I found out about a new remastering program called Reconstructor that is designed for *buntu distros. Can it be used in other Debian-based distros? I went to the website, but found nothing useful, as the front page is a mostly blank page with a login prompt. (I've fooled around with Debian Live, but haven't yet figured out how to make anything usable with it.)

Ran a search on this thing.

Search result refers to Ubuntu/Debian.

Webpage says;
Looks like you should be able to do either to me.

Also looks like you can get the source code
https://github.com/ehazlett/reconstructor.engine
and compile it on your box.

Other wise it is a utility to use on line. It is access to that website that you need to log in to and pay the $5.00(US) for. That offer for unlimited uses for one month sounds reasonable to me.

Compiling the thing and using it yourself sounds more educational and also more secure.

Yes I have problems with "cloud" apps.

Live Build does have some chalenging aspects to it for sure. Have been studying it intermittantly for a few months. Haven't mastered it yet. I am sure I will get what I want out of it though.

On the other hand I think I may have a look at this one too. Thanks for the heads up.

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As far as I can tell, remastering is one of the aspects of Linux that is still largely the province of advanced users. People with a novice level of understanding can take only so much advantage of the control over their distros that software freedom allows; a larger selection of remastering software that doesn't demand much expertise would be a step. Every time I reinstall my distro or install a new one, I spend considerable time removing everything I don't want--mostly the many programs that are specialized enough that a minimalist user like me has no interest in them. I wouldn't have to do that anymore if I could remaster a copy of the installation with all that stuff removed. I liked Remastersys, but the developer stopped maintaining it.

Remastersys has been around a long time and was very easy to use. Has two modes.

One for backup and one for creating a distributable version of your OS.

Development on it has slowed down. Dev has a life and this interferred with it.

Last I tried it was about 2 years ago and the Dist function did not work well with Ubuntu 10.04. Backup mode worked fine.

Have never tried it under Debian.

Reading the entire Live Build manual before using it is needed for hopes of success. Then running the "examples" tutorial style exercizes.

I got through number 2 and ran out of time but everything worked great through that.

Now I need to get the upgraded manual, check for changes in it and start the tutes over.

The thing about that is that it is not remastering. It is mastering. This is the tool used to create the Debian Live CD. Therefore anyone that is doing this needs to get the adding of packages and unoficial (anything but Debian main) to the image.

One thing you may want to do is take a look at a couple Red Hat branch of Linux distros. CentOS maybe. As far as I know they all include. or have in the repo, a remastering tool just for RH branch Linux.

While there are some RH branch distros that I have had on here, PCLOS and Mandriva mainly, I have never tried their remastering package. The problem I have is a deep seated dislike of the entire package management system of rpms.