Building a custom Linux LiveCD

Question

I need to create a small custom live system (for teaching a programming class). What would be the best way to do it?

Answer 1

You can use Remastersys to build an Ubuntu or Debian distro of your own. For a fast live cd, I would install XUbuntu into a virtualbox vm and install the necessary programs and set it up to your liking. Then you can run remastersys backup and burn the resulting ISO to CDs for your students.

Answer 2

If you want to build your own distribution, Try Linux From Scratch (LFS). It is a project that provides you with step-by-step instructions for building your own custom Linux system, entirely from source code. http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

There are a lot of lightweight linux distributions available. Most of these can boot from LiveCD. http://lightlinux.blogspot.com/2008/06/top-10-of-lightweight-linux%5F24.html

Answer 3

http://www.livecdlist.com/frontpage?order=value%5F1&sort=desc

This website is a list of all the Live CD distros with a ranking given by the users

I suggest you go with XUbuntu for programming purposes

If you are looking to use it for server tests try open SUSE

Answer 4

SUSE Studio, depending on how much time you have. You might have to wait for an invite -- took me 1 1/2 weeks to get mine. Otherwise, it's quite a neat system.

Answer 5

How about Morphix? http://www.morphix.org/ - includes a page on "Building a new LiveCD in two commands"!

Answer 6

You might want to take a look at TKLPatch, a simple (but powerful) appliance customization mechanism.

Documentation: http://www.turnkeylinux.org/docs/tklpatch
Source code: http://github.com/turnkeylinux/tklpatch