I'm looking for a graphical way to manipulate ( de/uninstall language-packs and fonts, office ) the squashfs file in an ISO. I know an ISO is read only, so I have to unpack it, and mount the squashfs file. In the terminal I get kind of lost. Just using Linux since march or april this year, so i'm still a rookie. So I'm looking for a grafical way. I have the squashfs-toolkit, but that is terminal only.

It is not only about the size of the ISO, it is more about all the de/uninstalling/purge work after a standard install, then download all the updates and software I want.

I also don't want to make an ISO of my current systems ( Kubuntu 20.04 and Mint 20.2 Uma as they will end up very large )

Likely not, and for a simple reason. Any tool that could graphically do the commands would likely just be a gui with a place to type in commands and you could visibly see the file tree. At the end of the day you would still be typing commands. While most of the commands are pretty simple there are occasionally some that aren't very common depending on what you are doing. The gui would be over complicated in order to make it all available.

Another thing is this.

You won't learn if you avoid it. I'm not trying to be mean or insulting. It's a hard fact.

If I may suggest. Rather than creating a squashfs and iso yourself. Maybe do a net install of *buntu (assuming mint has one as well). That will give you a very minimal setup. Then add the packages you want. Learn to use apt with the --no-install-recommends flags and such like that. The problem with the squashfs method is simply it will change all the time as updates are added. Never ending problem. If you do a net install then have a script do install the packages and fonts on a running system you are set no problem. Damn near foolproof. Shouldn't be too hard to write a script with a package install list and to automatically copy fonts / icons from a network share or flash drive.

To top it all off if you are capable of running a local squid proxy when you do your net install and point it at the proxy the downloads will be as fast as your lan (barring any packages that have changed on the repository servers).

1 members found this post helpful.

I played with a version of a squashfs file a while back and I think what I did was found a distro that booted to that version and I was able to sort of use the file manager to add in files. You can't easily install software and you have to copy it all to a folder, make edits and then squash it again to a new file. It's not an easy way to edit.

1 members found this post helpful.

^Yep. GParted Live uses squashfs for their images, and this is the procedure they recommend to follow in order to add packages to the image. You likely won't be able to avoid command line.

That said, there are some command line helper tools like scripts from the package remaster-iso. And squashfuse will allow you to directly mount a SquashFS filesystem.

1 members found this post helpful.

Thank you all so much. I know I have to learn more commands and the exact working of the OS's. The command line is a very powerful tool if you know how to use it. It makes a flash drive in under 3 seconds. It is really incredible. I am not avoiding to use it. I used DOS back in the days, until Windows 3.1 came along. I tried Suse, Ubuntu and Knoppix in the 90's, but failed to learn it back then. I was to busy studying for becoming a vet and working at the same time. Now I use Kubuntu as my daily driver, so I not about fail this time. Anyway I was just asking after searching for days.

I also need to learn to write scripts

I like the idea of starting with a minimal system and add the software packages I use like jmgibson1981 suggested.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge and suggestions and links.