Ubuntu – Injecting packages installed from source into apt/synaptic

All of those commands will require admin-rights. Easiest is to do sudo su to get a root console.

1. Archives like your core .tar.gz (this is oneiric, precise beta is here) are combined in one file (packed) and reduced in size (compressed).

   gzip -d ubuntu-core-11.10-core-i386.tar.gz

   will uncompress the core to ubuntu-core-11.10-core-i386.tar (no .gz anymore; one big file).

2. To partition the device for core it's easiest to use a graphical tool like gparted. When that's not available. See here. In a nutshell - assuming you want to partition the device /dev/sda:

   fdisk /dev/sda then press n p 1 <Return> <Return> a 1 w (for details please see link).

   This creates /dev/sda1 partition.

   mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

   This creates an ext4 filesystem on the new partition. You can of course use mkfs.ext3, mkfs.ext2 as well.

   Mount it: mount /dev/sda1 /mnt and go there cd /mnt

3. tar -xf /path/to/where/you/put/ubuntu-core-11.10-core-i386.tar

   will unpack the core (many files).

4. grub-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda

   will install the bootloader (this is of course just one of many options).

5. cp /etc/resolv.conf /mnt/etc/resolv.conf

   will allow network access after chroot-ing (in step 7) by copying the DNS resolver configuration

6. for f in /sys /proc /dev ; do mount --rbind $f /mnt/$f ; done ; chroot /mnt

   will go to a chroot, see Is there an easier way to chroot than bind-mounting? for details about mount rbind

7. apt-get update && apt-get install linux-{headers,image}-generic

   will install kernel ("linux")

   Note: it's possible that apt-get update will not work because no network is present.

8. reboot and you're good to go.

I haven't got a machine to test this so the answer probably won't be complete. I will change my answer should you stumble across problems.