PDK Project for PiDeck Custom Distro

PDK is the Platform Development Kit that we use for creating the PiDeck distro image, based on Debian GNU/Linux. Most people will prefer to start with a ready-made image, which you can download from the releases page.

These build instructions have been tested on Debian only. Ubuntu users may run into issue #2 with debootstrap. Pull requests to resolve this or any other issue you might encounter are welcome.

Install PDK

sudo apt install apt-transport-https
echo "deb https://apt.64studio.net stretch main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/64studio.list
wget -qO - https://apt.64studio.net/archive-keyring.asc | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt update
sudo apt install pdk pdk-mediagen make rng-tools

• Ignore the rng-tools service failing to start with "Cannot find a hardware RNG device to use." You won't need this to run as a service for now

APT Repository key

• Make the APT repository key email address apt@your-domain where your-domain is the domain used by your project. For example we use pideck.com but you will be serving your own images from somewhere else.
• To enable automated builds later, either do not set a passphrase when you generate the key (less secure), or automate signing with gpg-preset-passphrase running on each boot. You will be prompted twice for the passphrase, if any.

sudo rngd -r /dev/urandom
gpg --gen-key

Download PDK project 'PiDeck'

pdk workspace create pideck
cd pideck/
git remote add github https://github.com/pideck/pideck-distro.git
git pull github master
pdk channel update
pdk pull components
make local
pdk download pideck.xml

Modify apt-deb.key email address to your own

nano pideck.xml

Optional - modify project Makefile, modify postinst script

nano Makefile
nano postinst.sh
make local
pdk download pideck.xml
pdk commit -m "A note about my changes"

• You only need to pdk download pideck.xml again if you have added packages in your modifications

Build image

make image

• This step uses sudo, you will be prompted for your login password as well as your GnuPG passphrase, if you are using one.

• After some time, you should find the out.img file in your PDK workspace.

• Use the lsblk command to identify the device of your microSD card writer before and after plugging it in, such as /dev/sdb in the example below. If you get this device wrong, you could wipe your hard disk, so please be careful.

• Copy the image you created to a microSD card using the dd command (the status=progress option is helpful). After dd has completed, use the sync command before unplugging:

sudo dd status=progress bs=4M if=tmp/out.img of=/dev/sdb conv=fsync
sync

• Or try bmap-tools to create checksums for your image and potentially make it easier to deploy. Your users may prefer using Etcher which is a GUI program.

Please see the PDK project on GitHub for more details of how to use PDK.