From Fedora Project Wiki
| mether | * Live CD or DVD's |
|---|---|
| mether | * Regular installation images |
| mether | Fedora itself does both |
| mether | as you can see from <a href="http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora">http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora</a> |
| abby87 | i hope to see a fedora live cd-cum-install cd...would |
| that be a good idea instead of a plain install cd?? | |
| generalBordeaux | abby87, i think there are live cds now .. |
| mether | The live cd's in Fedora have the option to install to |
| hard disk if that's what you mean | |
| generalBordeaux | i mean i downloaded one for F10 Beta .. |
| abby87 | mether: yes as in ubuntu |
| mether | knoppix, mempis and so on |
| mether | the concept itself is not new |
| abby87 | in ubuntu u 1st use the live cd and then install it |
| abby87 | that gives users chance to try and see if it works well |
| 4 them | |
| mether | right. the same thing works for Fedora as well |
| abby87 | and then they can proceed with installation |
| mether | Prior to Fedora 7, the tools that does the composes (ie) |
| turn a set of RPM packages into a regular installation image or live cd | |
| were internal to Red Hat | |
| abby87 | afaik install cds and live cds are diffferent |
| mether | abby87: not sure what you are referring to. Can we |
| discuss this later? | |
| abby87 | mether: oh sure sure |
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| mether | I will be only covering livecd-tools in this session |
| mj0vy | mether: does it include revisor also? |
| mether | there are two other tools |
| mether | pungi which creates regular installation images - either |
| cd sets or DVD's | |
| mether | Revisor which is a graphical frontend that combines the |
| functionality of livecd-creator and pungi | |
| mether | Those we will cover in a later session |
| mether | Though ideally, if you are using revisor, you don't need |
| much of additional hand holding | |
| * generalBordeaux is currently using revisor to embed media | |
| players in F9 | |
| mether | From Fedora 7 onwards, livecd-tools and pungi are used |
| to compose the actual distributions so they are well tested and | |
| incrementally gets more features over time as well | |
| mether | At present, both of them use the kickstart file format |
| mether | Kickstart files have been used to automate the |
| installation tasks for quite sometime | |
| mether | so it is a well understood format |
| mether | If you do a yum install livecd-tools |
| mether | you will find a number of them |
| mether | in /usr/share/livecd-tools |
| mether | We have the desktop, kde, base desktop ks files etc |
| abby87 | does it have a graphical frontend?? |
| mether | abby87: the graphical frontend is called revisor |
| abby87 | ok |
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| mether | The interesting new feature introduced for live media is |
| the concept of inheritance in kickstart | |
| mether | The gnome and kde live cd's share a number of packages |
| and package groups | |
| mether | so both of them inherit the same base desktop ks file |
| mether | Recently we have a new repository of such kickstart files at |
| mether | <a href="https://fedorahosted.org/spin-kickstarts/">https://fedorahosted.org/spin-kickstarts/</a> |
| mether | so if you do a git clone of it, you can find a number of |
| them | |
| generalBordeaux | awesome |
| mether | inheritance is pretty simple |
| mether | you just add a line similar to %include fedora-live-base.ks |
| mether | at the start of the kickstart file |
| mether | this is the canonical repository of all kickstart files |
| used to create the spins - custom distributions that we promote | |
| mether | and host in Fedora |
| abby87 | that would be as good as making a whole new distro ! |
| awesome .!! | |
| mether | these include xfce, electronics live cd, games and many |
| others | |
| mether | packages can be included by merely listing their name in |
| the kickstart file | |
| mether | groups can be included by using @ in front |
| mether | for example, if you want to create a live cd that uses |
| hindi by default | |
| mether | it would be very simple |
| < mether> | |
| <a href="http://sundaram.fedorapeople.org/spins/livecd-fedora-8-desktop-hindi.ks">http://sundaram.fedorapeople.org/spins/livecd-fedora-8-desktop-hindi.ks</a> | |
| mether | here, I am inheriting a common file at top |
| mether | defining the default language using the language code |
| mether | timezine and including the hindi-support package group |
| generalBordeaux | damn simple .. :) |
| mether | similarly you can do that for all the different Indian |
| language. it is so simple that i have done it all | |
| mether | <a href="http://sundaram.fedorapeople.org/spins/">http://sundaram.fedorapeople.org/spins/</a> |
| ankurs | but we need to have all the packages with us!!!!! |
| mether | yes, of course |
| ankurs | ok |
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| abby87 | mether: is it legally ok to distribute our custom live |
| cds to other ppl?? | |
| mether | abby87: I will come to that |
| abby87 | ok |
| mether | with inheritance, not only can you include packages, you |
| can remove them too | |
| mether | for example, |
| mether | -foo would remove the package named foo |
| mether | Unfortunately you cannnot remove package groups after |
| inheriting them yet | |
| mether | -@foo won't work |
| mether | if it is a single kickstart file, you can merely comment |
| out or remove that group itself from the kickstart file | |
| mether | The package groups themselves are defined in a xml file |
| called comps | |
| mether | which is used by the Anaconda installer and other tools |
| mether | More details at |
| <a href="http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/CompsXml">http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackageMaintainers/CompsXml</a> | |
| mether | So far, I have talked only about using the official |
| Fedora repository but you can very well use third party repositories as well | |
