Remastersys is a tool that can be used to do 2 things with an existing Klikit or Ubuntu or derivative installation.It can make a full system backup including personal data to a live cd or dvd that you can use anywhere and install. It can make a distributable copy you can share with friends. This will not have any of your personal user data in it.
Install Remastersys in Ubuntu
The Remastersys repository needs to be added to your /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list
Paste the following into the sources.list:
# Remastersys
deb
http://www.remastersys.klikit.org/repository remastersys/
Save and exit the file.
Update the source list using the following command
sudo apt-get update
Install remastersys using the following command
sudo apt-get install remastersys
This will complete the installation
Using Remastersys
In order to learn how you can use remastersys, run
sudo remastersys
remastersys Syntax
sudo remastersys backup|clean|dist [cdfs|iso] [filename.iso]
remastersys Examples
1) to make a livecd/dvd backup of your system
sudo remastersys backup
2) to make a livecd/dvd backup and call the iso custom.iso
sudo remastersys backup custom.iso
3) to clean up temporary files of remastersys
sudo remastersys clean
4) to make a distributable livecd/dvd of your system
sudo remastersys dist
5) to make a distributable livecd/dvd filesystem only
sudo remastersys dist cdfs
6) to make a distributable iso named custom.iso but only if the cdfs is already present
sudo remastersys dist iso custom.iso
cdfs and iso options should only be used if you wish to modify something on the cd before the iso is created. An example of this would be to modify the isolinux portion of the livecd/dvd
Creating An ISO Image
To create an iso image of your installation, simply run
sudo remastersys dist
This will create an iso image called customdist.iso in the /home/remastersys directory. The dist option makes that your personal folder (e.g. /home/ruchi) will not be included in the iso image. You might have to insert your Ubuntu installation CD during the process.
This is how the end of the process looks:
[...]
92.16% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:25 2007
93.39% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:25 2007
94.62% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:24 2007
95.85% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:24 2007
97.08% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:25 2007
98.31% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:25 2007
99.54% done, estimate finish Wed DEC 28 15:31:25 2007
Total translation table size: 2048
Total rockridge attributes bytes: 3950
Total directory bytes: 9094
Path table size(bytes): 54
Max brk space used 0
406890 extents written (794 MB)
/home/remastersys/customdist.iso is ready to be burned or tested in a virtual machine.
Check the size and if it is larger than 700MB you will need to burn it to a dvd
796M /home/remastersys/customdist.iso
Clean Up
After you’ve burnt the iso image onto a CD/DVD, you can run
sudo remastersys clean
to remove all temporary file created during the iso generation as well as the /home/remastersys directory.
