Hi! I have not any experience working in Red Hat based distros and I have to remaster a Centos Live CD, Does anybody know how can I do that? Thanks...
Johnny Hughes wrote:
I have not any experience working in Red Hat based distros and I have to remaster a Centos Live CD, Does anybody know how can I do that? Thanks...
yes
Ok, I know I'm like a month behind on this but this reply was just to funny to pass up.
Hey Johnny! I think you're giving up to much info there. You need to make your replies more cryptic or people will start thinking you know what you're talking about. ;-)
[Attention! For the humor impaired, this was a joke as we all know Mr. Hughes does have some small knowledge about remastering CentOS CDs]
Antonio Ortega Brook wrote:
Hi! I have not any experience working in Red Hat based distros and I have to remaster a Centos Live CD, Does anybody know how can I do that? Thanks...
Hi Antonio,
Have you recieved any help on this? I'm afraid I have no experience with live CDs. But have you received any help via private email? I wasn't sure how to interpret Johnny's response on the list.
Keeping in mind that I know nothing about live CDs, I do know a bit about the RedHat world.
-Steve
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 16:52 -0500, Steve wrote:
Antonio Ortega Brook wrote:
Hi! I have not any experience working in Red Hat based distros and I have to remaster a Centos Live CD, Does anybody know how can I do that? Thanks...
Hi Antonio,
Have you recieved any help on this? I'm afraid I have no experience with live CDs. But have you received any help via private email? I wasn't sure how to interpret Johnny's response on the list.
Keeping in mind that I know nothing about live CDs, I do know a bit about the RedHat world.
-Steve
Everything we do is open source, however I have no desire to help someone create a replacement distro for CentOS. I am just not interested in helping someone create a competitor for our Distro ... I can't see how anyone would be confused (or even surprised) about that.
We created a CentOS Live CD ... it is for recovery and you can use it for testing.
We created a Single server CD to make installs easier.
For both of these, we will be happy to entertain changes that people want ... but I don't think it is in our best interest to tell people exactly how to build replacements for those, do you?
The scripts I used are published here for the LiveCD: http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/build/livecd/
All the files for the Single Server CD are on it.
Thanks, Johnny Hughes
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 17:15 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
For both of these, we will be happy to entertain changes that people want ... but I don't think it is in our best interest to tell people exactly how to build replacements for those, do you?
Why not? Of course, it would not be good if people add their own background and dump it on the net. But I can see the use of making a custom Live CD. E.g. suppose that you someone would like to provide a class of biology students with a live CD that contains some domain-specific programs, so that they can run them without having to install Linux at home.
Of course, the obvious problem is that some people will mess things up, and will distribute broken live CDs to others with the CentOS logos still in there.
-- Daniel
Daniel de Kok wrote:
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 17:15 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
For both of these, we will be happy to entertain changes that people want ... but I don't think it is in our best interest to tell people exactly how to build replacements for those, do you?
Why not? Of course, it would not be good if people add their own background and dump it on the net. But I can see the use of making a custom Live CD. E.g. suppose that you someone would like to provide a class of biology students with a live CD that contains some domain-specific programs, so that they can run them without having to install Linux at home.
We publish all code and scripts we use for such stuff - and if users want to, they have access to this - to use and deploy within the GPL framework. What we do expect is that users who make this effort contribute back to the community rather than just sponging ( is there such a word ? ) off it.
its not always possible for the developers to be doing support and also working on the backend stuff, so its nice to see some of the users come up and help.
We publish all code and scripts we use for such stuff - and if users want to, they have access to this - to use and deploy within the GPL framework. What we do expect is that users who make this effort contribute back to the community rather than just sponging ( is there such a word ? ) off it.
Karanbir, the word is 'freeloading.'
-- Lamar Owen Director of Information Technology Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute 1 PARI Drive Rosman, NC 28772 828-862-5554 www.pari.edu
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 20:58, Lamar Owen wrote:
We publish all code and scripts we use for such stuff - and if users want to, they have access to this - to use and deploy within the GPL framework. What we do expect is that users who make this effort contribute back to the community rather than just sponging ( is there such a word ? ) off it.
Karanbir, the word is 'freeloading.'
But you have to admit that there would be something amusingly ironic about the Centos project opposing distribution rebuilds...
Not offering to help is understandable though. Still, I think there is a place for things like the k12ltsp rebuild that adds things in a way that they come up working after an install without breaking any of the base system. Such efforts should either be encouraged or made unnecessary by hosting yum-installable package groups in the centos-extra repository for add on features like this.
On Sun, 2006-06-11 at 12:18 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 20:58, Lamar Owen wrote:
We publish all code and scripts we use for such stuff - and if users want to, they have access to this - to use and deploy within the GPL framework. What we do expect is that users who make this effort contribute back to the community rather than just sponging ( is there such a word ? ) off it.
