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Linux Live Kit Improved.

This set of scripts will help you to build your own Live Kit distro. This project is based on the original Linux Live Kit. http://linux-live.org

You will need to have the following installed:

  • squashfs-tools
  • genisoimage and/or mkisofs (optional)
  • zip

Before you build:

  • Store Linux Live Kit in a directory which is not going to be included in your live distro, else it would be copied to it. The best practice is to make a directory such as for example: '/tmp/a', and put all the files there.

NOTE:

Make sure to extract and use it on a POSIX-compatible filesystem (for ex: EXT4), since it will create symlinks and such that might not be compatible in for example: FAT and such other filesystems.

  • Before you start building your Live Kit, please consider editing the ./.config file, and tweak it to suit your needs. Most importantly, change the LIVEKITNAME variable.

  • Make sure you are pointing to the right kernel. If in doubt, change the path in ./.config. Your kernel must support both SquashFS and AUFS, or else you will get an error both while building, and when you actually boot your Live Kit.

PROTIP:

  • On most Linux distro-s, the kernel is in /vmlinuz, a symlink to /boot/vmlinuz-* or even /boot/vmlinux-*

  • Debian Jessie's kernel supports both AUFS and SquashFS out-of-the-box. It's recommended to use Debian Jessie as the base OS, but the choice is yours.

  • It's recommended to replace boot background in bootfiles/bootpic.png and edit syslinux.cfg to fit your needs.

NOTE:

When editing the configuration file, make sure to keep all paths pointing to /boot/, since it will be replaced to /LIVEKITNAME/boot/ during the build session.

  • Linux Live Kit comes with precompiled static binaries in ./initramfs directory. Those may be outdated but will work. You may replace them by your own statically linked binaries, if you know how to compile them.

  • If you want to boot your Live Kit from a CD, you'll need to recompile syslinux.bin and/or isolinux.bin else it won't be able to boot your Live Kit from directory "/LIVEKITNAME".

    There is a script prepared for you which will do all of the building. Simply go to directory ./tools/ and run isolinux.bin-update, it will rebuild isolinux.bin automatically by downloading SysLinux sources, patching them using your actual LIVEKITNAME and recompiling. This step is not needed if you only need the ZIP archive version.

  • If you have tmpfs mounted on /tmp, make sure you have enough (or maybe even a lot of) RAM, since Live Kit will store lots of data to the target. If you don't have enough (or even went out of) RAM, make sure that /tmp is a regular on-disk directory.

  • If you want to include your own bundules, then the 'include_bund/' directory might come in handy! Just make sure that the file extension will match with your chosen .BEXT extension.

When you're ready, run the ./build script to build your Live Kit Distro. The script will:

  • Build both ISO and ZIP files for you in /tmp
  • Do all the hard work for you.
  • Will automatically check for errors.
  • Will warn you if you don't have the correct packages.