How to create your own custom Linux distribution step by step

Logos distributions and LinuxAdictos

In this blog, analyzes have been made of the best distributions of the year, they have even been cataloged according to your interests, but now we are going to go a step further and we are going to present this mega tutorial that explains step by step how to customize a Linux distribution to create "our" particular distro. If we follow the steps, even the less experienced will be able to modify a distro to their liking.

Customizing a distribution not only serves to have a distribution that is different from the rest and genuine, but also to make life easier. For example, when we format our computer (or if we have to install operating systems and software on several computers), we must install the distro and then install all the necessary software or programs one by one. If we had them all together, this would not be necessary, so it would be much easier. Even we can have a LiveCD with the tools we need for our work ...

Existing tools:

Novo Builder interface

There are many tools available, from some very automated based on scripts that allow you to do the work in a simple way, to others using the terminal and making the distro practically from scratch. The most striking that I have come across are:

UCK (Ubuntu Customized Kit):

UCK is perhaps one of the best known. This program with a graphical interface allows you to use a series of scripts that allow you to customize an Ubuntu ISO and derivatives to create your custom distribution. You can choose the desktop environment, install or uninstall some packages, etc.

Remastersys:

Remastersys is another very good tool to create custom layouts. It allows it to be installed on a computer and create a copy of the installed computer to later have a personalized backup, without having to reinstall everything from scratch or have the distro with the default packages that they bring.

Rebuilder:

Reconstructors is an interesting tool that allows us to create a Live from Debian or Ubuntu. With Reconstructor you can customize the distro and even install new packages from a base Debian or Ubuntu system (also derivatives).

Reviewer:

Reviewer is another utility to create a custom distro. It has a simple graphical interface that allows us to customize our distro in a similar way to Recosntructor. Then it allows to create an ISO image with the result for CD, DVD or USB. The image can be used as Live or installed. The limitation of Revisor is that it customizes Fedora distributions.

SuSE Studio:

SuSE Studio is a website that allows you to create your own personalized operating system from the logo, and wallpaper, configuration, to installing packages from repositories and even choosing the desktop environment that the distro will have. You only need access the web and create an account from your Google account, for example, to start the construction menu. As you can deduce, the distro will be based on openSUSE.

Installinux.com

Instalinux.com is an online service which can help us to create a base disk for maintenance or have a not too heavy distro. It is very rudimentary and do not expect great things, but it is certainly another alternative that deserves to be mentioned.

Pungy:

Pungi is a software to create Fedora spins, that is, customize a distro from a Fedora base.

Builder:

Builder allows you to create a distribution from gNewSense (Debian and Ubuntu base). In this case the procedure is more rudimentary and without having a graphical interface, working from the console and editing files.

LinuxLive:

Linux Live is a utility, also known as LiLi, and open source, although compatible in this case with Microsoft Windows. With it we can create a portable, bootable and virtualizable distro on a USB device.

Systemback:

Systemback is the application chosen for our tutorial, so it will be the one we pay the most attention to. This does not mean that you do not use the rest, you can use whatever you want according to your interests. It is simple and with a graphical interface, but it allows us to create .sblive and .ISO files to be able to have a Live of our distro from the operating system that we have installed on our machine (or virtual machine). It also allows you to create restore points, restore the system, make new installations, etc.

Hook:

Hook is another tool that promises to create your Linux distribution in just 10 minutes. From the project website you can find PDFs detailing the procedure and download the package to install it. We can use Hook to create a custom distribution, generate a copy of / home, generate a copy of the system, and make an ISO in our language ...

Debian Live Magic:

Debian Live Magic is one more, another GUI tool for building your own Debian Live. Simple to use, although it allows little customization, in addition to limiting you to Debian. Among the possibilities, select the GNOME, KDE or Xfce desktop environment or opt for a rescue image, select the Boot Loader, packages, etc.

UbuntuBuilder:

From an ISO you can customize Ubuntu and create another new custom ISO with Ubuntu Builder. In a graphical and simple way, you can edit source.list, install new packages and other configurations guided by the wizard.

