Live GIS Build

Getting started

The first thing you will have to do is check-out the latest build scripts using Subversion (SVN):

svn checkout https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/livedvd/gisvm/trunk

• see here for more details.

How to add your project to OSGeo Live

• Instructions for adding new projects

Mounting a Virtual Image

For the purposes of faster dissemination of updates to the Live image via something like rsync you can mount an image file. Make sure you turn off the virtual machine before you attempt to mount it, and that you unmount it before you attempt to run the vm again.

Mount VMWare Server

This method assumes you have vmware server installed, the key is that the vmware-mount script is on your system somewhere. This instructions use /space/virtual as the vmware installation folder and /space/virtual/machines as the location of the disk images. For more information see the VMware mounting guide

• If it complains about not finding libdir/lib/libcrypto.so.0.9.8/libcrypto.so.0.9.8
• It's because it's looking for it in your vmware bin/libdir which doesn't exist so symlink

sudo ln -s /space/virtual/lib/vmware/ libdir

• Temporarily move your .vmx file out of the directory
• Move to you vmware bin folder

cd /space/virtual/bin/
sudo ./vmware-mount -p /space/virtual/machines/gisvm20090828x.vmdk

• Should be partition 1
• Make a directory to mount to somewhere easy to find, in my case where I keep my vm images

mkdir /space/virtual/machines/mountedimage

• Mount it

sudo ./vmware-mount /space/virtual/machines/gisvm20090828x.vmdk 1 /space/virtual/machines/mountedimage

• Don't forget to umount when you're done

sudo ./vmware-mount -d /space/virtual/machines/mountedimage

Mount VirtualBox

These instructions have not been tested yet, they require VirtualBox 2.0+ http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=17574

Run the the ISO in a QEMU / KVM Virtual Machine

(Linux host only)

If you have KVM installed use "qemu-kvm" or "kvm" instead of qemu on the command line. The usage is the same. It will be a lot faster. To run KVM you will have to have a newer CPU which supports hardware virtualization, a recent kernel, and have virtualization enabled in the BIOS. You'll want to make sure that the kvm kernel modules are loaded, /dev/kvm exists, and your user account belongs to the 'kvm' group. Older releases of QEMU may be partially accelerated by installing the KQEMU plugin. Without any sort of acceleration it will still run, but very very slowly.

Running live from a bootable ISO file

Specify that at least 512mb of RAM should be used. In this example 720mb has been requested which is a bit more comfortable and the ISO will be run live.

qemu -m 720 -cdrom osgeo_live.iso

or

kvm -m 720 -cdrom osgeo_live.iso

For me the mouse didn't work (it was just stuck in the middle of the screen). The fix was to set this environment variable before running kvm:

export SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0

• There is a good HowTo here: http://wiki.centos.org/HowTos/KVM

Install to a persistent VM

Create a permanent 5gb VM to work in:

qemu-img create -f qcow2 livedisc.img 6G

or

kvm-img create -f qcow2 livedisc.img 6G

Next start kvm with the ISO as the virtual CD drive and the VM image file as the the first hard drive (hda). The "-boot d" option tells it to try to boot from the virtual CD drive first.

(from now on I'll just give the kvm version of the commands)

kvm -hda livedisc.img -cdrom osgeo_live.iso -m 720 -boot d

From within the VM, run the installer either from the boot menu or from the icon on the desktop of the Live OS. You should see the empty 6gb partition you created a few minutes ago. You can decide yourself if you want a swap space partition or not. I didn't, will adjust the -m size on the command line if I need more.

After it has installed you can restart qemu/kvm but without the -cdrom this time:

kvm -hda livedisc.img -m 720

At this time it might be a good idea to zip up a copy of the VM. If you want to start fresh later you can just delete the working image and replace it with the fresh version you zipped earlier.

Getting in via ssh

(ssh'ing out is trivial)

Instructions on how to ssh into the QEMU/KVM VM can be found in the OLPC wiki.

• Within the VM install the openssh-server package. This should generate RSA keys.

• Start the VM on the host with the command line option:

kvm [...] -redir 'tcp:2222::22'

• This will allow you to ssh to port 2222 on the host machine to get into the VM:

ssh -p 2222 user@127.0.0.1

• Add the "-nographic" command line option when you start up kvm if you want to start it headless.
• Add "-X" as a ssh command line option if you want to be able to tunnel X-Window apps from the VM.

