bhtooefr's Journal: Roll-your-own Live CDs?

I'm considering rolling my own Linux live CD. I have certain needs that no live CD that I know of will meet, and I need to know where to start. I'd prefer an RPM-based Live CD, but it isn't absolutely necessary. Since there's only one model of system I need to use it on, I can go light on drivers, which is good, as I only have 128MB RAM to play with. I need OpenOffice, in case that helps with a distro choice. I'm thinking IceWM for the WM (simple, fast, KDE-like, close enough to the Win9x GUI for n00bs, etc.) I will have users that have ZERO Linux experience, and little Windows experience (tying their hands behind their backs and disconnecting all input devices until they quit using IE wouldn't work - they'd keep using it, and where the CD would be used, the boxes have almost NO patches, and are FULL to the brim with spyware).

What distribution should I use as a basis for my live CD?

Knoppix / Morphix

[SeanDuggan]

If you just need a CD which runs right off, consider getting Knoppix [knoppix.com]. It's possible to modify it, although I've never personally tried to do so. Some people swear by Morphix [morphix.org] which apparently has a more automated process for customizing CDs.

Re:Knoppix / Morphix

[bhtooefr]

Here's what I think I need (so far):

IceWM
OpenOffice
AbiWord (for when someone doesn't want to wait on OO)
Gnumeric (see AbiWord)
Firefox
Opera (yes, two browsers - I've already converted 5 or 10 of the 38 students to it)
Some games (offline and on - no gore, though, or I'd have to remaster the CD again)
CUPS with hpijs (the HP 960c printers suck, but they're all that's there... I'm going to pitch for color lasers, though)
smbclient (for print sharing)
Either ghostview, xpdf, or acroread
Support for backing up to fl

Re:Knoppix / Morphix

[Whyrph]

I suggest Morphix . .you can do pretty much anything with it. It's designed for exactly this sort of thing.

Re:Knoppix / Morphix

[bhtooefr]

Of course, how hard would it be to retrofit the features that MandrakeMove DE is missing into it? It doesn't support USB drives nearly as well as MMBE, and a few of their package selections (for both, actually), well, suck (Konqueror as default browser?!?!? Then again, Mandrake uses it as default in their traditional distro).

I know about Morphix, but I'm not overly comfortable with a Debian-derived distro - I've had a pretty bad experience with Debian Woody (X didn't work at all, and LILO didn't work at al

Customising Knoppix

[linuxci]

The UKUUG 2004 Linux Conference [ukuug.org] had a workshop about building a live CD based on Knoppix. I was at the conference but weren't at the workshop. However, it looks to be productive and some scripts are in the process of being developed [ukuug.org] which should make it easier for people to remaster knoppix.

suggestion

[swordsaintzero]

May I suggest the gentoo live cd. The gentoo forums contain many informative long threads about doing exactly what you are asking about.