Straightforward Directions for Remasterme

by ruel24

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This procedure is for the more experienced PCLOS-er, and there may be some pitfalls for newer users. Remember to back up any important data before performing any major work on your system, particularly where full directories etc. are to be deleted.

You'll be doing the majority of this from a root terminal. If you are new to Linux, to get a root terminal, either open a terminal and type "su" and return and enter your root password at the prompt, or go to "Kmenu -> System -> Terminals -> Terminal Program - Super User Mode" and enter your root password at the prompt.

Note: The .iso file you are going to create will be saved in your /root directory. Make sure that you have enough room to create this file. One point to remember is that the image may be larger than a CD-full, so check there is plenty of space.
  • Step one: Unmount all unnecessary drives. For the default partition setup, that would mean everything except / and /home. There are several ways to do this. One good method is to open a terminal as root and type 'umount -a'. If you opened a root terminal for this, leave the terminal open as you'll need it again. Another way is to open Konqueror and type "system:/media" in the address bar. Once there, any partitions/drives listed that show a little indicator on the icon the represents the partition/drive is mounted and it is not either your / or /home partition, right-click on it and choose "unmount". You'll need to leave your / and your /home directory mounted if you have a separate /home partition.
  • Step two: Go to your home directory and right-click on the /tmp directory and choose "Actions -> Open As Root". Select everything and delete it. You can only perform this action with root privileges. If you do not have that action service menu installed, you can either install 'DoAsRoot' via Synaptic, or go to "Kmenu -> System -> File Tools -> File Manager -> Super User Mode" and delete the contents from there.
  • If you do not wish to exclude /home from the remaster, and use it as a means for backup, you can skip step 3 and continue to step 4.

  • Step three: In a root terminal, type "kwrite /usr/bin/remasterme". Edit the file at the section that begins "mklivecd". There are two command line arguments in there that begin with two dashes (--). Between them, add the following: "--nodir ^/home", making sure to leave a space between each of the, now 3, arguments. Also, make sure there is a space between the "r" and the "^" in your new argument. It should look something like this:
  • mklivecd --splash silent --md5sum --nodir ^/home --fstab=rw,noauto pclinuxos-2007.iso

    Save it and exit Kwrite. This will cause it to ignore your /home directory for the remaster.

  • Step four: In your root terminal, type "remasterme" and wait. Assuming there are no errors, which usually is caused by typing errors while editing the remasterme script, it will produce a file called "pclinuxos-2007.iso" in your /root directory. You can move it to your home directory from there.
  • Step five: Burn your new ISO to a CD or DVD and test it to make sure it works. It might be a good idea to try a complete install in a Virtualbox, VMware, Qemu, or Xen environment, as well, just to make sure everything works as you want it to.

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