I have to make a bootable CD that will run a program compiled with wxWidgets in Fedora 16. I have not found any clear knowledge base on this, although there are thousands of postings in different places.

I need a complete comprehensive set of directions on how to make such a boot CD.

I am planning to create a complete guide for everyone once I succeed in my attempt with help from all of you.

Thanks
Basudeb

Download an ISO9660 image for Fedora. Then use K3b to make the disc. Make sure it selects ISO and not clone. Usually 99% of the time K3b just works. You can add K3b with your add/remove software tool. Its a popular application.

Welcome to LinuxQuestions.

You can make a custom live CD as described in this link.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_t..._use_a_Live_CD

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanking the contributors of both the suggestions I got so far, I have a feeling that both suggestions I got are dated. Even otherwise, these seem to depend on a particular release of linux, and a specialized set of tools. What is the general method if I want to make a bootable linux CD with my wxWidgets programs to run on booting? I do not want it to boot up as any known linux release but as my own package.

IMHO the documents in the links do not satisfy the basic principles of documentation. Is it how all linux documents are written? No wonder, linux needs gurus to chant 'Mantra's before anything works.

I will not be satisifed with something that works 99%. That is too low a safety margin for me to trust anything in real life.

Any further help will be appreciated.

If you want something that works 100% for you and is totally customized for your needs then you have to go the basic way:
1. Learn your basics: Scripting, Linux commands
2. Learn how to build your own, customized Linux distribution: LinuxFromScratch, Slitaz Scratchbook

There is no way of clicking together your own distribution that runs specifically only your own programs without having branding of other distributions, you need to have knowledge to do that.
Also, there is no 100% in computer technology, but you can get very close to it if you a) know what you do and b) test, test, test.

No mantras needed, just plain knowledge.

Thank you Guru. I probably was expecting this answer. I will now start learning Linux from Scratch ( after doing Unix
from scratch as early as from the 1980s. .

I was expecting that there is a) A book b) A software or c) A company which can take care of this simple need. To reiterate: I need a linux to boot from CD that will run my single program which was compiled in wxWidgets.

But as I should have guessed, life is not easy. Even when I want to do something as simple as this. I will return to this forum may be after a year or so, if I manage to survive the learning process.



Basudebg


Rep:
If you want something that works 100% for you and is totally customized for your needs then you have to go the basic way:
1. Learn your basics: Scripting, Linux commands
2. Learn how to build your own, customized Linux distribution: LinuxFromScratch, Slitaz Scratchbook

There is no way of clicking together your own distribution that runs specifically only your own programs without having branding of other distributions, you need to have knowledge to do that.
Also, there is no 100% in computer technology, but you can get very close to it if you a) know what you do and b) test, test, test.

No mantras needed, just plain knowledge.

If it would be so simple then you wouldn't have to ask, I think.

Then I woul rather recommend to use the Slitaz Scratchbook to build a basic live system and add your program and the needed libraries to it.

What you need to do is to get a regular or special spin of any Linux distro, preferably a user friendly one. Customize it with your programs. The start menu, repositories, things for all users or just for one or more, can all be configured with Linux.

After getting your widgets to work, use Ghost or Partition Commander or some other similar took to store the image of your custom design.

Then, backup this image and ghost your hard drive with again if your computer gets damaged, lost or stolen. Of course, you can also put an image on a CD or a DVD as well. Fedora has options for making custom spins that do this sort of thing.

Another interesting alternative is to do this in a virtual machine. Make say 5 or 10 virtual machines with the identical settings. If one crashes, another can be started immediately. Generally, I don't like virtual machines all that much, but they can protect your primary operating system from damage from custom programs.

Here is how to get a program to auto start in Ubuntu. Things differ for different distros and desktops, but you should get the basic idea. Its not all that different then editing the start menu in Windows actually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54b9I-g5uG0

Here is how to use a virtual machine. Virtual machines give you more options then putting something on a DVD or a CD. Heck, at least put it on a CD-RW so that you can tweak it a little should the need arise.

http://www.techradar.com/news/softwa...machine-697144

To further ensure reliability, I would investigate port jails and the warden program which is used in PC-BSD. I realize that you asked about Linux, but it also seems like you want rock solid reliability and BSD has a great reputation for that. Fedora (as stated in the link) is also an excellent choice.

