[SOLVED] LFS 7.7: Creating an installer or LiveCd

GabLFS · 04-24-2015, 05:43 PM

Hi, since I'm finishing my first LFS system, I was wondering if there's a way to create some sort of installer or LiveCD so I can share my system. I'll appreciate your help.

Keith Hedger · 04-24-2015, 06:03 PM

There are a number of similar posts like this on this forum have look, but frankly I think you're flogging a dead horse, if you want to do it for your own use or because it might be fun then go to it, but you won't get a lot of interest from people wanting yet another pre built OS, sort of spoils the whole idea of building a system for yourself from scratch.

GabLFS · 04-24-2015, 06:24 PM

Yeah, this is just for academic purposes and I wanted to share it with some people at college, it's just for our own use.

veerain · 04-25-2015, 12:37 AM

Yes it's possible and can be done. You might like using squashfs to compress files and use ram/unionfs for dynamic space.

GabLFS · 04-25-2015, 12:27 PM

Thank you for your answer veerain, I'll check it out, it seems interesting and I'm reading about it right now, I've came across with some useful information too, but I don't know if they work until I test them.

Ragnarok Warrior · 04-25-2015, 08:48 PM

As far as the live cd goes I'm not really sure what to do, but as for an "installer" you should just be able to copy the system directly from one drive to another. I am doing this during my current build so I can work on a faster computer at home, but still work on it when time allows at school on my laptop.

Try this from either the host system (if being built that way) or a live cd if you are building LFS on the fly:

Code:

mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/lfs   (where sda1 is your LFS system)
cd /mnt/lfs
tar -czpvf /home/user/backup.tar.gz .    (Where you want the backup to be. The " . " is important.)

This will place the backup of the LFS system in /home/user, adjust to suit your needs. Then you can deploy the OS on another system by using a live cd and unpacking. After setting up a partition for LFS, do the following:

Code:

mount /dev/sda1 (again, the target partition of your LFS)
cd /mnt/lfs
tar -xzpvf /pathtobackup/backup.tar.gz

Just set up a flash drive with 2 partitions, one for the live cd of choice and the second to store your backup.tar.gz

Keith Hedger · 04-26-2015, 06:48 AM

This method will only work when both systems have much the same hardware, cpu size (32/64b), video cards, unless you have built in support for different cards, etc etc

GabLFS · 04-26-2015, 10:04 AM

Ragnarok I will try that method it seems perfect for what I try to do, that way I can work on my own machine and my collegue's machines. For the time being I will mark this thread as Solved, I will try that method and if anything goes wrong I will tell you. Thank you both!

Ragnarok Warrior · 04-26-2015, 12:39 PM

Keith is right, I completely forgot to mention it though. I'm just getting through the install of X, so video drivers aren't a problem for me yet, and I have a few kernels compiled for different hardware. If you built LFS for 64 bit I believe it will not work on a 32 bit system unless you have compiled multilib support, but if you built for 32 bit it should run on most machines. I am building on a mid-2007 64bit dual core mac mini and a 1999 vintage IBM Thinkpad pentium 2 (thus multiple kernel options).

Keith Hedger · 04-26-2015, 04:35 PM

You can't run a 64 kernel or any other 64 bit piece of software on a 32 bit machine even if you have multilib, you can do it the other way around though, I beleive there is or was switch in the kernel config to allow support for 32 bit apps with a 64 bit kernel, as long as you have the relevent sub structure installed.

GabLFS · 04-26-2015, 07:36 PM

I'm building a 32bit system, since most of the machines I'm working with support this architecture, so I guess this shouldn't be a problem. And indeed, it's possible to built a 64bit system with 32bit capabilities, but not the other way around.. Thanks, again.