Linux:

ReLinux allows you to create a new ISO from one of Ubuntu that we can modify during the process. Although it is a good tool, it may not be the best for beginners because you have to work from the terminal.

New Builder:

Novo Builder has an intuitive graphical interface and with options similar to the tools seen above. From an image of Ubuntu, Mint, LastOS, and other derivatives, we can customize repositories, desktop environment among the options it gives us, install packages, generate an ISO burn, normal ISO, etc.

Distroshare Ubuntu Imager:

Distro share Ubuntu Imager allows creating an installable Live thanks to this script that we can run from the terminal to automate the customization and creation process. As its name indicates, it allows creating a distro based on Ubuntu thanks to a commented .conf file, we can customize the values ​​until we leave the distro to our liking and then execute the .sh to generate the ISO.

U Customizer:

U-Customizer can customize Ubuntu distributions to your liking, it is a powerful and effective tool. The tool proposes to start from Ubuntu Mini Remix, a reduced version of Ubuntu that has everything necessary to function but no additions, and from here to build our ISO.

Answer:

Remastersys is a discontinued project, although it is still widely used. Respin proposes to be your substituteIt is a fork of the previous project that has been improved and continues to be maintained, although it is practically the same.

Linux From Scratch (LFS):

Linux From Scratch or LFS It is the most complex method but also the most customizable and powerful of all, since you can create the distro practically from scratch. It is not a software, but guides that explain step by step how to build your own Linux distribution. If you search the net, you will find this type of updated PDF guides in English or some older versions in Spanish. I recommend it, you will learn a lot.

Necessary material:

Ikea instructions Tux cut out

Now you know the advantages of being able to create your own Linux distro and also all the tools and alternatives available for it. The next step is to present you the material that we are going to use for this tutorial. To create our LiveCD, LiveDVD or LiveUSB, we need a series of things that we list below:

  • Computer with Windows, Mac OX X or GNUX / Linux installed. In my case I have Ubuntu, so I will do it from Ubuntu.
  • Virtualization software. It can be VMWare Workstation or VirtualBox, both are available for Linux. I have chosen VirtualBox. Another option is to use the own distribution that we use in our team as a base or even an ISO of the distribution that we want to customize in case of choosing other software that works from images of those seen previously.
  • ISO of some distribution Linux that we will use as a base. In my case I have chosen elementaryOS Freya.
  • Software packages that we want to install. For example, in our case we are going to install GIMP, Calligra Suite, Oracle Java JRE, Master PDF Editor and Synaptic. In these cases it is not interesting to install drivers, since being a Live or later wanting to install it on another computer, there may be conflicts.
  • Un wallpaper that we like to change it and create a more personalized environment.
  • Imagination to baptize our new system. We will call it LxAOS.
  • Systemback to create our ISO or .sblive live.

Installing the virtualization software and installing the virtual machine:

Now let's get down to business and explain how to create our Live step by step. We will do it in the simplest way and with screenshots at all times to guide you so that you do not miss anything, you will see that it is not complicated at all.

  • We prepare our machine with virtualization software. I have chosen VirtualBox to virtualize our system from which we will then generate the Live ISO. With VirtualBox we will be able to run another guest operating system (in our case elementaryOS) from our host machine (Ubuntu). The first step is to go to the VirtualBox download website. From there we download the binary corresponding to our operating system (remember that if you have another OS, you must choose the appropriate package, or if you have opted for VMWare or another option, the same ...). It's about 60MB and a DEB package that we'll have to install later.

VirtualBox web downloads

  • To install the .deb, we can double-click and it will open the Ubuntu Software Center to be able to install it with a simple click on the Install button. Another option is to open it with the GDebi manager to install it automatically. But if you want to type, you can do it from the terminal. Imagine that we have it in the Downloads directory, then to install:
cd Descargas

dpkg -i virtualbox-5.0_5.0.14.deb

  • Once we have it installed, we will download the image of our operating system base. The distro chosen in this case is elementaryOS. You can download it from the official website of the project and make a donation or from another web as SurceForge. The ISO are just under 900MB. It goes without saying that you can choose Ubuntu, Mint, Arch, openSUSE or whatever distro you prefer… This is only indicative.

