Customize your own ZMliveCD

[black_13]

i am very interested in items.
1) remastering zonemind livecd towards the goal making the cd is small as possible. the only appplications i want are xorg and bash.
2) how to start from a working mandrake LE 2005 to a livecd.
i have attempted to install the mklived rpm and
ths fail horribly i realized that my second request
may be beyound the scope of this forum but
i thought would ask.

thanks

[jameswilson]

If you kang on Ross (my hero) is going to make another new live cd based on mandriva 2006. Others maybe able to help you create your own live cd.

James

[rdmelin]

1) remastering zonemind livecd towards the goal making the cd is small as possible. the only appplications i want are xorg and bash.

This is a matter of installing from the livecd and then removing the packages you dont want. I prefer CLI tools like rpm -e and urpme but you can use rpmdrake-remove if you prefer GUI tools. You will need to keep the packages needed by mklivecd.

$ rpm -q --requires mklivecd
busybox >= 1:1.00-0.pre4.2mdk
cloop-utils >= 1.02-4mdk
mediacheck
mkisofs
squashfs-tools >= 1.4-0.1mdk
syslinux >= 1.76-15mdk
rpmlib(PayloadFilesHavePrefix) <= 4.0-1
rpmlib(CompressedFileNames) <= 3.0.4-1
perl-base
perl(Getopt::Long)
perl(MDK::Common)
perl(MDK::Common::File)
perl(MDK::Common::System)
perl(Storable)
perl(Xconfig::card)
perl(Xconfig::default)
perl(Xconfig::main)
perl(Xconfig::monitor)
perl(Xconfig::parse)
perl(Xconfig::resolution_and_depth)
perl(Xconfig::screen)
perl(Xconfig::xfree)

If you also want to use the hd installer then you need to keep livecd-utils and its requires.

This approach can be tedious. Another solution is to create an installation on a partition from Mandrakes installation CDs that has only the minimum requirements. Then you can create a livecd from this installation that can serve as a basis for creating specialized livecds.

The fly in this ointment is that it is hard to find a mklivecd release that works well with a particular Mandrake version. I use a mklivecd snapshot from several months back with Mandrake 10.1 If you would like RPMs for this snapshot PM me with an email address and I can send them to you.

As both Mandrake (Mandriva) and mklivecd continue to develop, and not always in sync, getting a livecd working properly with a newer release takes some time and experimenting. Testing with CVS snapshots is a must. For lack of availible time I skipped LE2005 entirely, so I cannot give much specific help there. As James metioned I plan to begin work on a 2006 version as soon as Mandriva releases it. (Any day now)

By all means check out the resoures at the mklivecd website. There are some HOWTOs and a mailing list you can join.
http://livecd.berlios.de/

Best regards

Ross

[jameswilson]

Ross Is it possible for me to remaster a live cd to include mdadm support. I can create the array with another live c but when i try to install live cd it woont put var on the array as it hasnt got mdadm loaded and i cant add it to the live cd while its running or can i
?

James

[rdmelin]

To remaster with the mdadm package installed is easy. Please do this, you will be amazed at how easy it is. Here again are the steps.

1. Install to a partition 2.5 or 3 GB

2. Boot up the new partition. From a konsole run bin/installer. Then just exit the livecd-install program. This will shuffle some files around in prep for making a CD.

3. Edit bin/prep_zmcd and bin/mkzmcd to reflect where you want the ISO image to be saved, and where you want mklivecd to create temp files.

4. Install any new packages, and make whatever other changes you want. You could, for example change some settings in zm.

5. Run "sudo bin/prep_zmcd". This will clean up any log files, bash history, etc.

6. Run "sudo bin/mkzmcd"

A bigger question is can you install to md using livecd-install. I have forgotten most if what I once knew about linux software raid. That was before mdadm, raid-tools was the thing then. Let us know what you find.

I think you may be able to set up a raid 0 (mirror) after a normal installation. Anyway I have added mdadm to my latest CD, though I probably won't have time to test it for a few weeks. But that's what users are for, eh?

[jameswilson]

we are we are lol. Ok I will have a go and let you know how it goes

[jameswilson]

Right then
I have made me a live cd and changed what i needed
basically i added mdadm and burnt cd
All is great cd boots i have mdadm i can create an array
but i cant install var to it. Is this what you meant in your previous posts.
Can i update the installer if so what needs updating
Any clues

Cheers

James

[jameswilson]

Ross in the process of trying this live cd creation i stupidly ran hard drake. Now mu keyboard is buggeres. How do i reset this to work in x??

James

[jameswilson]

ok then to reset the keyboard.
There maybe a better way but this is how i did it
boot up machine as normal
Press ALT CTRL 1
should get a text login
login as root
type init 3
wait a bit
press ctrl c
type startx
should get a root kde
got configure computer etc and change keybaord to (in my case) uk

Keybaord should now be back

Ross on another note
Raid:
Found out that my sata was not fully recognised by default live cd kernel
Used mandrake update and added a 2.6.8 kernel
my stat drives were properly recognised but now its unstable so im gonna hang fire on this.
Thanks for input im gonna have a go at creating my own cd distro like Cordel as i have likes and dislikes of each distro
Your right too its damn easy to create your own and i did but unfortunatly i couldnt get raid going and i think its down to the kernel not recognisng my drives properly.

James

[jameswilson]

Ross I have confirmed that the live cd will work with mdadm
I can creat ethe array format it etc from livecd after boot.

What i cant do is add the array to the installer so it will use it as var

I have also tried the live cd of pclinuxos (which has a new kernel) and it wont either. I tried pclinuxos cos i was gonna have a go at making my own live cd. This uses the same mklivecd as your livecd but this wont do the raid install either. I am assuming that this is a limitation of the installer program not mandrake, the kernel or anything else.
Do you have any ideas on how to make it use an array for its var.
I have also tried lvm but afetr adding the packages it used to fail at creating the lv so i concentrated on the raid thing.

James

[rdmelin]

Do you have any ideas on how to make it use an array for its var.

No, but i believe it should be easy to get what you are after manually. Try this:

Create and format your RAID array

Install to a small / partition ( 2 1/2 or 3 GB, no separate /var )

Boot up your new system and mount the RAID array
[root]# mkdir /mnt/md
[root]#mount /dev/md0 /mnt/md

Copy /var to the array
[root]# cp -a /var/* /mnt/md/

Mount /dev/md0 on /var
[root]# umount /mnt/md
[root]# mount /dev/md0 /var

If this all goes as planned you now have /var running on your RAID array. You can edit /etc/fstab to always mount var this way. Add a line like this:

/dev/md0 /var ext3 defaults 1 2

I may have missed a step but I think this should be easy to do. You should be able to do this from the LiveCD to test if you want to. I will test it myself when I get a little time.

[jameswilson]

no ross i will test it

Ill test as you help lol

I have got a lot sorted and what you say seems great.
I had already started this but on boot my sata drives are detected but not fully.

When i updated the kernel they were seen properly then but after i created a cd with this kernel in things went bad.

Problem was i didt know which kernel to pick.
Using mandrake add software which kernel should i go for??

James

[rdmelin]

I'm not sure. You might try one of the pclinuxos kernels.

As you are discovering it's a challenge to add support for new things without breaking other things. It's a trial and error, and very time consuming. I plan to maintain the current LiveCD as a "stable version" and will work on support for newer hardware in a new version based on Mandriva 2006.

[jameswilson]

ok thanks
How do i add a kernel that isnt listed in mandrake update?

Dont suppose you know do you

James

[rdmelin]

Just download the rpm and install it with "rpm -ivh kernel_whatever...rpm"