Mount the ISO as a readonly filesystem

Not recommeded, it's preferred to get the image right to start, you will not be able to edit files inside the squashfs this way.

 mkdir test_iso
 mount -t iso9660 -o loop,ro livedvd.iso ./test_iso

If you want to do this without su rights, use the FuseISO package.

fuseiso -p livedvd.iso ./test_iso.$$

Unmount the FuseISO filesystem with:

fusermount -u ./test_iso.$$

Mount the ISO for changes

If you're on ubuntu to can edit and remaster and ISO with ISOMaster

sudo apt-get install isomaster

On Windows try Daemon tools and related software.

Creating a fresh Virtual Machine

System Requirements

• RAM: You can only just get away with 1 Gig. 2 Gig is what you will require to avoid slowdowns due to memory swapping.
• About 10 Gig of spare hard disk for building a Virtual Machine.(20GB if you intend to build an ISO as well.)
• Recommended: An Ubuntu based linux distribution. We built this Live DVD process using an Ubuntu based system, and some of the steps assume the hosting operating system is Ubuntu, however you should be able to achieve all the steps (some slightly modified) from Windows.

Selecting a Virtual Machine

The OSGeo Live DVD can be built using a range of virtual machines. Here we explain our preferences and reasons:

VirtualBox

VirtualBox is provided as Open Source and can be downloaded onto an Ubuntu based system using apt-get which is great.

VirtualBox is our current recommendation, as it has been the more stable of our implementations so far.

Unfortunately, we haven't worked out how to convert from VirtualBox back to VMware images yet, and so far VMware Player software is more widely deployed than VirtualBox. So for the moment, we plan to build vmware images then convert to virtual box (rather than the other way around).

VMware Server

VMware server provides a browser based interface to the virtual machine which can be accessed over the internet. (This is a good way to let others view your virtual machine without them having to download the large Virtual Machine)

VMware Server also provides compression tools which we use at the end of the build process. (These are not provided by VMWare Player) Unfortunately, there are instability issues with VMWare 2.0.2 + Ubuntu 9.04 / 9.10 (as a host), which means we have been unable to use this combination to build OSGeo Live 3.0 (Arramagong). (The compression tools still seem to work). The vmware images that are created can be used with VMWare Server, VMWare Player and relatively easily can be converted to VirtualBox format. (We haven't worked out how to convert from VirtualBox back to VMware images yet).

VMware Player

VMware Player provides a desktop application which runs a Virtual Machine, and can be used to create a vmware image. It doesn't provide the image compression utilities. (Can we download these from somewhere?)

QEMU with KVM acceleration

Very well supported by newer Linux kernels (KVM is the kernel developer's darling right now). Fully open source and installs from standard Ubuntu packages. Very easy to run. Only runs with Linux as the host, but can run any OS as the guest. See instructions elsewhere on this page. The kvm-img virtual-disk image creating program can create in a number of different VM formats by changing the -f parameter. (used by HB)

Click2Try

http:/click2try.com provide a web site for trialing virtual machines. They built an arramagong 2.0 release for FOSS4G 2009, and as of Feb 2009, have been working on setting an environment set up for 3.0. This should provide a good development environment once set up, but we will need to have a parallel VM development as well as I don't think they will not be building a VM for us.

Install VMWare Server

Note: During the building of Arramagong 3.0, we have found VMWare Server installed on Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10 to be unstable to the point of being unusable.

We have successfully installed used a CentOS 5.3 host + VMware Server 2.0.2 (Make sure you don't accept any security updates as this introduces the bug which makes VMWare unstable). We suspect that Ubuntu 8.04 (LTS) + VMware should work as it is supposed to be supported, but we haven't verified this yet.

Alternatively, you can build images in VMWare Player.

You will need VMWare server which provides all the tools for configuring a VM, setting the disk size, compressing the image etc. VirtualBox doesn't seem to have the compression scripts required, and it doesn't seem to have a way to copy your image to VMWare.

If you are installing on linux, the installer will ask a series of questions. Answer the default for everything, except the default administrator. For this, you need to enter in your <user_id> for the local computer you are installing on.

