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pearOS-debian-base 📌

It is pearOS, but with Debian Base. Yes! It uses vanilla debian, less bugs, easier, better etc.

Why? 📌

A Debian base means the vast APT package ecosystem, a more conservative/stable release cadence, and broader out-of-the-box hardware support than a rolling-release base — while keeping the same pearOS look, feel and app set.

Ok... How do I build it? 📌

build-iso.sh is a generic Debian live-ISO engine: package list, extra APT repo, package selection, branding and boot menu/theme names all come from a profile under profiles/<name>/, not from the script itself.

sudo ./build-iso.sh

Note: The build script must be run as root since it needs to create chroot environments and install packages — if not already root, it re-executes itself via pkexec (or sudo as a fallback).

It accepts the following flags:

• --profile <name> Distro profile to build, from profiles/<name>/. Default: pear (Pulsar OS).
• --branch stable, replacing stable with forky or rolling (mapped to Debian's trixie, forky and testing suites respectively).
• --local to package from the packages in the /PKG folder, which must be in the same folder that contains the /ISO folder
• --nvidia Build ISO image with privative drivers (BROADCOM, NVIDIA, etc...)
• --clean-base Delete the cached base Debian chroot and rebuild it from scratch.
• --clean-target Delete the working target rootfs and re-clone it from the base cache, even if one already exists from a previous run.
• --chroot Drop into an interactive shell inside the target rootfs right before compression (proc/sys/dev are still mounted), then stop -- never falls through to packaging the ISO in the same run. The target rootfs is never deleted automatically: if one already exists (from an earlier --chroot session, a finished build, or days ago), any run -- --chroot or plain -- reuses it as-is and skips straight past repo/package install. Pass --clean-target to force a fresh one.

The ISO boots via Ploader (pearOS's own rebrand of rEFInd 0.14.1, a prebuilt EFI binary+theme vendored under profiles/<name>/ploader/) for UEFI, with syslinux as the BIOS/legacy fallback -- there's no bootloader choice to make.

Dependencies: 📌

Building from an Arch Linux / CachyOS / Manjaro host

sudo pacman -S --needed \
  squashfs-tools syslinux xorriso mtools dosfstools \
  binutils libisoburn sassc imagemagick psmisc \
  fakeroot rsync jq curl unzip wget git

You'll also need mmdebstrap from the AUR (e.g. yay -S mmdebstrap), since it bootstraps the Debian chroot regardless of the host distro.

Building from a Debian / Ubuntu / Pop!_OS host

sudo apt-get install -y \
  mmdebstrap squashfs-tools isolinux syslinux-common \
  xorriso mtools dosfstools binutils unzip sassc imagemagick psmisc \
  debian-archive-keyring rsync jq curl wget fakeroot git

Verify dependencies:

The build script itself checks for missing dependencies and tells you what to install — you don't need to check manually beforehand.

Package	Purpose
mmdebstrap	Bootstrap the base Debian chroot
squashfs-tools	Compress the rootfs into a SquashFS image
isolinux / syslinux-common	BIOS boot binaries (isolinux.bin, *.c32 modules) for the ISO -- installed into the profile's own chroot, not the host
xorriso	Create hybrid ISO images (BIOS + UEFI)
mtools	Manipulate FAT filesystems (EFI image inside ISO)
dosfstools	Format FAT partitions (EFI image)
binutils / libisoburn	Linker and ISO manipulation tools
sassc	SCSS compiler for Plymouth themes
imagemagick	Image processing for branding assets
psmisc	Provides fuser to kill leftover processes on port 5900
fakeroot	Build packages without real root privileges
rsync	Sync the base chroot into the working target
jq / curl / wget / unzip / git	Download and extract resources during build

Profiles 📌

A profile lives under profiles/<name>/ and provides:

• profile.conf — display name, package-name slug, ISO volume label/filename prefix, Plymouth theme name, boot-icons source
• packages.list — the mmdebstrap bootstrap package list
• repo.sh — defines profile_setup_repo() / profile_teardown_repo(), configuring the profile's own APT repo and keyring inside the chroot
• packages.sh — defines PROFILE_REPO_PACKAGES, PROFILE_COMMON_PACKAGES, PROFILE_BACKPORTS_PACKAGES, PROFILE_LOCAL_PIN_GLOB
• customize.sh — defines profile_customize(), the post-install branding/extra-apps step
• ploader/ — the vendored Ploader EFI binary (ploader_x64.efi) and boot theme (theme/)
• syslinux/ — the BIOS boot menu background (splash.png)
• boot-icons/ — asset files (the profile's APT signing key, if any, is embedded directly in repo.sh instead of a separate file)

profiles/pear/ is the existing Pulsar OS setup. Adding a second, completely different distro is just adding a new profiles/<name>/ directory — the engine in build-iso.sh doesn't change.

Refreshing the chroot quickly 📌

sync-rootfs.sh re-clones build/rootfs-target-<branch> from the already-bootstrapped build/rootfs-base-<branch> and reinstalls the local .deb packages from PKG/debian/build/packages, without redoing the full base bootstrap. Useful while iterating on packages. Accepts --branch|-b <branch> and --nvidia.

Star History

Copyright and Licensing 📌

This project is released under the GNU Pubilc License v3 or later

Copyright: Alexandru Balan @ Pear Software and Services S.R.L. based in Romania, Dacia Boulevard 133, floor D, Sector 2, Bucharest C.I.F.: 50888207