RHEL6 beta LiveCD
Posted by Patrice Guay in 
In April 2010, the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Beta distribution was made available. This new distribution from Red Hat is a good indication of what should be available in the upcoming CentOS 6 distribution. Since then, I have been working on a LiveCD for this distribution. As usual, the code required to reproduce my results are available from within the CentOS LiveCD project webpage.
Screenshots
Here are two pictures taken during the boot process of this LiveCD. Syslinux is still used to mimic a GRUB interface at boot time. Several options are given including a graphical installation through anaconda. The default boot option will take you to the Gnome Display Manager where the an automatic login has been configured.
The Gnome desktop interface is shown in the pictures below. Gnome has been updated to version 2.28 and Firefox 3.6 is now included. Red Hat has kept a similar menu item organization compared to the previous distribution release while the newer version of Gnome provides updated tools and functionalities.
A graphical installation program is available directly from the LiveCD desktop. The different steps involved in the installation process are shown below. This installation mechanism is similar to the one available from the LiveCD boot menu. The main difference between this installer and the standard one available from the regular installation media is the lack of a package selection option. The installation mechanism of the LiveCD will copy the content of the LiveCD directly to the selected storage device. The resulting installation will therefore only include the software already available from the LiveCD.
Conclusion
The LiveCD creation process for the upcoming CentOS 6 distribution is working great. Additional features like the long awaited installer should be available.
CentOS LiveCD 5.5
At the end of March 2010, Red Hat released RHEL 5.5. Since then, I’ve been working actively on the creation of the upcoming CentOS LiveCD 5.5. The most notable changes in this release are:
- Persistence feature: with livecd-tools 014-7 and later, it is possible to create a LiveUSB media featuring a persistent overlay
- OpenOffice.org 3.1.1: support for files created with Microsoft Office 2007 or Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac OS X (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx, etc)
- Improved wireless network adapter drivers: better support for Intel Wireless devices
- ext4 support: ext4 partitions of your system should now be detected automatically by the LiveCD
A size constraint of 700MB has been respected for both i386 and x86_64 iso images. Users who want to burn the LiveCD iso images to regular CD medias will be able to do so.
However, transferring the LiveCD iso image to a USB key is the preferred method. Boot time is significantly reduced on a USB key. Moreover, the persistence feature is only available for LiveUSB medias.
Customization
As usual, the CentOS LiveCD 5.5 can be customized in order to support additional features:
- NTFS support
- Additional packages
- Additional services (httpd, mysql, bind, etc.)
- Custom configurations
- Localization
- etc.
Contact
Patrice Guay, IT systems engineer
info@patriceguay.com
CentOS LiveCD customization
The CentOS LiveCD can be customized for your particular needs. Here is a short list of available customizations:
- A demonstration of your latest application;
- A deployment of a proprietary or OpenSource solution;
- A rescue tool for your infrastructure;
- A provisioning tools for your infrastructure;
- etc.
The latest release of the CentOS livecd-tools makes it possible to create a LiveUSB media featuring a persistent overlay. An overlay of a fixed size is appended to the standard filesystem. This overlay is a dynamically growing set of blocks that have been modified on the original LiveCD root filesystem. It is used to store data and configuration changes. Your LiveUSB media will be able to retain configuration changes even after rebooting your server.
Getting help for your LiveCD customization project
The LiveCD creation process requires a kickstart configuration file. The format of this file is the same as the one used for automated installations. The kickstart file includes some basic system configuration items, the yum repositories, the package manifest and scripts to be run at the end of the build process. I produced detailed documentation about the CentOS LiveCD kickstart configuration file.
If you need help to customize your own CentOS-based LiveCD, I can provide you with expert consulting services:
- Configuring the LiveCD building host
- Creating local YUM repositories to speed up the LiveCD creation process
- Building RPM packages for your custom application
- Adding scripts to the kickstart file in order to configure your services
Contact
Patrice Guay, IT systems engineer
info@patriceguay.com
CentOS LiveCD
Presentation
A LiveCD is a complete, bootable and operational operating system on a distributable medium. The distribution medium can be various storage media like a CD, a DVD or a USB key. The LiveCD name is a relic of the time when CD was the only available media. LiveCD have the ability to run a complete operating system without the need for a permanent storage like a hard disk drive. Therefore, a LiveCD can be used to test hardware compatibility, recover data or test an operating system without interfering with the already installed operating system.
CentOS LiveCD
The CentOS LiveCD, based on CentOS 5, is available on both i386 and x86_64 architectures from the official mirror page. The tools from the Fedora livecd-tools project were used to create the latest CentOS LiveCD image. This toolset offers numerous advantages:
- all directories are writable
- a simpler LiveCD creation process
- easily transfer the LiveCD image to a USB drive
Development
The CentOS LiveCD project is where the development of the CentOS LiveCD takes place. Various topics are covered:
- Getting the LiveCD creation toolset
- Creating a LiveCD image
- Transfering a LiveCD image to a Flash drive
- Using the persistence feature to preserve modifications
- Boot a LiveCD image through PXE
- Customizing your own LiveCD
GPG
Patrice Guay public GnuPG key :
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