ElementaryOS download website

  • Now we have the ISO of our distro and the virtualization software. The next is install the distro in a virtual machine. To do this we open VirtualBox (or the software you have chosen) and click on the New button to create a new machine. A window will appear asking us for the name of our system. We can choose the one we want, elementaryOS or directly give it the name as we are going to baptize it. We will choose LxAOS. In Type we select Linux and in Version we opted for Ubuntu (64-bit), since elementaryOS is based on Ubuntu and in my case I downloaded the 64-bit version.

VirtualBox configuration

  • If we click Next, it asks us the amount of RAM that we will dedicate to our virtual machine. In my case I have chosen 2GB, since I have verified that with less quantity the machine does not work properly. And if we click on Next we can Create a disk now to be able to install the system there. Then we select VDI VirtualBox Disk Image, for example. The next screen asks us if we want a fixed space to be reserved, and therefore invariable, or a dynamic space so that it can change if more space is needed. You can select what you want, I have opted for a fixed size since I will not use the virtual machine too much other than to create the Live one and then I will delete it. The chosen size is 15GB, if you want you can select more.

LxAOS MV

  • If we click on Start, it will ask us to select the operating system to boot, in our case we select the ISO that we have downloaded of elementaryOS, from the directory where we have it. But first I would like to point out one thing. We must configure (Configuration) the virtual machine, although by default it may already be configured properly. It is necessary that the host or host computer (Ubuntu in my case) has an Internet connection, and that the virtualized guest or guest system also has it to download the packages and make the appropriate installations. For this we go to Configuration of our VM (Virtual Machine) and then to the Network section. We must have at least one Adapter. We enable Adapter 1 if it is not and then configure the type of connection we want. There are some interesting options like NAT and Bridget (bridge adapter) that are perhaps the ones we use the most. Both would work for us, but we are going to opt for NAT. NAT refers to a direct access between virtual machines and Bridged is for a virtual machine and physical machine connection. Remember that for our elementaryOS to have an Internet connection, you must then select "Wired Connection" in the networks section of the distro desktop, since by default it is on WiFi and therefore it does not detect any network in this mode ...

VM network configuration

  • Now we start our machine and the first thing we will see will be a black screen, some text messages and the elementaryOS logo. After a while, we the distro installation menu will appear. Remember that if you click on the virtual machine screen, the cursor will be "embedded" in it, to release it, you can press Ctrl + Alt.

elementaryOS logo

  • The elementaryOS Installer appears that the first thing it asks for is the language and gives us the option to test in live mode (LIVE) or Install, we of course choose this second one. It then shows us a series of requirements to be able to install elementaryOS properly: we are connected to the Internet and we have enough hard disk space to install. We can select the option to Download updates while installing and Install third-party software, which I recommend choosing. We continue ...
  • Erase disk and install elementary is the default option and the one we must choose. Then click on Install Now. It offers some very interesting options, but since we want to create a MV to customize it, we ignore them. These options are LVM to manage the hard drives, More partitioning options and Encrypt to encrypt the content ... But we leave them unselected.

Installation and Language

  • Easy? Well we continue selecting our time zone.

Time zone

  • Continue and we select language and layout or keyboard layout. In our case Spanish.

Keyboard language

  • We put our name and the team and user names are generated, although if we want we can change it. We also enter a password and confirm it. This will be root. We can also choose whether to start automatically or ask for the password to log in and if we want to encrypt our personal directory. In our case we will put an automatic session and not encrypt. Continue.

User and session

  • Now comes the most boring part, although the you can take advantage to do other things while… It is time to wait for the necessary files to be copied and everything required to be installed.