Once running, you should be able to access vmware server at:

https://127.0.0.1:8333

As explained here, firefox has issues connecting to VM until you fix it by doing the following:

• Go to the url: about:config
• Update the following:
  • security.enable.ssl2 from false to true

Create an Xubuntu Virtual Machine for VirtualBox

If you already have an Xubuntu (or similar) Virtual Machine, you can skip this step.

Otherwise, run VirtualBox, and create an image.

Download the latest desktop i386 Xubuntu ISO. Copy to the Virtual Machine directory:

mv xubuntu-10.04-desktop-i386.iso "~/.VirtualBox"

• Run VirtualBox
• Select Name=osgeolive
• Operating System=Linux
• Version=Ubuntu
• Base Memory Size (RAM) = 768 MB
• Create a new hard disk
• Select "Dynamically expanding storage"
• Hard Disk Size = 20 GB

To boot from the ISO:

• Select Settings->Storage->CD/DVD Device-> Add -> select the xubuntu ISO
• Select the Xubuntu ISO

To allow ssh access to the the VM:

• Select Settings -> Network -> Adapter 2 -> Enable Network Adapter -> Attached to: Bridged Adapter, Name: eth0

The following settings were required with an Ubuntu 9.10 guest operating system, but don't seem to be required for Ubuntu 10.04:

If the display is not rendering for the VM, try:

• in Settings -> System -> Motherboard -> Extended Features:, untick "Enable ACPI"
• in Settings -> Display -> Video, set Video Memory = 64 MB.

Run the Virtual Machine, which will boot from the Xubuntu CD. Select to install Xubuntu, using defaults, plus:

• Language: English (default)
• Location: (FOSS4G City)
• Prepare disk space: Erase and use the entire disk (default)
• Keyboard layout: USA (default)
• Name: user
• Login name: user
• Password: user
• Computer name: osgeolive
• [x] Log in automatically

After installing xubuntu, disconnect the ISO image from the CD and reference the physical drive instead.

• select Settings->Storage->CD/DVD Device: Empty

The save the virtual machine for use later on:

• select File->Export Appliance ... -> accept defaults

Create an Xubuntu Virtual Machine for VMWare

If you already have an Xubuntu (or similar) Virtual Machine, you can skip this step.

Otherwise, run VMWare Server, and create an image.

Download the latest Xubuntu ISO. Copy to the Virtual Machine directory:

wget http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/ubuntu/xubuntu/9.04/release/xubuntu-9.04-desktop-i386.iso
mv xubuntu-9.04-desktop-i386.iso "/var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines/"

Run vmware, which opens up a browser based User Interface.

vmware

Create a new Virtual Machine with:

• Virtual Machine name = "osgeolive"
• RAM = 512 Gig (we might want to experiment with less)
• Hard Disk = 20 Gig (If you plan to make an ISO you will need the space, just the VM install will fit in 8GB with little extra room, but it is a pain to increase later, and can't be done from VMWare Player)
• Mount the XUbuntu ISO image for the disk drive

For VirtualBox, select the virtual machine -> Settings The following will allow ssh into the virtual machine (for easy building):

• Network -> Adapter 2 -> Enable Network Adapter -> Attached to: Bridged Adapter -> Name: eth0 (usually)
• Display -> Video Memory:64K, Enable 3D acceleration.

Run the Virtual Machine, which will boot from the Xubuntu CD. Select to install Xubuntu, using defaults, plus:

What is your name?

user

What is your password?

user

What is the name of your computer?

osgeolive(prev arramagong)

[x] Log in automatically

After installing xubuntu, in the VMWare Summary tab, select the change the CD drive from pointing to the xubuntu iso to point to the actual hard drive.

Alternative: build ISO using vmbuilder

Side note: vmbuilder is reported to be a good way to create an Ubuntu image. I haven't tried it, and haven't worked out if it can create the smaller Xubuntu image. (Please update this wiki if you try it). Note: This method requires you to be running the same or newer version of Ubuntu than you want to make an image for.

host$ sudo apt-get install python-vm-builder
host$ sudo vmbuilder vmserver ubuntu --suite karmic --arch i386 \
      --mem 512 --rootsize=20000 --user user --pass user

Update base Virtual Machine

Now that you have a Xubuntu virtual machine. Boot it to upgrade it's packages.

