LiveCD News

Highlighted by the latest Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter (#88), there’s a great tutorial in the Ubuntu forums for transforming an Ubuntu install into a custom LiveCD/DVD.

This HOWTO is about making a live CD/DVD from the main system on your hard drive. This might be desired if you have customized your system and want to have it on CD. It can be useful also if you want to create a recovery CD from scratch, as you can make a minimal system using debootstrap and transform it into a live CD.

HowtoForge resets the root password of a Linux system with Knoppix.

Ars Technica’s open source journal has news and links to running a modified Xubuntu 7.10 off a USB flash drive on an Eee laptop. The installer still works too, so installing permanently is an option.

HowtoForge has instructions for building a custom LiveCD out of an Ubuntu based system.

This guide shows how you can create a Live-CD from your Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon or Linux Mint 4.0 system with a tool called remastersys. Remastersys is available in the Linux Mint romeo repository. You can customize your Ubuntu/Linux Mint system and then let remastersys create an iso image of it which you can then burn onto a CD/DVD.

Red Hat Magazine has instructions for making a Fedora 8 bootable USB flash drive.

I am writing this article on a Windows laptop borrowed from a friend. But fear not, dear reader, for I have not abandoned my free software principles. For while the hard disk of this laptop contains the Windows operating system, I have used a USB key as the boot device, and the laptop is currently running Fedora 8, codenamed “Werewolf.”

Lifehacker has a great set of instructions for using SystemRescueCD to create, move, and copy partitions on a normal PC.

Linux.com has instructions for backing up partitions using GParted-Clonezilla.

Backing up partitions and hard disks sounds like work — until youve tried Clonezilla. With Clonezilla you can clone and duplicate partitions of various formats and disks of various sizes locally or over the network. Even more impressive is the fact that you can do all this without typing complicated commands. And since Clonezilla is available as part of the GParted-Clonezilla live CD, you dont even have to install it.

Free Software Magazine takes us through the simple process of creating a custom LiveCD with the recently released Fedora 7.

A few weeks ago, I promised to explain how to create your own custom live CD with Fedora’s new tools. Well, last week Fedora 7 was launched and all the tools you need are available in the repositories. This even includes a brand new graphical tool, put together by the people at Fedora Unity, called Revisor, which will allow you to spin your own live CD or installation material in an unbelievably user friendly manner.

HowtoForge walks through recovering data from a RAID 1 setup using Knoppix.

Blogcritics.org goes over repartition a hard drive with the GParted LiveCD.

“Okay, little Percival, let me tell you what partitioning was like in the old days. If you already had information on your hard drive, but wanted to re-partition it, all your data would be erased. There were programs available that would partition your drive without erasing all your stuff, but they cost money.”

Tuxmachines.org has a howto for putting Knoppix on a USB flash drive and making it bootable.

Of course, it can be even more portable when it runs entirely off of an inexpensive USB key. So let’s install it to a 1 GB USB key, and create a persistent home directory in which to store files. Only let’s do it the lazy way, and keep use of the command prompt to a bare minimum.

Debian/Ubuntu Tips & Tricks has step by step instructions for copying an Ubuntu LiveCD to a USB flash drive. In the end you get a bootable flash drive, which can be used for installing Ubuntu on a computer without a CD drive, or getting the LiveCD experience with something you can fit in your pocket.

The Star Online has some instructions for using Darik’s Boot and Nuke to erase hard drives.

Ubuntu Tutorials shows how to save some time getting the daily builds of Ubuntu Feisty.

IBM Developerworks has a great how-to for building your own Fedora LiveCD.

Though Fedora Linux® is a popular and mature Linux distribution, and many people have created Live CD distributions based on Fedora, the Fedora project itself didn’t released its first official Live CD until December 2006. Learn how to build your own custom and easy-to-use Live CDs using a rewrite of Pilgrim, the Fedora Live CD creation tool.

Red Hat Magazine gives instructions to making a LiveCD using Kadischi.

Brad’s Blog has instructions for creating a LiveUSB OS X install.

Lifehacker uses screenshots to show how to crack Windows passwords with a LiveCD.

TablePCReview has success with an Ubuntu LiveCD on an Acer Tablet PC.

Pen Drive Linux has instructions on putting Knoppix 5.1.0 on a USB flash drive.