ElementaryOS installation

  • After waiting, it is necessary to restart and if everything went well, what we will see is the brand new desktop environment Pantheon from elementaryOS.

elementaryOS with Pantheon desk

We continue with our second part of the tutorial. In the first part we already explained how to prepare the virtualization software and how to install our Linux distribution in the virtual machine, in addition to giving a review of the software and alternatives to customize our Linux distribution that are currently offered to us. Now we are going to start with the customization as such and finish creating the ISO of our Live or live system that we can test without installing.

For this tutorial, all you need is systemback software, or the one that we have chosen from those that we presented in the previous article and the packages that we want to install in our distro to customize it. Also, if you want to change any settings, wallpaper, etc., now will also be the time to do it. What we will do is leave the system as we want it in Live and then with systemback, we will create a copy of our system installed in the VM and pass them to a .sblive and then transform it into an ISO image.

Customize the distro:

We have divided this section into two parts, a first in which we will basically dedicate ourselves to install and uninstall packages to vary the default composition of the distro. You can choose to remove or add the programs you want, this is very personal and obviously according to your needs they will be one and the other. We have chosen to install Synaptic, Calligra Suite, GIMP, Java JRE and Master PDF Editor, and we will remove LibreOffice that we will no longer need because of Calligra.

The second section is intended to vary the configuration of our distro and to change the appearance by modifying the screen settings and putting a new different wallpaper. The changes can be much more profound and as in the first part, it all depends on your interests, this is only to exemplify.

Install / Uninstall the necessary software

  • We start by installing Synaptic, since this software will help us to install other programs more easily. To do this, once our virtual machine has started with elementaryOS and we are on the desktop, we can open the terminal and write the following:

Synaptic terminal installation

  • Now we can open synaptic (It will ask us for the password because it needs privileges) and use it to install or uninstall software in a more graphical and simple way, although we can continue installing from the terminal without problems ...

Open Synaptic

  • We can start looking Java JRE with Synaptic Finder and search among the packages that it finds the appropriate one. In my case, instead of opting for the Oracle package, we are going to support free software and we opted for OPenJDK 7 JRE that we select to install and we will see how when we click Apply to install, OPenJDK 7 JRE Headless is also self-selected, since it is necessary, don't worry about dependencies, Synaptic will solve them for you.

Search Java JRE in Synaptic

  • Let's go for Calligra, we search in Synaptic and install ...

Calligra search in Synaptic

  • The next step in our case is install GIMP and we do the same as with Calligra ...

GIMP

  • We now install Master PDF Editor. You may have noticed that the search in Synaptic does not find anything, well, we will use this to use another installation method and thus practice alternatives. To continue we go to the Midori browser that comes in the distro and that we can find in the Dock, then we look for «Master PDF Editor» and we enter the official Code-Industry website, which as we see is a paid software, well ... We click Download to download the latest version for Linux and it allows us to download the 32-bit or 64-bit version. We selected the latter, since if you remember we lowered elementaryOS from 64. It also allows you to download binaries .deb, .rpm and a tarball. For more convenience we are going to download the .deb (although we also have the option of, for example, opening it with the Software Center):
cd Descargas

sudo dkpg -i master-pdf-editor-3.5.81_amd64.deb

Master PDF Editor

  • For uninstall LibreOffice, we are going to use our dear terminal again, in which we will type:
sudo apt-get remove --purge libreoffice*

sudo apt-get clean

sudo apt-get autoremove

Configuration and appearance

LxA Fund

Now let's make some settings Simple to see some examples that what we change will remain in Live. The configuration will be very simple in our case:

  1. Let remove all the icons that come by default in the dock clicking on them with the right mouse button and deselecting "Keep in the dock". We leave only Midori, Calendar, System Settings, and add Files and Terminal. To add, just go to Applications, find and open what you want and once its icon appears in the dock, click with the right mouse button and select "Keep in the dock".
  2. Then we go to System Configuration and then to Desktop, from where we can choose wallpaper Custom in the Wallpaper tab. If it is a personalized image, we go to the back "Wallpapers" to select the Custom option and the file manager opens so that we can find where we have our image. We select and ready.

Finish our work:

To finish our work, we have already left the distro as we want it, configured and with the necessary packages. Now we just need to generate our ISO Live thanks to the program systemback that we will also install in this part:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nemh/systemback

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install systemback

When you open it, it will ask you for the password, since need privileges...

