Howto's, Advice, Hints/Gotchas about livecd creation in FreeBSD

Fri Jul 29 01:23:36 UTC 2011

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org [mailto:owner-freebsd-
> questions at freebsd.org] On Behalf Of Antonio Olivares
> Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2011 5:02 PM
> To: FreeBSD Questions
> Subject: Howto's, Advice, Hints/Gotchas about livecd creation in FreeBSD
> 
> Dear folks,
> 
> I would like to kindly ask you as the Subject Line tells it all.  I believe I
have done
> my homework, and I have tried out some competing LiveCDs from *BSD like
> Bsdanywhere, jibbed(NetBSD), jggimi(OpenBSD), had used RoFreeSBIE(FreeBSD
> based but unmaintained), Frenzy, Mahesha, old FreeSBIE 2.0.1, ..., etc

Though still in its infancy, my project brings some features that no others
have:

http://druidbsd.sourceforge.net/

I've not seen any other project utilize ISOLINUX as the boot-loader. Doing so
has freed me from many restrictions. For example, my one single ISO can be
written to either CD/DVD or USB or Hard Disk or SSD (without modification).

Naturally, I'm not going to document how to burn an ISO (that should be pretty
straight forward), but here's a link on how to write the ISO to either USB thumb
drive (process is similar for HDD/SSD, just skip steps 2 and 3 because you
presumably already know the device name associated with your target disk):

1. Visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/druidbsd/files/Druid-0.0.iso/download
and download "Druid-0.0.iso" to a local directory.

2. Insert USB thumb drive

3. Execute: camcontrol devlist

NOTE: find the `daN' device associated with your thumb drive

4. Execute: dd if=Druid-0.0.iso of=/dev/da5

NOTE: assuming `da5' is your thumb drive

--- At this point, your thumb drive is ready to rock and roll --

However, continue with the remaining below steps to create a 2nd [visible]
partition beyond the primary [invisible] bootable partition (allowing you to use
the remainder of your thumb drive for usable storage)...

5. Execute: echo "p 2 0x0c * *" | fdisk -f - /dev/da5

NOTE: again, assuming `da5' is your thumb drive

6. Execute: newfs_msdos /dev/da5s2

NOTE: again, assuming `da5' is your thumb drive

NOTE: You'll get a "class not found" response. Just ignore this. It's completely
spurious.

That's it. You now have a thumb drive with:

a. An invisible boot partition for booting into Druid (a disc full of tools)
b. A visible partition for storage, usable under Mac, Windows, Linux, and UNIX.

NOTE/RECAP: Don't be fooled into thinking that this will work with just any-ol'
ISO file. This works because (a) I am using the ISOLINUX boot-loader to
chain-load to the FreeBSD mfsroot and (b) I've post-processed my ISO file
(generated with mkisofs) with the ISOLINUX-isohybrid utility.

Other advantages include the fact that the smallest possible ISO is 28MB, but
can be grown to any size you want (my mfsroot remounts the CD-ROM through
/dev/iso9660 GEOM structure).
-- 
Devin

> I see some pages like mfsroot, and it is small custom made for ZFS and other
> goodies :), I am not there yet :(, I see there are custom scripts/SDK for
livecd
> building:
> 
> http://wiki.freebsd.org/AvgLiveCD
> 
> http://livecd.sourceforge.net/
> 
> other pages and Frenzy Page:
> 
> http://frenzy.org.ua/en/
> 
> I got standard cd based on 8.1 Release i386 and I like it, but it got too big
:(
> 
> What I am looking at.  I would like to create a small ~200MB cd like old
Frenzy with
> firefox and few apps to be able to copy2ram and take a FreeBSD system
> anywhere(like I do with some linux livecds like Slax, Porteus, PartedMagic,
> SystemRescueCD, Gparted, Clonezilla, etc).  It would be nice to let people
know
> that there is not just linux, I showed some students where I work that there
are
> other OSes beside windows :)
> 
> Also, I would like to create a bigCD/LiveDVD with many things(not the kitchen
> sink), with several apps I use for work, i.e, TeX/Latex (can be TexLive2011 or
> teTeX from ports), maxima, gnuplot(dep for maxima), ghostscript, ImageMagick,
> pdf utilities, compiler in case some apps are needed, gkrellm/conky, like
XFCE,
> but can use FluxBox, Blackbox, other small Desktops or not use X if
> recommended.  CD/DVD should have firefox, pf/ipfw firewall generic
> configuration, LibreOffice/(abiword & gnumeric)/, mplayer & mencoder, ffmpeg,
> vorbis-tools, lame, cdrecord/dvd+rw-tools/cdrdao, ..., etc.  This like
RoFreeSBIE
> had, but it died out unfortunately.  KDE is heavier desktop[PC-BSD has this],
> Gnome too[There's GhostBSD].  If I can clone my current installation, I would
be
> very happy and take my desktop everywhere I can boot it.
> If it is possible to put it on USB that would be also a great plus.
> 
> My friends advice me to follow the advice given in
> 
> http://wiki.freebsd.org/AvgLiveCD
> 
> and get my feet wet.  But I am not sure how to begin :(
> 
> Thank you all for your generous advice/suggestions/comments.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Antonio
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