README


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# $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo/src/catalyst/README,v 1.17 2006/10/02 20:41:53 wolf31o2 Exp $

Licensing
========================

Catalyst is copyrighted by the Gentoo Foundation, and is released under the
terms of the GNU General Public License v.2.1. For more information, please
consult COPYING.

Disclaimer
========================

The Gentoo Foundation extends no warranty or guarantee for catalyst. This
software is provided to the public to comply with the Gentoo social contract
and to assist other distributors and integrators of Gentoo and Gentoo-based
solutions. Use at your own risk.

Requirements
=======================

- Python 2.4 or greater (may still work with 2.3)
- A portage snapshot (or portage tree to make your own)
- A Gentoo generic stage3 tarball
- shash for digest support

What is Catalyst?
========================

Catalyst is the Gentoo Linux project's release building tool. With catalyst,
you are able to completely customize your Gentoo install by customizing
the very tools that are used to install a system. Official Gentoo Linux release
media is built with catalyst.

Catalyst is capable of:

- Building installation stages for every architecture supported by Gentoo
- Building bootable LiveCDs for every architecture supported by Gentoo
- Building GRP (Gentoo Reference Platform) sets for every architecture supported by Gentoo
- Setting up a Tinderbox target for test building
- Building netboot images

Configuring catalyst
========================

After emerging/installing catalyst, the first (and probably only) thing
that you will have to do is edit /etc/catalyst/catalyst.conf to your liking.

Example catalyst.conf:

distdir="/usr/portage/distfiles"
options="pkgcache kerncache"
sharedir="/usr/lib/catalyst"

There are many more options that can be set, but those defaults are good
for out of the box operation. For more documentation on what you can do
with catalyst, please check the man page or the online documentation at
http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/releng/catalyst.