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blendOS

Building BlendOS

Building an image

Now that you’ve set up a suitable build environment for building blendOS, we can begin with downloading blendOS’s sources.

Downloading the sources

blendOS uses a “manifest” with Assemble, that essentially declares all of the packages to be downloaded by Assemble to be built locally so as to build an ISO/image. This term should be familiar if you’ve delved into Android ROM development in the past.

Since blendOS is a rolling-release distribution, there’s a single branch for the manifest, main, that you can use during initialization.

Create the directories

You will need to create a directory where Assemble will pull blendOS’s sources and build them.

Terminal window
mkdir -p ~/blendOS/build

This directory should not be pushed anywhere, as it’s simply used for storing blendOS’s code.

Initialize an Assemble repository

You may now initialize an Assemble repo to download blendOS’s sources.

Terminal window
cd ~/blendOS/build
assemble init 'https://github.com/blend-os/manifests' 'main'

Sync/download the sources locally

To start the download of the sources, type the following:

Terminal window
assemble sync

By default, assemble uses all of the available cores on the system being used to build blendOS. However, you may change that behaviour by passing the -j argument. For example, use -j 4 to use only 4 of the available cores.

It is recommended that you run assemble sync every few days, so as to pull in any new changes to the sources. However, keep in mind that this will overwrite any local changes you make.

Keep in mind that you’re not expected to make changes the downloaded source tree directly, as they will be overwritten during builds and when syncing the sources with assemble sync.

Prepare the system packages

After the source downloads, ensure you’re in the root of the source code (cd ~/blendOS/build), then type:

Terminal window
source build/envsetup.sh
breakfast

This may take a few minutes, so feel free to grab a cup of coffee while the packages build.

Keep in mind that breakfast will overwrite any local changes you make, similar to assemble sync.

Build an ISO

Time to start the ISO build! Type the following:

Terminal window
sudo brunch

The build should now begin.

Install the build

You’re now the master of your own operating system!

brunch will mention the directory where the ISO file may be found. You can use a tool like VirtualBox or GNOME Boxes for testing the built ISO, or flash it to a USB drive and install it.