create a debian live image

[MeanDean]

As soon as I get a chance I will update the following howto about manually installing a livecd http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=98455

It has been updated....some things have changed and may change again in the future so I have no idea how long it will be applicable. I tried to explain what I was doing so it will at least be a rough guide to follow. Basically it involves copying everything over except stuff that is dynamic and anything that should not be copied - use your best judgment - then edit fstab to look normal, install grub (if needed)...

[Bro.Tiag]

I'm sure that there is a better way, but this works.

Cheers

I wonder if you could just edit /etc/inittab and use -f user
1respawn:/bin/login -f user </dev/tty1 >/dev/tty1 2>&1
and then edit bash profile to startx...

so much fun stuff....so little time...

Aye, that just worked. Mind you all I did was modify my /etc/inittab on my previous working auto login set up. But it did work. Also this was the first time I actually was able to boot to the gui in qemu.

Cheers
ps - stop editing your post's, you keep confusing me.
pss - so I guess I was not the only one with problems trying Xnest?

[MeanDean]

ps - stop editing your post's, you keep confusing me.
pss - so I guess I was not the only one with problems trying Xnest?

gotta keep up....!!!!

Well, i assume you are running as root so I am not sure how you would need to adjust anything. I don't have a problem running xnest but it ends up running the environment as root instead of a user.....trying to figure out how to explain how to start the environment as the desired user.

I think I am also going to put in about editing inittab to remove the autologin user.

trying to make this as universal as possible instead of someone having to create a certain user, and do certain things and just following along instead of being free to do what they want....probably failing miserably though...

[Penguin Skinner]

The following commands will build a lenny live image for i386 with myfavs package list and the debian installer

mkdir livebuild
cd livebuild
lh_config -d lenny -a i386 -p myfavs --debian-installer=enabled
lh_build
when it is done, look in the livebuild folder for the binary.is

Great how-to, Dean. One question: what is the correct format/syntax for the "myfavs" package list file? A brief example would be helpful. Can this list be created, for example, using dpkg or maybe apt-cache to generate a list of installed packages on an existing install?

[MeanDean]

Examples are in /usr/share/live-helper/lists

I think it can be packagnames seperated by a space or blank line So I guess something like:

Code: Select all

icewm medit audacious

or even

Code: Select all

icewm

medit

audacious

I think you can include other predefined package lists from /usr/share/live-helper/lists in your package list like so:

Code: Select all

#<include> standard-x11
icewm medit audacious

dpkg --get-selections could be used....I am more familiar with
dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Package} ' | sort -n >> packs.txt

[Penguin Skinner]

Thanks, Dean! I only just tried one of the pre-made Debian-Live .img builds yesterday, and it works so well I plan to roll my own soon. Neat stuff!

.

[Bro.Tiag]

Thanks, Dean! I only just tried one of the pre-made Debian-Live .img builds yesterday, and it works so well I plan to roll my own soon. Neat stuff!

.

Careful, just another addiction.

[ingo]

Okay, now I got lenny (at last!) I can look at those things as well in more detail.

If I understand right, live-helper does not really let you change things like /etc/skel - or does it???

[Bro.Tiag]

Okay, now I got lenny (at last!) I can look at those things as well in more detail.

If I understand right, live-helper does not really let you change things like /etc/skel - or does it???

Not sure if live-helper lets you muck with etc/skel (although I suspect it does) but Deans second post in this thread gives instructions on customizing.

Cheers

[ingo]

Yeah, am aware of that Bro. Tiag - cheers. I have no problems getting into the chroot environment myself (at least that way I understand what I am doing rather than having some helper...).

Just wondered.

[Penguin Skinner]

Thanks, Dean! I only just tried one of the pre-made Debian-Live .img builds yesterday, and it works so well I plan to roll my own soon. Neat stuff!

.

Careful, just another addiction.

LOL! But at least this one is legal, non-intoxicating, and free.

.

[ingo]

Non intoxicating?? Not sure I want that

However, one thing I'm sure I don't want is to type in all those commands every time I want to put chroot into a squashfs or make the iso.

A few people have been working on a script on another forum. It needs a little adjustment to work for all squashfs based distros but that is easily done.

Anybody interested?

[Bro.Tiag]

Non intoxicating?? Not sure I want that

However, one thing I'm sure I don't want is to type in all those commands every time I want to put chroot into a squashfs or make the iso.

A few people have been working on a script on another forum. It needs a little adjustment to work for all squashfs based distros but that is easily done.

Anybody interested?

How hard is it to copy them into a wee file & make them executable? Granted it's not universal, but for personal use it makes things easier.

Cheers

[ingo]

fair play - just a thought...

[Bro.Tiag]

fair play - just a thought...

Now worries, took a dozen times or so till I thought of doing that.

[MeanDean]

copy/paste is what I usually do...I did make a script a while back but wasn't much point to it IMO

[ingo]

I kept on getting the perl locale error - it only went away once I did this in chroot

LC_ALL=C ; export LC_ALL

[ingo]

Have any of you tried to get the installer onto your live CD? The documentation has not really made me understand the issues involved. At first I hoped to just go apt-get install installer-i386 but that package cannot be found...

[Bro.Tiag]

Have any of you tried to get the installer onto your live CD? The documentation has not really made me understand the issues involved. At first I hoped to just go apt-get install installer-i386 but that package cannot be found...

I have built a LiveCD (Lenny) with the option of an installer included. Alas, I'm away from said computer to see the exact command I used (& dean keeps editing these instructions) as well as I've never tryed to install. The install option is there, I checked, but aborted the install.

Cheers

[MeanDean]

as far as I know the only way to include the installer is to specify it as a lh_config option