[Leaplist] small text-only live cd?

[Phil Barnett]

On Wednesday 16 May 2007 10:53, jms1 at jms1.net wrote:
> howdy-
>
> i have a client with a bunch of bleeding-edge machines, which were shipped
> to him with "vista" pre-loaded. obviously step one was to wipe the hard
> drives, but the only linux distro we can get to install on the thing is
> mandriva.
>
> now i'm looking for a way to automate the process of installing the OS and
> pre-configuring a bunch of packages, not all of which are part of mandriva
> itself. this includes a custom kernel (which i've already built and
> tested.)
>
> the idea in my mind is a CD or USB stick which boots into some kind of
> "live cd" environment, where i can put my own scripts on the machine and
> just tell the people who will be installing these units to "boot the CD
> and type this command", and it does the rest (starting with partitioning
> the drives and so forth.)
>
> i spent most of yesterday with google, looking at several "live CD"
> distros, a few of which i really like (i.e. the newest DSL kicks arse.)
> however, because the hardware involved is so new, the only one which
> actually boots on these machines is "mcnlive", where somebody converted
> mandriva 2007 free into a live cd image. problem is, it's almost 400MB.
>
> what i'm really looking for is a "live cd" without any kind of graphical
> desktop, with a fairly simple way to re-master it with my own scripts, AND
> with the ability to use my own custom kernel (because of the hardware.)
>
> is there a web page out there which explains how to build a very minimal
> "live" environment like this?
>
> of course, if it ends up being "not entirely trivial", i'll write a web
> page about it, which will explain it easily enough for others to follow in
> my footsteps...

You can mount any iso like a file system and add whatever you like. So, you 
can add a user, things on the desktop of that user, etc. If it takes up a 
whole CD, so what?

-- 
Phil Barnett
AI4OF
SKCC #600