HOWTO: LiveCD

Bellow is the documentation for creating a Debian-based LiveCD using the bootcdwrite package from the
Debian developers. This procedure builds a fully functioning LiveCD from an already working/installed
base system, so you will need to have a customized (or not) install of Debian residing on a
Computer/Virtual Machine/Somewhere.

To Install bootcdwrite, type the following as root:

apt-get install bootcd bootcd-mkinitramfs

All of the configuration options for bootcdwrite are located in /etc/bootcd/bootcdwrite.conf
The default bootcdwrite.conf file is pretty well documented, so I will not go into detail. I
will instead write a list of tips to remember when using bootcdwrite:

• The KERNEL line is used to differentiate between distributions that use bzImage and vmlinuz images
  for the kernel and should not be a full link to your linux kernel. e.g. KERNEL=vmlinuz-2.6.18-4-686 is wrong
• I chose to leave NOT_TO_RAM blank (NOT_TO_RAM=''). The defaults exclude all /home/* directories and /root
  this causes major issues with most software pacakges because it will be left on the CD as read-only.

After you have edited the configuration file to suit your needs you might want to make some small
modifications to the system before building, such as:

• Remove the /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistant-net.rules so that the CD can create the correct device\\nodes for your network card. In English…. Remove this or networking breaks!
• Modify /usr/share/bootcd/default.txt to use your own custom greeting when the CD first boots.

Once you believe you are ready to build the CD, become root and type:

bootcdwrite

Say yes at the prompt to clear /var (mostly temp files that break the cd). The build will continue
until it needs to pack the final CD. On some systems it will complain about a file directing it to
somewhere else and ask if you want to (a)bort/(i)gnore/®etry. Choose ignore, it is only a warning
and does not seem to break anything major.
Once the system finishes building the liveCD iso image will be located in /var/spool/bootcd/cdimage.iso.
Burn this to a disk and test on your machine.

Building a custom system is fairly easy, but you may need to perform this procedure many times before you
get a system with no bugs and you are happy with.