Create the .sblive

In the main systemback screen we must select the Create Live system option:

system back

In the next screen we must select a name, in our case LxAOS and click on Create new:

Systemback second screen

Now we wait for the process to finish. It will take a while, depending on the size of the image. The process will be completed in three steps and once it is finished, we can move on to the next step, since the Live image will have been generated LxAOS.sblive and that it would help us in case we want to install it on a USB pendrive. But if we want the ISO, we have to continue with the tutorial ...

Creating Live

Convert to ISO

Now, we return to the main systemback screen and we will be allowed transform the .sblive into ISO clicking on the Convert to ISO button selecting our LxAOS in the box above and waiting:

Convert sblive to iso

Please comment, give your opinions, ask if you have doubts or provide improvements or corrections. You'll be welcome. In the next part, we will continue with the customization of the virtual machine and we will make the ISO of our Live ...


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  1.   Paco said

    I'm definitely going to try it.
    Thanks for the job

    1.    miguelgaton said

      Totally agree with Paco. A great tutorial Isaac !!!

      Regards,

    2.    Jose Luis Meza Parral said

      Your post was very useful and one of the best I have seen for those of us who do not have much experience in linux. If someone gets complicated, I put a form a little full of packages but debugged because I like to use KDE Plasma although having seen the tutorial I liked Elementary a lot and keep both calligra and libre office, so I proceeded to make a DVD live with two virtual hard drives, in the first Linux with its 14GB + 2GB swap and in the second only to perform systemback operations so I decided to include gparted to be able to perform my operations and send it over the network

      Perform a debugged installation so as not to have to give so many sudo apt-get since there are quite a few programs that I included:

      Download kde neon: https://files.kde.org/neon/images/neon-userltsedition/current/neon-userltsedition-20170913-0019-amd64.iso
      Install KDE NEON by selecting my region and keyboard language,

      open terminal

      sudo apt-get install nautilus konqueror thunar xfe mc gentoo lfm tuxcmd scite kate okular xpdf k3b brasero acetoneiso geany mypaint cups cups-pdf xfce4-screenshooter spectacle openshot amarok audacity ardour abiword bluefish p7zip p7zip-rar p7g rantfs npartmina gpartmina gpartmina-3 pXNUMXg rantfs-full nfs gpartmina gpartmina-XNUMX pXNUMX rantfs lectern pdfchain pdfmod

      sudo apt-get update
      sudo apt-get upgrade
      sudo apt-get install dvdrip vcdimager cdrdao subtitleripper mplayer-fonts lame sox ffmpeg mjpegtools vorbis-tools
      sudo apt-get install software-properties-common synaptic samba samba-common python-glade2 system-config-samba
      sudo apt-get install thunderbird chromium-browser flashplugin-installer xhat

      sudo apt-get update
      sudo apt-get upgrade

      sudo add-apt-repository ppa: notepadqq-team / notepadqq
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa: ubuntuhandbook1 / dvdstyler
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa: shutter / ppa
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa: ubuntuhandbook1 / audacity
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa: libreoffice / libreoffice-5-4
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa: jonathonf / firefox-esr
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa: nemh / systemback
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa: kubuntu-ppa / backports
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa: kritalime / ppa
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa: ubuntuhandbook1 / ppa
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa: haraldhv / shotcut
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa: webupd8team / y-ppa-manager
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa: elementary-os / stable
      sudo apt-get update
      sudo apt-get install notepadqq dvdstyler shutter audacity libreoffice firefox-esr systemback calligra krita scribus shotcut y-ppa-manager elementary-desktop
      sudo apt-get update
      sudo apt-get upgrade
      sudo apt-get install inkscape gimp gpdftext pdfsam font-manager converseen spice-up bookletimposer ebook-speaker karbon pdfshuffler
      sudo apt-get install bleachbit
      sudo apt install human-icon-theme oxygen-icon-theme nuvola-icon-theme tango-icon-theme xubuntu-icon-theme ldm-kubuntu-theme gnome-icon-theme lxde-icon-theme

      cd Downloads
      wget http://archive.getdeb.net/ubuntu/pool/apps/u/ubuntu-tweak/ubuntu-tweak_0.8.7-1~getdeb2~xenial_all.deb
      sudo dpkg -i ubuntu-tweak_0.8.7-1 ~ getdeb2 ~ xenial_all.deb
      sudo apt-get -f install