Karanbir, the word is 'freeloading.'
But you have to admit that there would be something amusingly ironic about the Centos project opposing distribution rebuilds...
I have no problem with rebuilds if they are open source and they don't claim to be CentOS.
You surely don't see PNAELV telling us how to create a distro ... or the people at debian helping the ubuntu guys ... or gentoo guys helping VLOS.
Not offering to help is understandable though.
That is the point ... why would we help create a competing distro?
Still, I think there is a place for things like the k12ltsp rebuild that adds things in a way that they come up working after an install without breaking any of the base system. Such efforts should either be encouraged or made unnecessary by hosting yum-installable package groups in the centos-extra repository for add on features like this.
Doing addon repos or other rebuilds are absolutely fine if they community projects. CentOS-Extra is fairly large already, though we would be glad to add trusted developers who have projects already ongoing.
Johnny Hughes wrote:
I have no problem with rebuilds if they are open source and they don't claim to be CentOS.
You surely don't see PNAELV telling us how to create a distro ... or the people at debian helping the ubuntu guys ... or gentoo guys helping VLOS.
I guess what I don't understand is how this post:
"Hi! I have not any experience working in Red Hat based distros and I have to remaster a Centos Live CD, Does anybody know how can I do that? Thanks..."
has gotten translated into:
"Hi! I have not any experience working in Red Hat based distros, but I intend to come up with a CentOS based distro to compete with CentOS, and hopefully bury it. Does anybody know how can I do that? Thanks..."
Because the former is all the original post said. And the latter is what this thread has been about.
-Steve
On Sun, 2006-06-11 at 20:25 -0500, Steve wrote:
Johnny Hughes wrote:
I have no problem with rebuilds if they are open source and they don't claim to be CentOS.
You surely don't see PNAELV telling us how to create a distro ... or the people at debian helping the ubuntu guys ... or gentoo guys helping VLOS.
I guess what I don't understand is how this post:
"Hi! I have not any experience working in Red Hat based distros and I have to remaster a Centos Live CD, Does anybody know how can I do that? Thanks..."
has gotten translated into:
"Hi! I have not any experience working in Red Hat based distros, but I intend to come up with a CentOS based distro to compete with CentOS, and hopefully bury it. Does anybody know how can I do that? Thanks..."
Because the former is all the original post said. And the latter is what this thread has been about.
-Steve
Not completely ... there are also plenty of links to docs for remastering the CentOS Live CD too :)
Johnny Hughes wrote:
Not completely ... there are also plenty of links to docs for remastering the CentOS Live CD too :)
Yes. And that has not gone unnoticed.
I apologize, again, for the "clicko" that sent my original response to this list instead of directly to the asker as originally intended.
CentOS has done an excellent job of not only replicating the upstream provider's distro, but adding value to it. I got a request from a Debian oriented colleague yesterday, stating that he had a client using RHEL4 who needed a later version of PHP. "It would be easy if this were Debian", he said. "But how can I do this in RHEL?" I pointed him at CentOSPlus. And then I thought... you know, if it hadn't been for CentOS, this would have been a more difficult problem with a messier solution. (I checked Dag first. Let's not forget Dag!) That's what reminded me of the "A rising tide lifts all boats" Szulik quote.
-Steve
On Sun, 2006-06-11 at 19:59 -0500, Johnny Hughes wrote:
On Sun, 2006-06-11 at 12:18 -0500, Les Mikesell wrote:
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 20:58, Lamar Owen wrote:
We publish all code and scripts we use for such stuff - and if users want to, they have access to this - to use and deploy within the GPL framework. What we do expect is that users who make this effort contribute back to the community rather than just sponging ( is there such a word ? ) off it.
Karanbir, the word is 'freeloading.'
But you have to admit that there would be something amusingly ironic about the Centos project opposing distribution rebuilds...
I have no problem with rebuilds if they are open source and they don't claim to be CentOS.
You surely don't see PNAELV telling us how to create a distro ... or the people at debian helping the ubuntu guys ... or gentoo guys helping VLOS.
Not offering to help is understandable though.
That is the point ... why would we help create a competing distro?
---- http://www.whiteboxlinux.org/howto.html
I think John's spirit and information was exactly what he was doing - helping others create competing distributions based upon RHEL.
Why would you want to do that? I don't know, and I suppose that by reading the above, it seems clear that you aren't inclined to do so.
Craig
On 6/10/06, Lamar Owen lowen@pari.edu wrote:
We publish all code and scripts we use for such stuff - and if users want to, they have access to this - to use and deploy within the GPL framework. What we do expect is that users who make this effort contribute back to the community rather than just sponging ( is there such a word ? ) off it.
Karanbir, the word is 'freeloading.'
In the Midwest, of the US, both are accurate.
