Custom Bootable CDs
====================

(1) INTRODUCTION

    ==> build minimal system from scratch
        difficult, many picky details, but learn a lot
    ==> small / in ram (initrd), /usr on cdrom

(2) BUILD THE ROOT DIRECTORY

    copy binaries
    copy libraries
    essential modules
    make /dev
    /etc/mtab
    /sbin/init
    /boot/vmlinuz, stage2_eltorito, grub.conf

    ==> chroot /top/root/dir /bin/bash

(3) MAKE INITRD

    move boot, usr
    dd if=/dev/zero of=initrd bs=1M count=16
    losetup /dev/loop1 initrd
    mke2fs  /dev/loop1
    mount -t ext2 /dev/loop1 /mnt
    tar-copy root into /mnt
    umount /mnt
    losetup -d /dev/loop1
    gzip initrd

(4) MAKE ISO IMAGE

    mkdir cdrom
    move boot, usr into cdrom
    copy initrd.gz
    copy /boot/vmlinuz
    copy stage2_eltorito
    copy grub.conf (menu.lst)

    mkisofs  -r  -c boot.cat  -b boot/stage2_eltorito  \
      -no-emul-boot  -boot-info-table  -o cdrom.iso  cdrom

    cdrecord  dev=ATA:1,0,0  -data  -tao  cdrom.iso    

(5) SEE ALSO

    Boot Disk Howto
    Boot Prompt Howto
    initrd.txt, ramdisk.txt kernel source
    GRUB, ISOLINUX home pages
    Tom's Root Boot Disk
    Busy Box
    Knoppix