      If in any of these steps you require required libraries that were not, go over with

      rm*
      Cd ..

      sudo apt-get -f install

      At the end, I went to the panel, I went to the language settings, I applied the updates that I didn't find and that's it, the libreoffice was also in Spanish.

      With bleatch-bit superuser mode I cleaned up all the repositories that I added and some things with ubuntu tweak cleaned records

      sudo apt-get update
      sudo apt-get upgrade
      sudo apt-get clean
      sudo apt-get autoclean
      sudo apt-get autoremove
      sudo apt-get purge
      (These have already been applied by bleatchbit and ubuntu tweaker, but run to see that there were no errors when executing them since they report libraries not updated or stuck)

      Then I proceeded to Systemback and that's it, I took the first image that I sent later over the network
      after this it is already delicate that it is added because it is dangerously close to the maximum 4.3 gigabytes that manages to put an image to convert it into ISO

      A thousand thanks to Isaac, pray if he is a master at this and I appreciate that you publish like this since the famous video tutorials later make us waste more time than reading.

  2.   2renoip said

    I currently "work" with three of them: Debian, OpenSuse and Ubntu, both at home and in business. Mint, for novice users on DELL755 equipment. I have to say No problems! both the beginning of the users and their adaptation. Normally the installations are very well documented and where we really modify something is in permissions.
    You have done an excellent job anyway. Thanks for that compilation.

  3.   Mikel garin said

    It is a piece of entry! You have shown off. Very well! I want to buy a new computer and maybe here I will find the system I need. Mind you, I will use an automated tool.

  4.   Jock vault said

    At the moment I am working with / in a set of my own scripts and customization configurations of openbox and its automation, I am not sure if it goes further to build an iso installer, but the input is appreciated I will review it with clma at this time any additional documentation is great for me.

  5.   MZ17 said

    A question, are the updates still being received? I suppose they will be those of the base system, in this case Elementary OS.

  6.   rafagcg said

    Fantastic article. Thanks a lot.

  7.   Window Maker Live said

    I've been working on a custom Debian-based distribution for several years now. On https://sourceforge.net/projects/wmlive/files/wmlive_0.95.7-2/ versions can be downloaded for i386 and amd64. I was using live-build to create the isos. The sources are included so that anyone can remake the ISO as they please.

  8.   Jimmy olano said

    Congratulations, my congratulations!

    The article is very dense but with the exact size, neither more nor less; I have no experience with ElementaryOS but this is an excellent opportunity to both test this distribution and also launch THE CUSTOM LXA to the world! :-)

  9.   otherlinuxero said

    Do you think this process can serve as a live backup system for a linux system?

  10.   Jesus of Baldoma said

    Good and inspiring entry.

    I think there would be a topic to be discussed and it is the "cleaning" of the records, caches, and so on.

    Let me explain: when you use the browser to download Calligra and the terminal to install / uninstall packages, the normal thing is that the respective histories and cache files remain.

    I imagine that if before making the ISO with systemback the aforementioned histories and files are not "cleaned" from the cache, they end up being transmitted to the distro that we are going to create. Certain?

    Do you know any way to do that kind of cleaning?

    1.    leopoldo said

      Instala "bleachbit" is a cleaner that is in the repositories, easy to use and that eliminates all the garbage that accumulates in the system.

  11.   arangoiti said

    One question, in the virtual machine you do not install the addons? My distribution for my neighborhood and its cyber classroom is:

    http://aranlinux.arangoiti.info

    1.    leo said

      To clean up the bleachbit system, sudo apt install bleachbit. Quick easy.