 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
 sudo reboot

This will likely upgrade the kernel, so we want to reboot and then remove the old kernels.

 uname -r
 sudo apt-get remove linux-image-2.6.x (Whatever versions you have that don't match the above, use tab autocomplete to see options)
 

Backup base Virtual Machine

You should now have a XUbuntu Virtual Machine image in /var/lib/vmware/Virtual Machines/ . It would be a good idea to save a copy of this machine somewhere, so you can use it again.

Creating a Click2Try Virtual Machine

Click2Try provides a public website that people can use to create a Virtual Machine, and our project has been given a free account to use Click2Try as a development platform, which makes collaborative development much easier.

As of 20 Feb 2010, the click2try website were having technical difficulties getting an Xunbutu 9.10 base image working. They are still working on it.

Click2Try Account details

Go to http://www.click2try.com and login with:

• User Name: osgeo
• password: .ask Cameron Shorter.

Once logged in, click on the “My Dashboard” link located on the upper right corner of the page. Then click the “Application Manager” tab. You will notice that there are two virtual machines already defined in your dashboard. They are:

base-xubuntu-9-04

This is a base xubuntu virtual machine. Do not alter this one. Create copies from this VM when you want a fresh virtual machine to start installing stuff on. If you have a point in time that you want to save. Simply shut down the vm. make a copy of it. Rename the copy to what you want.

base-arramagong-2-0

This is the base arramagong 2.0.3 application released at FOSS4G 2009. Do not run this version.

arramagong-2-0

This is the arramagong 2.0.3 application released at FOSS4G 2009. You can run this version.

Create Click2Try base Xubuntu image

Tom Callighan from Click2Try created a base Xubuntu system for us. Ask him for a new Xubuntu base image, or ask him to fill in the steps so that we can do it.

Click2Try: Add user=user

The base Xubuntu image only has a root user. The following needs to be done to add user="user", pass="user"

• In order to allow a low security password, Update /etc/common-password/common-password

Once we place above file then we can create user "user" and set password.

Here are the steps which we have followed.

#useradd user

#passwd user [Set the password as "user"]

1. usermod -u 499 user

1. su user

Above command will create directory once we login using user "user".

About ubuntu release version, yes for gisvm which we build earlier stage was ubuntu904 as per requirement.

Please mail us if you find issues.

Click2Try: Create an Arramagong base image

• Copy the base-xubuntu-9-10 image, call it arramagong-<version>
• Make the image external: Highlight the VM in the application manager, shut the VM down (make sure you save the session), click on the sharing tab,

click on the public access button. This feature actually has a second benefit. It keeps the VM running even when you leave the VM from the viewer. That way, when you log back into click2try you can access the VM much quicker.

Click2Try: Create default user

• Launch the new image you created
• Log in with: user=root, password=.Same as above.

Creating the GIS Virtual Machine

Set the Version Number and Changes

Update https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/livedvd/gisvm/trunk/VERSION.txt with the current version number.

Update https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/livedvd/gisvm/trunk/CHANGES.txt with changes since the last release. This list can be a summary of the revision log between releases

Commit the changes to svn right before a release build.

Copy base virtual machine

Copy the base virtual machine to a new directory and rename it to the current version:

Use the helper script renamevm.sh

host$ sudo ./renamevm.sh OSGeoLive-4.5base OSGeoLive-4.5rc1

• Log into the control panel: https://127.0.0.1:8333/ui
• Go to the menu Virtual Machine -> Add Virtual Machine to Inventory -> and select your OSGeoLive-4.5rc1.vmx
• Your image can now be started. When prompted select "I copied it"

Or do it By hand

host$ cd /var/lib/vmware/Virtual\ Machines/
host$ cp -pr OSGeoLive-4.5base/ OSGeoLive-4.5rc1

• Log into the control panel: https://127.0.0.1:8333/ui
• Select the base xubuntu image VM: Inventory -> OSGeoLive-4.5rc1
• Select Summary tab
• In the "Commands" pane, select "Configure VM"
• Change the hostname from "arramagong" to a name which includes version number. Eg: "arramagong-3.0-rc2"

Alternative name change:

• You can change the image name in /var/lib/vmware/Virtual\ Machines/arramagong-3.0-rc2/arramagong.vmx . Update the following line as:

displayName = "arramagong-3.0rc2"

Bootstrap the Live DVD

• Start the Xubuntu Virtual Machine
• Open a terminal
• Copy the bootstrap script into your home directory and execute it

osgeolive$ cd /tmp
osgeolive$ wget https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/livedvd/gisvm/trunk/bin/bootstrap.sh
osgeolive$ chmod a+x bootstrap.sh
osgeolive$ sudo ./bootstrap.sh

• This will install subversion, and the install scripts, and create a link to them from your home directory.

