Onboarding — Dakota ISO#
Prerequisites#
| Tool | Notes |
|---|---|
podman | Rootless. sudo-prefixed builds will fail with "please use unshare with rootless" |
xorriso | brew: brew install xorriso · distro package also works |
mtools | brew: brew install mtools · needed for FAT ESP construction |
mksquashfs | brew: brew install squashfs |
| Free disk (~25 GB) | Must be on /var — never /tmp (tmpfs ~16 GB, too small) |
| QEMU (optional) | brew: brew install qemu — needed for boot testing |
Clone and first build#
git clone https://github.com/projectbluefin/dakota-iso
cd dakota-iso
just iso-sd-boot dakota # full ISO build
just boot-iso-serial dakota # QEMU smoke test (Ctrl-A X to quit)
See docs/build.md for full build options, compression presets, and BTRFS workarounds.
BTRFS hosts#
If you're on a BTRFS filesystem (common on Bluefin/Dakota):
sudo just mount-xfs # create 45GB XFS loopback at /mnt (idempotent)
sudo chown $USER:$USER /mnt
just workdir=/mnt iso-sd-boot dakota
Branch target#
PRs for dakota-iso target main.
# Push directly upstream (no castrojo fork needed)
git checkout -b fix/my-fix
# ... make changes ...
gh pr create --repo projectbluefin/dakota-iso --base main
Key build variables#
| Variable | Default | Override example |
|---|---|---|
debug | 0 | just debug=1 iso-sd-boot dakota — enables SSH (liveuser/live) |
installer_channel | stable | just installer_channel=dev iso-sd-boot dakota |
output_dir | output | just output_dir=/var/data/iso iso-sd-boot dakota |
compression | fast | just compression=release iso-sd-boot dakota — for production ISOs |
Related repos#
| Repo | Role |
|---|---|
projectbluefin/dakota | Source images |
projectbluefin/common | Shared OCI layer + org factory docs |
projectbluefin/bootc-installer | Flatpak installer bundled in the ISO |
tuna-os/fisherman | Backend install binary |