  12.   Isaac PE said

    Hello,
    Thank you very much for your comments. I am glad that with this contribution I can help someone.
    Greetings and thank you!

    1.    Joaquin Jimenez said

      But that's not really a distro. It's an ElementaryOS that loads your programs and settings by default, but it's not a distro as such; since it shares the Elementary installer, and it remains the same.

      There is no way to change the installer and the 'e' at the beginning to make it fully customizable and a proper distro?

      Thank you very much in advance.

  13.   Juan Pedro said

    Very good tutorial. I have tried it in LinuxMint and I liked it. How can I do the same in Manjaro? Thanks

  14.   txely said

    Congratulations on the tutorial, very complete.
    This is exactly what I was looking to do, that is, I have a netbook on which I install Lubuntu and which I use to connect to computers via a USB-Serial converter. In order for the software I use to work in addition to having wine installed, I had to configure the system so that when inserting the USB-Serial converter it detects it as a com1 port and not as / dev / ttyS0. My question is, after following this tutorial and creating the ISO of "MILubuntu" that I have on that netbook, is this type of configuration also saved?
    Thanks in advance,
    A greeting.

  15.   Cactus said

    Are ISOs UEFI compliant?

  16.   Javier said

    For a long time I have used Remastersys (for me the best) ... now that it seems that development has died and there is no more version for Ubuntu 16.04
    Would Systemback be his -worthy- successor? Can ISO be made directly with Systemback?

    regards

  17.   Javier said

    ahhh ... by the way, I forgot in the previous post, a current alternative I think may be Pinguy Builder ... although when I try it I think it is quite slow.

    regards

  18.   arangoiti said

    Pinguy Builder is fine, but it does weird things. The first thing if you install the ISO created with it on a desktop, the installer does not ask for user creation. On the other hand, if you install it on a laptop, if it asks you, but it does not pay attention to the data entered. I am the big problem I have with AranLinux, the installer, I can't find a good solution.

  19.   Javier said

    Remastersys up to Xenial:

    - from ppa: kranich / remastersys
    - you install xresprobe_0.4.24ubuntu9_amd64.deb

    …and ready!!!

    PS: Even being Pinguy Builder a fork of Remastersys… it is slow like the bad man's horse !!!… very slow! By the time one goes for 50% -for example-… the other continues for 13% -and hopefully- with all the cores at 100%.

    1.    arangoiti said

      Hi Javier, very interesting and how can I make an ISO of my distribution with Remastersys and then pass it on?

  20.   Edison moya arias said

    this iso that is created is an installer .. ?? or is it a portable OS?

  21.   Mery white said

    Excellent contribution! Thank you very much, you have illustrated me a lot. I will try it and expose my results. My question is: if during ISO setup (when I am removing and adding packages) should the distro be updated or not?

  22.   EDGAR GARCIA said

    I really liked the tutorial, just one thing if I have Ubuntu 14 and I already have it the way I like it, I could not make the image from my unit instead of a virtual one so as not to have to install it, add the packages I want and uninstall the ones that I want they did not serve me again

  23.   Original and Free Malagueños said

    Congratulations on the article, a very useful, complete and certainly interesting information.

  24.   Sylvan said

    I need to make these distributions in linux from debian.

  25.   g said

    excellent post placed in my favorites

  26.   SEP said

    excellent thanks for enlightening us with your knowledge greetings from peru (y)

  27.   Killo Killo Bird said

    Excellent tutorial. I have used Systemback to create custom Kubuntu or Linux Mint ISOs, and Multisystem to burn them to an external hard drive partition, so I could have multiple systems at the same time.

    I am now testing Opensuse Tunbleweed and am surprised by its stability. But I can't find a Systemback style method to create the custom ISO. Do you know any application other than SUSE Studio?

    Systemback seems not to be available in .rpm

  28.   rztv23 said

    I'll do this, I'll save that. For example I will grab a distribution that is already working and unattended and I add the new Debian Jessie or Ubuntu 16.10 repositories, I add the things that are necessary and that's it.

