Creating a Test Day Live Image
The following steps outline how to create a Fedora live image based on current Rawhide packages for use during Test Days.
Ordinary users who want to participate on a test day don't have to follow this guide, the pre-built images will be published and available for them to download on a Test Day pages.
1. Install required packages:
yum install spin-kickstarts livecd-tools
2. Save most recent fedora-live-base.ks and fedora-livecd-desktop.ks kickstart templates to a custom directory:
wget 'http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/spin-kickstarts.git?p=spin-kickstarts.git;a=blob_plain;f=fedora-live-base.ks;hb=HEAD' -O fedora-live-base.ks wget 'http://git.fedorahosted.org/git/spin-kickstarts.git?p=spin-kickstarts.git;a=blob_plain;f=fedora-livecd-desktop.ks;hb=HEAD' -O fedora-livecd-desktop.ks
3. Create a new testday kickstart template fedora-livecd-testday.ks in the same directory, with this content:
%include fedora-livecd-desktop.ks repo --name jlaska --baseurl http://jlaska.fedorapeople.org/repos/testday repo --name awilliam --baseurl http://adamwill.fedorapeople.org/nouveau %packages gdb strace ltrace rendercheck libdrm pidgin mc vim wget xorg-x11-apps gtk-recordmydesktop # save some space -empathy -@games -brasero* -sound-juicer -gthumb -gnome-backgrounds -desktop-backgrounds* # brand as fedora test spin fedora-logos -generic-logos %end %post # Set Test_Day:Current as default browser homepage cat << EOF > `ls -1 /usr/lib*/firefox*/browserconfig.properties` browser.startup.homepage=https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:Current EOF # Create a .desktop link for Test Day wiki mkdir -p /etc/skel/Desktop cat << EOF > /etc/skel/Desktop/testday-wiki.desktop [Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Name=Participate in a Test Day Type=Link URL=https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:Current Icon=gnome-fs-bookmark EOF # Create a .desktop link for Test Day IRC chat cat << EOF > /etc/skel/Desktop/testday-irc.desktop [Desktop Entry] Encoding=UTF-8 Name=Connect to a Test Day chat Type=Link URL=http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=fedora-qa Icon=gnome-fs-bookmark EOF %end
3. Create the live image:
livecd-creator -c fedora-livecd-testday.ks --cache /var/cache/live -f "testday-`date +%Y%m%d`"
You can use
setarch command to create a x86 Live CD/DVD on a x86_64 system. Example: setarch i686 livecd-creator <...>.Solving problems
Rawhide repository broken
If current rawhide repository is broken and the livecd can't be built, and you have access to some mirror with older rawhide snapshot, you may edit fedora-livecd-testday.ks and redefine the rawhide repository after the %include line, for example looking like this:
repo --name=rawhide --baseurl=protocol:/path-to-older-rawhide-repository/$basearch/os/
In the worst case you can base the whole livecd on Fedora 11 packages with this definition:
# not really rawhide, overriden with F11 'released' repo repo --name=rawhide --mirrorlist=http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=fedora-11&arch=$basearch repo --name=updates --mirrorlist=http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/mirrorlist?repo=updates-released-f11&arch=$basearch
Don't forget to comment out these lines when rawhide repository gets fixed.
SELinux complaints
For building Test Days LiveCD you must have SELinux installed and enabled. Ideally it should be in the enforcing mode and everything should run fine. In case you have problems with that, you may switch the mode temporarily into permissive mode with this command run as root:
setenforce 0
If that doesn't help, you may also modify the fedora-livecd-testday.ks file and after %include line add a directive
selinux --permissive
Now the build should run fine.
Further references
- How to create and use a Live CD
- How to write the live image to a USB stick.
- How to write the live image to a CD or DVD media.
- How to load the live image in KVM or qemu.
Ideas For Improvement
Create a .desktop file with a Test Day URL on the DesktopMake browser default homepage http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Test_Day:Current (suggested by User:sgallagh)- Setup a test day .repo for the running live image (suggested by User:sgallagh)