You certainly don't have to re-invent the wheel or write your own kernel to get a few custom widgets or scripts to run. Making your own distro from scratch to do this is like hitting a fly with a sledge hammer. Having ghost images as backups will satisfy your requirements for stability, especially if such images are bootable. Nevertheless, to build this image you will need to install Linux to a hard drive and customize it first before throwing it back on a DVD or a CD.

Personally, for reliablity I would consider getting a server with raid-10 or raid-5, dual power supplies and a big battery backup. Of course, this will cost many times more then static bootable CDs.

Thanks everyone for their helpful posts, some of which are fairly detailed and long. However,it is obvious that either no one has ever done what I have set out to do, or, I am not able to reach those persons here. Whatever is mentioned in the posts, is well known and leads to links which do not result in a solution that I want. I will have to give up my quest, at least from this forum.
Thanks to all.

But what exactly are you doing with WXwidgets? Why do you need them on a bootable CD with generic no-name linux? These widgets are for programming and making GUI interfaces. Who does that with a live CD?

I just typed in wxwidgets into synaptic's search. Synaptic is an add/remove software tool which is a GUI front end for apt-get. They have a real wide selection of options and tools, most of which I've never heard of before to be honest with you. If I type in widgets, I get even more tools.

Seriously, try doing a regular install of Mint to a hard drive and then get synaptic and see if it won't find what you need. Of course, I'm not a C++ programmer so I can't really help you out much there.

In any event, I don't mind trying to help people out even if it doesn't always work. Best of luck to you.

I want a CD that will boot into linux. It will then automatically run an executable. This executable is developed in g++ and wxWidgets(wxGTK) library, because it needs to replace a WinPE package previously written in Windows and running from WinPE Boot CD ( WinPE is being discontinued by Microsoft and so, many, many suppliers of bootable utilities will now need to convert to linux and wxWidgets. Also, learning to develop a similar boot CD took me only 1 day using WinPE. For linux, it is six months now, but I am still at sea

wxWidgets and QT are two most popular libraries for linux for developing products which can be compiled both in Windows and in linux. My program runs fairly well in Fedora linux now after converting my packages to use wxWidgets.

Now, I need to package this executable so that it runs automatically after booting from a linux CD. We did it before in 2007 but linux has changed and our old developers have left, and I am simply at a loss on how to make this.

I understand very well that I have to repackage a linux distribution with new libraries, my executable and put it back into a bootable CD. But why is it so difficult? I wonder how many man-centuries are lost because, to use linux, one has to be a Guru.

Any help is still welcome. I suspect, it should not take more than 2-3 pages to write how to achieve what I want. But it
is not forthcoming even after so many days, and there are hardly any responses to my SOS.

Basudeb



>But what exactly are you doing with WXwidgets? Why do you need them on a bootable CD with generic no-name linux? These >widgets are for programming and making GUI interfaces. Who does that with a live CD?
>
>I just typed in wxwidgets into synaptic's search. Synaptic is an add/remove software tool which is a GUI front end for apt->get. They have a real wide selection of options and tools, most of which I've never heard of before to be honest with you. >If I type in widgets, I get even more tools.

>Seriously, try doing a regular install of Mint to a hard drive and then get synaptic and see if it won't find what you >need. Of course, I'm not a C++ programmer so I can't really help you out much there.

>In any event, I don't mind trying to help people out even if it doesn't always work. Best of luck to you.

There are a couple of utilities that can be used to create your own customized live CD. Have a look at remastersys and livecd.

What is the difference between isolinux CD and Grub CD? I need a file called bzImage, but in my latest downloaded Gentoo CD, there is no file called bzImage. Can anyone tell me which file in the Gentoo CD is actually a bzImage?