    If you were so kind, could you explain at least with a video how to use Relinux? There is no video in Spanish.

    I leave you my email in case you do the tutorial. Thank you very much in advance.
    Federico_k_fk@hotmail.com

  29.   Lorenzo said

    I downloaded the debian 8 jessie iso to install it on a windows 10 notebook. After managing to remove the secure boot and install the system I found that I had no internet access, wireless disconnected due to non-free stories in the repositories, impossible to update the system with update. In the end, somewhat pissed off with debian, I installed linux mint 18 instead. In this case, there was no permission fuss that prevents you from having Wi-Fi. So I ran out of debian and instead linux mint. Very happy, but somewhat frustrated because it was not the original idea. If I had read this page before starting, I would have created a custom debian iso, with the wifi already installed and the non-free incorporated in the repositories of the usb-live key. A shame! Next time I know what I have to do to avoid encountering this problem again. Thanks for the excellent post.

  30.   Lorenzo said

    I just posted a comment and it doesn't appear. Everything's fine?

  31.   nicolas said

    Hello, do you know any distro that has only what is necessary to run windows game? my idea is to make a pendrive for my son to play on my pc, with all kinds of games. funny

  32.   Victor said

    Hello, I did all the steps but when installing on a PC it does not boot well. I have tried a thousand things and nothing.

    + inri: I used exactly everything you say in the explanation.

  33.   Marlon said

    Any tools or steps to create a custom Slackware iso ????

  34.   Julio Escorcia said

    How about Isaac, I have a question, if I have a Red Hat OS installed in a VMware VM and the latter is already customized as I wish, can I install the systemback inside it and create an ISO?

  35.   camilo said

    It no longer works, :( .. the iso does not boot .. someone has the solution, ..
    Some time ago I also ran into this problem and I solved it by uninstalling the casper package for a previous version 1.340 ... and that is how it worked for me, but it no longer works with that ... Does anyone know how to correct that problem.?

  36.   Shadow_Warrior said

    Many of these applications no longer exist ... Any more modern / simple solution?

    1.    tonimorenob said

      I have made a custom Linux Mint 20 iso and when testing it on different computers I get the error:
      (initramfs) / cow format specified as aufs and no support found ”

      Looking for a solution I found this page:
      https://cirelramos.blogspot.com/2017/09/crear-live-cd-personalizadas-con.html

  37.   Alejandro said

    I am having problems installing systemback and I am not able, can someone help me?

  38.   Jesus Martinez said

    Hey.

    I have a Windows 10, with VirtualBox 6.0 and I have a Debian 9.11 running ok. I have as desktop GNOME SHELL 3.28, GNOME Classic. But I am using the ARC theme and the classic ARC Icons. And I wanted to know how I can make a DVD that can be installed on a machine. And when you finish installing, it stays as I have my virtual machine. Well, what I'm trying to do is make a Debian 9.11, to my liking as a custom one. I have seen a thousand tutorials, but I can not find the correct one, which makes mention of this issue of keeping the Desktop with the Theme I have using. ARC Theme + ARC icons.

    1.    rho said

      I don't know if it's too late…. I installed Systemback by following this page: https://www.linuxbabe.com/ubuntu/install-systemback-ubuntu-18-04-bionic-18-10

  39.   tonimorenob said

    I have made a custom Linux Mint 20 iso and when testing it on different computers I get the error:
    (initramfs) / cow format specified as aufs and no support found ”

    Looking for a solution I found this page:
    https://cirelramos.blogspot.com/2017/09/crear-live-cd-personalizadas-con.html

  40.   Pedro sosa said

    Good post. I have been guided by https://www.personalizarwindows.com/personalizar-linux/ to customize my desktop although this post also works although it skips some little things today should update it :)

  41.   Carlos said

    Good evening, I would like to create my own 32-bit Linux distro but the distro that I want to base myself on is based on debian weezy but I want to adapt it to suit chimaera but I don't know how to change the repositories well, I already did it in the distro but when updating I get an error because it conflicts with other packages I would greatly appreciate your help please

  42.   xd said