Revision of Customizing a Trisquel iso from Fri, 01/22/2010 - 23:39

To customize a Trisquel iso image, you first need to download it and put it in an empty directory. Open a terminal and go to that directory, then follow this steps.

Unpacking

• Become root. All commands below will be run as root.

sudo su

• Create an empty directory and mount the iso on it, then extract the contents:

mkdir tmp
mount -o loop trisquel-original.iso mnt
cp tmp -a src
umount tmp

• Extract the squashed image files:

mount src/casper/fylesystem.squashfs -o loop tmp
cp tmp -a jail
umount tmp

The preseed file

Trisquel comes with a preseed file which allows to preload values into the debconf database. You can find the file at src/preseed/trisquel.seed. The file contains commented examples on the changes it can do, like changing the default locale, setting an static network configuration, or automagically install an extra set of packages before the live-to disk install process -you need internet acces during the install to do so-.

If you can achieve all the customization by changing this file, you can omit the next step.

Making changes

Now you have the Trisquel system files in the jail directory, and you can start to apply changes. To install or remove packages, you need to enter the jail using chroot:

cp /etc/resolv.conf jail/etc
chroot jail
mount none /proc -t proc
apt-get update
apt-get install package
echo "" > /etc/resolv.conf
umount /proc
exit

If you replaced the kernel or the boot scripts, copy the new kernel binary and initrd image as needed:

cp jail/boot/vmlinuz-custom src/isolinux/vmlinuz
cp jail/boot/initrd.img-custom src/isolinux/initrd

Repacking

After your modifications are done, you will need to rebuild the squashfs and iso images. First you might have to install a package:

apt-get install squashfs-tools

• Now you will compress the jail into the squashfs file, overwritting the original one:

mksquashfs jail src/casper/filesystem.squashfs -nolzma

• Finally, you will need to create a new iso image:

mkisofs -D -r -V "My Trisquel modified version" -cache-inodes \
-J -l -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot \
-boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o trisquel-modified.iso src

Please make clear to anyone you distribute your version that it is not a Trisquel official iso image. If you include non-free stuff on it, please rename your project and do not use our logotype.