On Sun, 2006-06-11 at 00:01 +0100, Karanbir Singh wrote:
We publish all code and scripts we use for such stuff - and if users want to, they have access to this - to use and deploy within the GPL framework. What we do expect is that users who make this effort contribute back to the community rather than just sponging ( is there such a word ? ) off it.
Thanks for the clarification. Seems fair to me.
-- Daniel
Daniel de Kok wrote:
For both of these, we will be happy to entertain changes that people want ... but I don't think it is in our best interest to tell people exactly how to build replacements for those, do you?
Why not? Of course, it would not be good if people add their own background and dump it on the net. But I can see the use of making a custom Live CD. E.g. suppose that you someone would like to provide a class of biology students with a live CD that contains some domain-specific programs, so that they can run them without having to install Linux at home.
Of course, the obvious problem is that some people will mess things up, and will distribute broken live CDs to others with the CentOS logos still in there.
If anyone is really interested in remastering their own CDs it only takes about 3 minutes of google to come up with all the documentation and how-to's you could ever want. Believe me, if building your own distro was all that difficult there wouldn't be four hundred gazillion different distros out there. I can definitely understand Johnny's POV on the subject. But hell, even _I_ could BMOD (Build My Own Distro) if I weren't so damned lazy.
Hey. BMOD Linux. Kinda has a ring to it. If I ever get around to acquiring a DVD burner of some kind I might take a stab at it. Or not. I really am very lazy.
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On Wed, Jul 05, 2006 at 02:22:53AM -0400, Joe Klemmer wrote:
Daniel de Kok wrote:
For both of these, we will be happy to entertain changes that people want ... but I don't think it is in our best interest to tell people exactly how to build replacements for those, do you?
Why not? Of course, it would not be good if people add their own background and dump it on the net. But I can see the use of making a custom Live CD. E.g. suppose that you someone would like to provide a class of biology students with a live CD that contains some domain-specific programs, so that they can run them without having to install Linux at home.
Of course, the obvious problem is that some people will mess things up, and will distribute broken live CDs to others with the CentOS logos still in there.
If anyone is really interested in remastering their own CDs it only takes about 3 minutes of google to come up with all the documentation and how-to's you could ever want. Believe me, if building your own distro was all that difficult there wouldn't be four hundred gazillion different distros out there. I can definitely understand Johnny's POV on the subject. But hell, even _I_ could BMOD (Build My Own Distro) if I weren't so damned lazy.
Hey. BMOD Linux. Kinda has a ring to it. If I ever get around to acquiring a DVD burner of some kind I might take a stab at it. Or not. I really am very lazy.
Humm, this thread is a bit dead, but since you've got it back ...
Actually, building your own distro is NOT easy. At all. I would not even think of starting without at least a 15 people team. And I mean people that know what they are doing. Even for something like CentOS, which is not a distro built from scratch, I would not even consider starting wihout 10 people.
I actually think the CentOS maintainers are crazy for not only trying, but for managing to do it with so small a team.
Yes, it is very easy to create packages for things like mplayerplug-in and mutt. But when we start talking about kernel, glibc, gcc, kde and stuff, thinks go to hell in a handcart. I used to work for a commercial distro (Conectiva, now part of Mandriva), and we used to have a guy there, full time, which pretty much only handled gcc and glibc. 4 guys for the kernel. 1 only for KDE. And don't even get me started on documentation. We have like 8 people just for that (yes, translations too, so it was a big job). My main job was MTAs (sendmail, exim, postfix) and RPM itself. Which took 90% of my time. The rest of the time I worked on various "minor" packages, along to lending some help on some of the big ones (glibc) whenever possible.
The reason we have "four hundred gazillion" different distros is exactly because people have no idea the work involved in creating and, most specially, maintaining a distro. How many of those distros pretty much suck ? 99.9% ?
Ok, this is a very sensitive topic for me, so I tent to rant a lot. But anyone who was ever involved on real distro work will agree with me.
- -- Rodrigo Barbosa "Quid quid Latine dictum sit, altum viditur" "Be excellent to each other ..." - Bill & Ted (Wyld Stallyns)
On Wed, 2006-07-05 at 03:49 -0300, Rodrigo Barbosa wrote:
Ok, this is a very sensitive topic for me, so I tent to rant a lot. But anyone who was ever involved on real distro work will agree with me.
Yeah. I worked for a small commercial Debian-based distributor (Libranet). Our primary focus was to provide a graphical installer and a configuration tool for Debian, and to combine this in a distribution with an extensive package set. This wasn't even remotely possible if we didn't all work far more hours than our paid hours. To get an idea what had to be done:
- Maintaining a sane kernel tree, smashing bugs that beta testers encounter. - Maintaining a package repository, with a collection of customized packages. - Developing and maintaining an installer and configuration tools. - Fixing bugs in various tools and libraries that are used as a part of the installer and configuration tools. Don't be surprised to encounter plenty of memory leaks, incorrect assumptions, incorrectly handled file descriptors, etc. - Writing a lot of documentation, users want/need that. - Handling user support requests.