Install all applications

Optional: If you have run through this process a number of times, you might be smart enough to have saved a local copy of the tmp/ directory. You can save time and bandwidth by copying the tmp/ contents onto the live DVD

• Method 1

sudo rsync -avz username@hostname.org:/path_to_tmp_dir/ /tmp/
sudo mkdir /var/cache/apt
sudo cp /tmp/apt/* /var/cache/apt/

• Method 2

1. Create a Virtual Disk with your Virtual Machine software (8-10GB should work).
2. Attach the disk to your Virtual Machine, it will be something like /dev/sdb1 when you are in the Virtual Machine
3. Mount the drive as the /tmp folder

sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /tmp

Tip: You may want to uninstall xscreensaver and reboot, as of Xubuntu 11.04 builds it occasionally causes the vm to freeze.

Required:

• Change Directory (cd) to the install scripts directory, and run the main.sh installer. Note, that we log the output into tee, so that we can search for errors later.

cd ~/gisvm/bin
sudo ./main.sh 2>&1 | tee /var/log/osgeolive/main_install.log

• Answer prompts as they come up, there are a few at the start. Wait for a few hours while everything is downloaded and installed.
• Save the logs and upload them for viewing

cd
tar czf version-log.tar.gz -C /var/log osgeolive
scp version-log.tar.gz username@yourserver.com:gisvmlogs

• When finished, and before you shutdown your virtual machine, copy the download directories in /tmp to your local computer. (This is to save you re-downloading the files if you are to run through the process again.)
• Shutdown the virtual machine and if you used a second drive for tmp, remove it from the config.
• Boot the machine again and run a zero-ing operation to ensure it will compress.

sudo ./gisvm/bin/zerofill.sh

• Shutdown the machine again for packaging.
• The Live DVD should now be ready to test, however if you're going to package it do so before testing.

Virtual Machine specific steps

Take a copy of the Virtual Machine, as you don't want VMWare tools installed on the ISO image (in the next step).

Install VMWare tools

VMWare tools allow cut and paste from the host operating system to a VMWare virtual machine, and also speeds up graphic rendering on VMWare.

In the VMWare browser control panel, select the virtual machine, then "Summary" tab. Turn on the virtual machine, then select "Install VMWare tools". This mounts the vmware-tools scripts in the arramagong virtual machine, so that it can be installed. Which you can do using the following commands:

osgeolive$ cd /tmp
osgeolive$ tar -zxf /media/cdrom0/VMwareTools-7.7.5-156745.tar.gz
osgeolive$ cd vmware-tools-distrib/
osgeolive$ sudo ./vmware-install.pl
osgeolive$ # answer defaults to all questions

Power off

Then poweroff the virtual machine. (Note that this removes all files in the tmp/ directory).

arramagong$ sudo halt

Package the VMWare VM

Note: Most of this step is covered in the package.sh script. Check and update the variables in the script before running on an Ubuntu based system.

On the host computer, all temporally files can be removed from the virtual machine folder: log files, ram files, etc. Remove all files EXCEPT: *.vmx (VM definition file) and *.vmdk (virtual disk file)

Shrink the virtual machine: (requires VMWare Server installed) Note: If you get an error from this command, you may need to temporarily rename the *.vmx file before operation and then name it back after

host$ vmware-vdiskmanager -k *.vmdk

Zip the image up:

 host$ 7z a -mx=9 ArramagongGISVM2009alpha4.7z ArramagongGISVM2009alpha4/

If the image is greater than 2 Gig, then you also need to split the image. The OSGeo download server isn't configured to accept files of a greater size.

host$ split -b 1500M ArramagongGISVM2009alpha4.7z ArramagongGISVM2009alpha4.7z

Create the md5sum checksums, so which can be used to confirm that the images have been downloaded correctly:

host$ md5sum *.7z*

Build the Live DVD ISO image

Build ISO

The ISO will be built as part of the main.sh script and stored in /tmp/remastersys/ . Make sure to copy the ISO onto the osgeo server, and then remove /tmp/remastersys/ or reboot the VM to remove it(must boot up again) before packaging the VM.

