces manually to make a desktop.

ljones

 

[elw3]

Sure, ppl would complain pretty hard if there is just a command line.
But point is, it is a mostly stock debian. Any guide for uncluttering should do the trick with a couple of apt purge entries.

 

[levi]

Writing rules to purge a full featured system is a squillion times harder than starting from a fairly clean system and building up as you see fit. The only problem with providing images with just core stuff on is settling argument about what really is core and what's ancillary.

There are probably text mode only images floating around at the moment, although they'll need effort to maintain even as a list of package names, as the package names evolve and merge as the dist-upgrades go through. I'd imagine someone like @aTc might be your best bet for getting something like that, or conceivably @hns.

 

[hns]

Yep understood .... but it will presumably come automatically installed with a desktop? That's what I was meaning really -- not having any desktop just a command line and then add on the bits and pieces manually to make a desktop.

Basically you can apt-get remove what you do not want to keep (i.e. the Desktop) and apt-get install something else.
It is also possible to debootstrap your own system and install on a fresh SD card. Well, then you are on your own to configure this (either through vim before booting or through ssh and vim afterwards).
Or, there are the LetuxOS images and the makesd tool to bake bootable SD cards with different Debian flavours (Jessie, Stretch, Buster, Bullseye - minimal or elaborated and often with badly configured GUI): https://projects.goldelico.com/p/gta04-makesd/
The images are the "armhf" variants on https://download.goldelico.com/letux-debian-rootfs/?C=M;O=D
Then you can install/copy the system to the internal eMMC so that it is the default system to boot.
So there are multiple paths to get a customized Debian into the Pyra.