Introduction
This page explains how to make a custom-content Live CD or DVD on Fedora-based systems including derived distributions such as RHEL, CentOS and others.
If you simply want to burn a pre-made ISO to a disc, visit http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora to download a LiveCD or LiveDVD, then see the install guide or burning how-to for further instructions.
See the project wiki for more details. Discussion of this project takes places at http://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/livecd.
Instructions
The basic workflow for creating a remix is:
- Create a kickstart file that specifies the packages you want installed on your remix, along with special settings you want to tweak.
- Run that kickstart file through livecd-creator, which will pull in the packages and compose an .iso, which you can then burn to CD.
...that's it! We will walk you through these steps below.
Choose a kickstart file as a base for your remix
Kickstart files are configuration files. They contain settings for tools, such as:
- pungi (for the creation of install disks),
- livecd-creator (for the creation of live images)
- anaconda (the built-in installer)
You can see examples of kickstart files in the spin-kickstart repository. These are the kickstart files for the spins displayed at http://spins.fedoraproject.org.
Since we are creating a LiveCD, we want a kickstart file for livecd-creator. Chances are good that an existing LiveCD kickstart already contains most of the things we need, like a graphical dekstop environment, drivers, and the ability to make live images persistent (for installation on a liveUSB rather than a liveCD). Therefore, in order to avoid reinventing the wheel, we're going to start by picking an existing kickstart for a LiveCD to base our remix's kickstart from.
There are currently two kickstart files that provide the main configuration to setup the live images. Pick one of these two:
- fedora-live-base.ks: The file used for most composes. If you don't know where to start, this is a good default choice.
- fedora-live-mini.ks: A trimmed-down edition of the first file, mostly used by the Mini SIG for size-sensitive purposes. If space-saving is a primary concern, choose this one.
<what do you do once you've picked one of the two .ks files? mmm, customization guide>... maybe it'd just make sense to generalize the customization guide? well, we got probably a little too far here already for that.
- reading*
Create a kickstart file
- Create an empty text document in the editor of your choice.
- Import the base kickstart file you chose above:
%include fedora-live-base.ks
- Create the package manifest section and add your favorite packages:
%packages
foo
baz
bar
%end
- Congrats -- you're done!
Build the image
You'll need the livecd-creator tool. Go and install it as root:
- yum install livecd-creator
The build process will take some time, as well as space and bandwidth.
Adjust the image
ZOMG it's too big! How to cut stuff. See #Release management for more notes. (make that section)
Distribute the image
Now you have an .iso. What do you do with it?