Customizing Knoppix

[walterw]

Hi,

I am interested in remastering Knoppix, but to do that I need to know how it works. I was looking for documentation as to how a live distribution differs from a harddrive install, but can only find information about boot.img which contains the initrd, kernel, and linuxrc. I know that the root filesystem has to have some modifications (/var and /tmp have to be writeable), but does anyone know where I can find such documentation or information on Knoppix sites? I am looking at taking a harddrive install and tweaking it to run off a cd.


thanks for your help,
Walter

[Tech2k]

[quote="walterw"]Hi,

I am interested in remastering Knoppix, but to do that I need to know how it works. I was looking for documentation as to how a live distribution differs from a harddrive install, but can only find information about boot.img which contains the initrd, kernel, and linuxrc. I know that the root filesystem has to have some modifications (/var and /tmp have to be writeable), but does anyone know where I can find such documentation or information on Knoppix sites? I am looking at taking a harddrive install and tweaking it to run off a cd.[quote]

Sorry but to remaster Knoppix or to debootstrap sid and add Knoppers scripts and make a live cd you dont need to know how all that works.I have been this stuff for a year and I dont know how it work.It wont be a bad thing to learn but all the information you need to successfully build your own live cd is right here on this site your reading this on now.Try the docs link and the remastering forum.Also see Knoppers site,the mail archives and use google and search things like "klaus knopper" "remaster knoppix" "remastering knoppix" and you will be supprised what you will find.Read Knoppers talks and papers you can find on his site but all the info you need to remaster is right here on this site if you look.

[garyng]

Hi,

I am interested in remastering Knoppix, but to do that I need to know how it works. I was looking for documentation as to how a live distribution differs from a harddrive install, but can only find information about boot.img which contains the initrd, kernel, and linuxrc. I know that the root filesystem has to have some modifications (/var and /tmp have to be writeable), but does anyone know where I can find such documentation or information on Knoppix sites? I am looking at taking a harddrive install and tweaking it to run off a cd.


thanks for your help,
Walter

documentation is in the source, basically everything is in boot.img, check the linuxrc and the directory structure as well as those symbolic links. Quite easy to understand but I can tell you Klaus has spent a lot of time to figure out what files needs to be symlink, what files needs to be real file etc, go through the linuxrc.

I am doing similar thing with a slightly different perspective, how to turn a standard debian into a potential live CD(that is, the root file system is fully functional on read only media). There is similar package called bootcd in debian depository but I am aiming at just dropped a shell script in the rcS.d.

[walterw]

Hi Gary,

I am interested in doing a similar task like yours - I am trying to make a standard install live. I would prefer to do this on RedHat. I read the linuxrc file and I think that that may have been the entire reason I could not boot RedHat live, that is, I was using a standard RedHat install in which case the linuxrc was setup for a read/write root filesystem specifically for harddrive installs. I think I have a backup copy of my root filesystem. I will have to try this out... Eventually if I figure this thing out, I would like to use a framebuffer to show the boot status and have a cool background image of some sort. Does bootsplash only work for lilo? If I get this figured out, hopefully I can write a simple script that automates the task of making a live filesystem from a standard hd install and eventually from install iso's directly.