How to Remaster your Linux Install

Condobloke

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In what circumstances would you do this?.....which may also explain Why you would do such a thing?

@Lord Boltar will hopefully provide some input here.

All other members are of course encouraged to do likewise.....or you may just like to watch the thread and learn
 


What do you mean with remastered? I have heard of re-mastered games and movies but never an installation being remastered?
 
Lord Bolter mentioned it HERE.....and I am also unaware of its meaning....hence the new thread/topic
 
I believe it's when you take your installed OS and turn it into an installable operating system in .iso format.

That's how I've seen the expression used before.
 
It's available with some distros (antiX and Puppy) and is a @KGIII has stated, an ISO of current setup; like a clone that can either be specific to one's personal machine, or more generic and able to be installed on others; a clone of your machine at a point in time.
 
I think the definition of the word remastering is taking something old and making it better or improving it. So how would this definition apply to an OS? Making an iso of an improved installation or can it be something like where you define your system setup in Ansible and improve it over them and then when you setup your system from scratch again you can do it without putting too much effort into it?
 
It's the choices made by the user with regards to software chosen, config options, hardware specifics, et cetera that makes it 'better' for the individual user.

Puppy is the best example, I have seen. Delete unwanted built-in software, update
  • glibc to 2.17 or higher,
  • GTK+ to 3.14 or higher
  • libstdc++ to 4.8.1 or higher, and
  • X.Org to 1.0 or higher (1.7 or higher is recommended)
  • along with necessary dependencies for all of the above
to make udated Firefox run, add other desired libraries and software, and add other tweaks and it will take some time and effort to get the OS running as desired. Make an ISO and it will negate unnecessary and redundant work to restore the OS when something goes wrong.

It's all about choice. Choose to do it the way YOU want. Be happy!

-- I neither know nor use Ansible ... I see it uses Powershell ... isn't that a M$ thing?
 
It's been an integral part of every Puppy I've ever examined. BarryK conceived of the need for this well over 15 years ago.

It lets you install a Puppy, customize it with any apps/utilities you want, different appearance, etc, then create an ISO image of your Puppy in its current "state-of-play". Plenty of Puppy users want to be able to boot an identical setup on whatever machine they choose to use, without the use of a save-file/folder to hold their customizations.

The one downside of this is with any browser you may include. Browsers, as we all know, very quickly become outdated as online exploits are discovered and made use of by unscrupulous individuals. However, with the range of 'portable' browsers I've developed over the last few years - with the invaluable assistance of many other Puppians - this is easy enough to get round, by running said portable from a suitable flashdrive.

The 'zilla-based ones invariably have their own updater mechanisms included OOTB. My Chrome & Edge for Linux builds have an updater which I've scripted for them, so these can be kept up-to-date when you're notified of the new version.

It's one of those things, re-mastering. It's all a question of personal taste, and what the individual user wants to do with their machines/operating systems.


Mike. ;)
 
-- I neither know nor use Ansible ... I see it uses Powershell ... isn't that a M$ thing?
No Ansible is a configuration tool and it can be used to configure Linux and Windows systems and Networking devices.
 
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What exactly does this have to do with OS remastering?
So how would this definition apply to an OS? Making an iso of an improved installation or can it be something like where you define your system setup in Ansible and improve it over them and then when you setup your system from scratch again you can do it without putting too much effort into it?
-- I neither know nor use Ansible ... I see it uses Powershell ... isn't that a M$ thing?
 
What exactly does this have to do with OS remastering?
Not a thing, directly! But since the question was raised by @f33dm3bits, I just thjought people should be aware of the fact that Ubuntu's Mark Shuttleworth is 'in bed with' Microsoft and, together, PowerShell was created. Good or bad? "You Decide!"

LMAO
 
The use of the term remastered on Linux itself began to be popularized by Klaus Knopper, the creator of the LiveCD-Knoppix Linux Distro, which Knoppix itself is the result of a remaster from Debian.
It can be said that remastering is the process of creating a new operating system with a different application package from the original default system. Remastering allows us to add or reduce application packages in existing operating systems with new application packages. Which is what my Expirion Linux is - a remastered Debian built with Refracta
Some tools for remastering
1) Linux Live Kit - https://www.linux-live.org/
2) MX-Linux Tools - https://github.com/MX-Linux/mx-tools
3) Refracta - https://sourceforge.net/projects/refracta/files/tools/
4) Remastersys - https://github.com/Nerun/remastersys
5) The Debian Live project maintains the components to build Debian based Live systems and the official Debian Live images themselves. live-build contains the components to build a live system from a configuration directory. https://wiki.debian.org/DebianLive

Older no longer supported tool -
PinguyBuilder - https://sourceforge.net/projects/pinguy-os/files/ISO_Builder/
 
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Powershell is a Micosoft thing, Ansible isn't but you can use a powershell module with Ansible.
I didn't see that part of Ansible is powershell, but it probably has to do with this.
Managed nodes, if they are Unix-like, must have Python 2.4 or later. For managed nodes with Python 2.5 or earlier, the python-simplejson package is also required.[36] Since version 1.7, Ansible can also manage Windows[37] nodes.[36] In this case, native PowerShell remoting supported by the WS-Management protocol is used instead of SSH.
So that Ansible can deal with Windows when being used to configure Windows systems.
 
@Lord Boltar, thank you for that concise reply.

That directly addresses my question.
 

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