Customising the rootfs

You can customise the rootFS with different packages, included files, USE flags - even different init systems. This page will give a small overview of what you can change.

Requirements

Understanding of how to create a rootFS
A catalyst directory, setup according to manual rootFS generation

Note

This page will reference files and directories relative to your catalyst directory.

Packages

To add, change or remove packages in Xenia, edit stage4-openrc.spec:

stage4/packages:
    app-admin/sudo
    ...
    sys-process/cronie

You can add your own packages here. Make sure they are spelled correctly and you include the package category.

USE flags and other portage config

Global USE flags

To add a global USE flag, edit stage4-openrc.spec:

stage4/use:
    -gnome-online-accounts
    ...
    video_cards_vmware

You can add USE flags here as well as removing USE flags with -.

Package specific USE flags

To add package specific USE flags, edit config/package.use/stage4:

sys-boot/grub device-mapper
...

You can add USE flags here the same way you do in a typical package.use. You can also change package masks, licenses and keywords here (for example to enable testing on a specific package).

Adding services

To add services to Xenia (the equivalent of rc-update), edit stage4-openrc.spec:

stage4/rcadd:
    cupsd|default
    ...
    udev|sysinit

You can specify the service here alongside the runlevel in the format service|runlevel.

Custom shell script

To run custom script at the end of the build process, edit stage4-openrc.sh:

#!/bin/bash
...

You can add your own custom script at the end of this file.

Filesystem overlay

To add arbitrary files to Xenia, such as new backgrounds or configuration for packages, open overlay and add any files you want here. For example, to edit /etc/fstab, edit overlay/etc/fstab.

These files will be added after catalyst has completed emerging the system.

Submitting changes to Xenia

If you make a change and you want it merged into Xenia, please follow these guidelines:

Have a defined purpose to all your changes and reasoning for why it should be added to the base system
Make sure added files, packages and USE flags are not specific to your system
Put the services, packages and global USE flags in alphabetical order

You can then submit an MR to the catalyst repository with your changes.