Hi,

I have installed PCLinuxOS-tr4 and am very happy with it, having used PCLinuxOS for some time. This is a clean install on a clean disk. I have spent a couple of days installing/removing packages and tweaking it to make it just perfect for our operation.

Now, what is the best way to put that already installed system onto a DVD so others can install it on their computer. They are not all on a network, hence the need to make a DVD for them to install from.

I've read a lot on how to make Live-CDs, but that's not what I need. I need to have my presently installed Linux system on multiple other computers.

I'm not sure what to do and in what order. My concerns are what to do with the /proc and /dev directories and most important, I can make an iso of my complete system, but how does the user install it to their computer and have it boot? How does Grub get installed in their MBR, etc.

If this is not the best section to ask that question in, could someone let me know so I can ask it in another section.

Thanks in advance for any help or pointers.

If you're doing it "internally" and don't actually need other people to be able to install it themselves as such, you could use dd to duplicate the hard drive you like, over to the hard drives in all the other computers... At a block level...

fukawi2m

Thanks for the quick reply. I've used dd in the past, but this has to go to off-site people for them to install themselves.

Unfortunately, I don't know enough about how to create 'install' scripts or even what is needed to make a DVD, like the 'big boys'.

I'm hoping that there is some program or some tutorial that would lead me through the necessary steps to create a DVD with a Linux distribution on it that can be installed, just like all the distros have. Most of the tutorials that I've read are very old and get into a LOT of detail about putting it all together, piece by piece, including compiling a custom kernel and all the modules, etc.

Since I already have a working 'clean' install, all I want to do is be able to (I think) create an iso of the entire system, create a compressed Linux boot image and have some way to install GRUB to the MBR of the hard disk. Again, I'm not sure what to do about the /proc and /dev directories since this will get installed on different hardware.

I don't know where to look for answers. I"ve googled until my eyes hurt from reading all the stuff I've found, but still unsure how to accomplish it.

After thinking about it a little, is there some way to use 'dd' to copy it to a DVD and have the end user 'dd' it to their computer?

Are you just looking to image one / partition, or /, /home, swap partitions (more than one)?

you will need some room to work in
and a mimnal linux system some place
like another hard drive
basicly you could just tar and zip the
whole system to one tar file
to install you would need another minumal system
like a live cd
with tar,gzip,fdisk,lilo,mkfs,mkswap and an editor
to install it you would prepair the hard drive
untar the system to the parttion
edit the /etc/fstab run lilo or grub boot it
configure X

here is a distro that works exactly this way
http://www.vectorlinux.com/
my suggestion would be to try this distro
if nothing else to learn how to install what you have in mind
one thing for sure you will get good at linux learning how to
do what you want to do

The package mindi will make a useful minimal system in less than 30MB with tar, gzip, mkfs, etc. You might have to specifically add grub to it, though. I've never checked to see if it has it. Adding the package mondo to mindi is supposed to make a complete installable iso of an existing system, but I haven't tested it.

Thanks for the suggestions. Looks like I've got some research to do.

rob.rice,

Your description is very close to the Slax install script except the Slax install script copies everything to the new hd, except for the /proc and /dev directories, then copies the vmlinuz image to boot, along with lilo. It does not require any manual editing of any files, although it looks like the user (have to figure out how to automate this part) still has to run the lilo config program. Still not sure how to load Grub or lilo to the MBR yet.

I will check out all of your suggestions. Thanks again.

here is a realy small distro that fits on a floppy
with all the tools to prepair the hard drive and untar the system
in theroy you could install this to a bootable DVD and do the install
from just one disk

http://www.toms.net/rb/

tom may even be willing to help you

another source of help on making a bootable DVD is in the boot directory of the current slackware distro