| mether | You can also define a custom comps.xml file and redefine |
| existing packages or include new package groups | |
| mether | when doing a compose, the different xml files will be |
| merged together | |
| mether | by livecd-creator |
| mether | does that make sense? |
| generalBordeaux | yeah.. |
| mether | several such custom derivative distributions already exist |
| mether | mythdora combines Fedora plus other third party |
| repositories to provide a simple out of box solution for mythtv users | |
| abby87 | ohh thats splendid |
| mether | Not only can you include multiple repositories but also |
| introduce configuration changes | |
| mether | kickstart format include many configuration directives |
| for common usages | |
| mether | for example, disabling or enabling the firewall |
| mether | if you need additional changes, you can include any |
| shell scripts in %post section | |
| mether | Here is another example |
| mether | <a href="ftp://ftp.infradead.org/pub/spins/omega-livecd-desktop.ks">ftp://ftp.infradead.org/pub/spins/omega-livecd-desktop.ks</a> |
| generalBordeaux | mether, can i write custom scripts in any |
| language ..? | |
| generalBordeaux | in that %post thingy .. |
| mether | yes |
| abby87 | thats so cool |
| generalBordeaux | :O |
| mether | kickstart doesnt care |
| mether | it wont parse it. it will let whatever is on your system |
| handle that | |
| mether | so if you want to include python scripts, as long as you |
| have a python interpreter, it will work fine | |
| generalBordeaux | yeah |
| mether | traditionally, using anything other than simple bash |
| scripts can quickly become unmanageable if you are not careful. So dont | |
| go wild too much | |
| mether | livecd-creator is itself in python |
| mether | and uses yum API and pykickstart |
| mether | to do some of the core tasks |
| generalBordeaux | that may be a nice trick to place root kits ;) |
| mether | If you do a compose of Fedora and any custom packages, |
| you cannot call the end result Fedora anymore | |
| abby87 | that would resemble a MS product\ |
| generalBordeaux | abby87, lol |
| mether | We are now working on new trademark guidelines which |
| would give you more flexibility. Details at | |
| User:Pfrields/New_trademark_guidelines</a> | |
| mether | meanwhile, we have two packages that allow you to |
| rebrand the distribution very easily | |
| mether | these are generic-logos and generic-release |
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| abby87 | that is soooo ubercool ! |
| mether | If you replace fedora-logos and fedora-release with |
| these packages, you wont see the Fedora branding anywhere | |
| mether | We already dont brand the default theme with Fedora |
| items to facilitate derivative distributions | |
| mether | so this process is pretty easy |
| mether | of course, if you want your own logos and name, you have |
| to create your own rpm packages as well | |
| mether | Additional troubleshooting tips: |
| mether | If you are trying to compose a live cd with SELinux |
| enabled, put the host system in SELinux permissive mode | |
| mether | This is fixed in the very latest rawhide but previous |
| releases | |
| mether | you still need it in permissive mode to actually work |
| mether | This is because, livecd-creator basically installs rpm |
| packages in a chroot, wraps it up in a ext3 filesystem image which is | |
| then compressed by using squashfs | |
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| mether | Since the SELinux policy in the compose can be differnet |
| from the host system, this results in conflicts | |
| mether | so you might have permission issues |
| mether | Basically boot with SELinux is enforcing mode |
| mether | but just before doing the compose, run setenforce 0 |
| mether | and then livecd-tools |
| mether | There is a howto with more details at |
| FedoraLiveCD/LiveCDHowTo | |
| mether | also when running livecd-creator |
| mether | make sure you specify a cache directory |
| mether | otherwise, every instance will use a different cache |
| directory by default resulting in redownloads of packages | |
| mether | livecd-creator |
| --config=/usr/share/livecd-tools/livecd-fedora-minimal.ks | |
| --cache=/home/foo/liveimage-cache | |
| mether | for example |
| mether | If you have a local mirror, a compose takes about 30 minutes |
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| mether | now, questions time: |
| generalBordeaux | hmm |
| abby87 | that is like lego for linux |
| mether | true. you can rearrange existing components and get |
| something new pretty fast | |
| mether | OLPC, Mythdora, many of the custom spins use similar |
| tools to get something new out of Fedora | |
| mether | if you create a live cd or dvd, you will automatically |
| find a | |
| abby87 | mether: will this work for creating a complete kde live cd?? |
| mether | install to hard disk icon on the desktop |
| mether | clicking on that will call Anaconda to do the installation |
| mether | the difference is that, it dumps the entire image to |
| hard disk | |
| mether | there is no option to select packages |
| mether | it is also pretty fast because of that |
| mether | takes about 3 or 4 minutes to complete the entire |
| installation | |
| mether | with regular installation images, you have more |
| flexibility but it also takes a bit more time | |
| mether | abby87: yes, we already provide kde live's created using |
| livecd-creator | |
| mether | <a href="http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora">http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora</a> |
| mether | also xfce as ell |
| mether | well* |
| mether | You can find a list of custom spins at |
| <a href="http://spins.fedoraproject.org/">http://spins.fedoraproject.org/</a> | |
| abby87 | excellent |
| mether | any other questions |
| mether | ok. we will wrap up then |
| mether | see you all next week. I will post the agenda to Fedora |
| India list | |
| abby87 | thanks |
| mether | np |