• Run the script to build the ISO without additional files.

sudo ./build_iso.sh mini 2>&1 | tee /var/log/osgeolive/build_iso-mini.log

• Run the script to build the ISO, this includes downloading close to 1GB of Windows and Mac installers.

sudo ./build_iso.sh 2>&1 | tee /var/log/osgeolive/build_iso.log

• Once the ISO is complete copy it out to a server (a local server is fastest)

scp /tmp/remastersys/osgeolive-livedvd-2.0-final.iso.md5 user@server.org:destination/path/
scp /tmp/remastersys/osgeolive-livedvd-2.0-final.iso user@server.org:destination/path/

• And/OR Wget or scp the file to the upload.osgeo.org server (Note wget is much faster if you have a good webserver to host from)

Backup files

Optional: To save time and bandwidth, it is a good idea to back up all the files downloaded into your /tmp directory and the apt-get cache (var/cache/apt), which you can then copy onto future images you create before starting the build process. These files are copied into /tmp/<version>/ during the build process:

host$ scp -pr user@<arramagong ip>/tmp/3.1alpha1 arragmagong_tmp_3.1alpha1

Upload to the OSGeo Server

host$ scp -pr osgeolive-gisvm-2.0-alpha5 username@upload.osgeo.org:/osgeo/download/livedvd/

Update the index.html file at: https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/livedvd/gisvm/trunk/download/index.html

Check the result at: http://download.osgeo.org/livedvd

Creating a torrent file

Several tools exist for creating torrents. Below are the key settings you need.

Deluge with the torrent creator plugin has been tested.

• Make sure you have a copy of the file you want to create a torrent for. Mounted remote drives may work.
• Web Seed - URL to a web server that hosts the file, adds speed to the torrents especially at the start. (Most clients implement this now)
• Tracker - There are 2 open and free trackers that have been tested, use one or the other as most clients do not handle multiple trackers yet.

http://tracker.openbittorrent.com/announce
udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:80/announce

OR

http://tracker.publicbt.com:80/announce
udp://tracker.publicbt.com:80/announce

• Upload the .torrent file of your iso file for others to grab
• Start the torrent on your machine or dedicated seeder, so that others have somewhere to start.
• There is a possibility of seeding from osgeo machines but a Quality of Service (QoS) system would need to be in place to ensure it does not impact other services.

SVN branches and tags

Naming

• main development happens in "trunk" (aka HEAD)
• a branch is split off before release time. Bug fixes (only) happen in it and updates like version 2.1 are tagged from it.

its name might be like "arramagong_2"

• a tag is a snapshot of the svn at some point in time, aka a release name. It does not make sense to checkin fixes to one. They should ideally be set as read-only after creation to prevent this.

its name might be like "release_20090927_arramagong_2_0"

Creating

cd livedvd/gisvm/

svn copy trunk branches/arramagong_2
svn commit branches/arramagong_2 -m "Splitting off branch for 2.x"

cd branches/arramagong_2/bin/
# something like this, maybe need a for loop or xargs:
sed -e 's+gisvm/trunk+gisvm/branches/arramagong_2+g' *.sh | less   # check
sed -i -e 's+gisvm/trunk+gisvm/branches/arramagong_2+g' *.sh       # execute
cd -
 
svn copy branches/arramagong_2 tags/release_20090927_arramagong_2_0_3
svn commit tags/release_20090927_arramagong_2_0_3 -m "tag release 2.0.3"

Merging

To merge a change from trunk into a release branch use "svn merge", as follows: (in this example r2131 from trunk)

svn up branches/arramagong_2/
cd branches/arramagong_2/

svn merge -c 2131 https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/livedvd/gisvm/trunk
svn diff
svn commit -m "bugfix: bikeshed should be orange! (merge from trunk r2131)"

If you do this a lot you might make a little shell script. Here's one called svn_merge_livefromtrunk.sh:

#!/bin/sh
# Usage: svn_merge_livefromtrunk <rev number>
svn merge -c $1 https://svn.osgeo.org/osgeo/livedvd/gisvm/trunk

See also

• Many good hints can be found in the GRASS SVN-help wiki page.