[SOLVED] Create a custom Slackware Live CD

kikinovak · 11-16-2014, 02:18 AM

Hi,

I want to create a custom Slackware Live CD, for a few reasons:

Make a demo for MLED
Make an application-specific demo (like medical applications on Linux)
Create a live build environment to fiddle with LFS
Etc.

I've never created a Live CD, so before I dive into it, I thought I'd rather ask if any of you guys have any experience in the matter. After googling and reading a bit, there seem to be two major methods for building a Slackware-based Live CD:

The Slackware Live Scripts
The Linux Live Scripts

Any recommendations, suggestions, caveats?

Cheers,

Niki

Raveriux · 11-16-2014, 10:18 AM

Scientific MLED?

onebuck · 11-16-2014, 10:57 AM

Hi,

Why not use Salix as a means to produce your MLED LiveCD/DVD? Look At Salix Wiki since Salix is based on Slackware then it would seem that you should be able to work through creation without to much difficulty. Look at how they create Salix LiveCD/DVD.

Pendrive should be of some help for LiveCD/DVD or LiveUSB.

Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!

TracyTiger · 11-16-2014, 11:42 AM

Just as onebuck mentioned, I too thought of the recent Salix live announcement when I read this LQ thread late last night. That is, if you run into difficulties it may be worthwhile to see how Salix accomplished the task.

It's interesting that with the current Salix live release they also used Slackware Live Scripts so it appears that you're looking in the right places for guidance. From the recent Salix announcement

Quote:

During the last few months there has been a lot of action behind the scenes to get this ready. The live system creation scripts that we were using up to the 13.37 release (called SaLT), while originally created with the idea to become a one stop solution for creating our live releases without much trouble had become a burden to use. After a lot of trying to get them work with newer releases, we decided that we should switch to a better, easier to use system. This is based on the Slackware Live Scripts, which is also what powers other Slackware-based live systems as well. The scripts were tweaked and adjusted to meet our requirements and the fruit of this work is available here, including a new installer and persistence options. The new live scripts have a number of advantages over our old scripts, with the most important being that there is no need to use a separate live-specific kernel, instead the exact same kernel as in a standard installation iso is used along with an initrd image for booting the live iso.

Keep us informed...perhaps in an English language blog on LQ which you update? ... or just this thread.

TracyTiger · 11-16-2014, 01:00 PM

I had a problem many many moons ago. On more than one computer when booting a live CD (probably Knoppix or a Linux rescue CD) the hardware clock would be changed significantly.

When the owners of the machines booted back into their normal MS Windows environment (probably WinXP) they complained that their clock was significantly wrong.

I never investigated this problem but thought I should point it out in case it is still a problem in this decade.

You tell someone that you'll temporarily run a live Linux system and that it won't write to disk or many any changes to their computer. It's not good to tell someone to trust you on this, then it messes up their clock. Even though it's easy to reset their clock through MS Windows, and you didn't touch the computer's hard disk, their confidence in you may drop dramatically as they wonder what else changed in their computer that you promised wouldn't change.

Just something to watch. You may want to skip the instructions that change the hardware clock.

perbh · 11-16-2014, 01:22 PM

What about having a live usb-drive/pen instead?
I carry about 3 of them *chuckles*, 16 or 32 gigs - been a lifesaver many a time and makes for a very neat demo ... ;-)
I install slackware to a usb-pen and make all the 'changes' I usually do ...

The disadvantage - it's writeable so a curious user will have no problems screwing it up ...
Never looked into making it non-writeable, but as a demo-thingy, yes, that would/might be desirable.

kikinovak · 11-17-2014, 12:48 AM

Thanks everybody for all your suggestions. I did a lot of experimenting yesterday, and now I have a nice custom Slackware Live CD, including base system, networking, development tools, X11 with WindowMaker and Firefox. The "Slackware Live Scripts" are relatively easy to use, and they work well for existing installations, with a few caveats.

http://www.microlinux.fr/slackware/L...veCD-HOWTO.txt

Cheers,

Niki

onebuck · 11-17-2014, 08:55 AM

Hi,

Thanks for the well written documentation. I used Google Translate to convert to English without issues.

kikinovak · 11-17-2014, 09:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onebuck

Hi,

Thanks for the well written documentation. I used Google Translate to convert to English without issues.

I know I could theoretically write these HOWTOs in English, but their primary use is for my work and also teaching in France. Days are packed full with activities, and there's only so many hours to a day. Sorry for the inconvenience, folks.

onebuck · 11-17-2014, 09:33 AM

Hi,

No inconvenience for me. I do appreciate the work done.

Bertman123 · 11-22-2014, 08:23 AM

Could this livecd be burned onto a usb drive as well? Nice work, thanks!

kikinovak · 11-22-2014, 08:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bertman123

Could this livecd be burned onto a usb drive as well? Nice work, thanks!

Burned, no, because the plastic would melt. But I guess you could just copy it over.

EDIT: Oops, wrong information. If you want to copy it over to a USB stick, use the --usb option instead of the --iso option in the last step. Here's the complete documentation:

http://slackware-live.tuxfamily.org/-Documentation-

moisespedro · 11-23-2014, 01:07 AM

I am learning French on Duolingo, your posts gonna help me