Even in such a VAR-ish business you will need a bunch of full-time paid employees, good cash flow, and be lucky to get the right people.
Yes, there are a gazillion of distributions. But, there are only about five or ten distributions that I would call quality distributions. And even most of these systems have their share of problems. One of the reasons I moved over to CentOS/RHEL is that it is virtually the only distribution that I have found to be mostly flaw-free for my uses.
-- Daniel
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Daniel de Kok wrote:
On Wed, 2006-07-05 at 03:49 -0300, Rodrigo Barbosa wrote:
Ok, this is a very sensitive topic for me, so I tent to rant a lot. But anyone who was ever involved on real distro work will agree with me.
Yeah. I worked for a small commercial Debian-based distributor (Libranet). Our primary focus was to provide a graphical installer and a configuration tool for Debian,
Speaking as one who paid da money and used Libranet 3.0, let me publicly extend my thanks to an exemplary job well done. Libranet was my very favorite distro and I will continue to use to until it grows painfully obsolete. If it would install on a PII I would have it on my laptop instead of CentOS. What a terrific distro and what a shame about Danzig.
Joe Klemmer spake the following on 7/4/2006 11:22 PM:
Daniel de Kok wrote:
For both of these, we will be happy to entertain changes that people want ... but I don't think it is in our best interest to tell people exactly how to build replacements for those, do you?
Why not? Of course, it would not be good if people add their own background and dump it on the net. But I can see the use of making a custom Live CD. E.g. suppose that you someone would like to provide a class of biology students with a live CD that contains some domain-specific programs, so that they can run them without having to install Linux at home.
Of course, the obvious problem is that some people will mess things up, and will distribute broken live CDs to others with the CentOS logos still in there.
If anyone is really interested in remastering their own CDs it only takes about 3 minutes of google to come up with all the documentation and how-to's you could ever want. Believe me, if building your own distro was all that difficult there wouldn't be four hundred gazillion different distros out there. I can definitely understand Johnny's POV on the subject. But hell, even _I_ could BMOD (Build My Own Distro) if I weren't so damned lazy.
Hey. BMOD Linux. Kinda has a ring to it. If I ever get around to acquiring a DVD burner of some kind I might take a stab at it. Or not. I really am very lazy.
Why put off to tomorrow what you can shove all the way into next month!
Johnny Hughes wrote:
someone create a replacement distro for CentOS. I am just not interested in helping someone create a competitor for our Distro ... I can't see how anyone would be confused (or even surprised) about that.
Well, I guess that clarifies matters. :-)
I apologize if my post seemed offensive. Not intended. But even the one word response "Yes" can be ambiguous in certain contexts. At first I took it as "You have not provided enough info to allow people to help you". And then I decided that it might mean "Yes, I've done it and I'll contact you off-list".
And then I just wasn't sure.
I understand and respect your position. My God, CentOS has benefited me and my clients tremendously.
But a rising tide does lift all boats. If the guy needs to modify the live CD to do something specific for his purposes, customers, or whatever, does that hurt CentOS, or help it a little?
I should also fess up and say that my email was really supposed to have gone to Antonio directly and not to the list. My bad. Sorry.
-Steve
On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 17:54 -0500, Steve wrote:
Johnny Hughes wrote:
someone create a replacement distro for CentOS. I am just not interested in helping someone create a competitor for our Distro ... I can't see how anyone would be confused (or even surprised) about that.
Well, I guess that clarifies matters. :-)
I apologize if my post seemed offensive. Not intended. But even the one word response "Yes" can be ambiguous in certain contexts. At first I took it as "You have not provided enough info to allow people to help you". And then I decided that it might mean "Yes, I've done it and I'll contact you off-list".
And then I just wasn't sure.
I understand and respect your position. My God, CentOS has benefited me and my clients tremendously.
But a rising tide does lift all boats. If the guy needs to modify the live CD to do something specific for his purposes, customers, or whatever, does that hurt CentOS, or help it a little?
I should also fess up and say that my email was really supposed to have gone to Antonio directly and not to the list. My bad. Sorry.
-Steve
I am not upset nor do I think it is an unreasonable request.
There are probably plenty of people using the Live CD for many things, yet the only real contact I have had concerning it are people who want to remaster it.
I'm not saying that there are not some great uses for that, but I am saying that CentOS only allows _redistribution_ of _unmodified_ CDs with our name on it.
As Daniel already noted, there are plenty of uses for a live CD. But what if someone makes a live CD that looks like CentOS (our splash screens, etc.) and gives it to people ... and if it looks/works like crap ... then what does that do for CentOS?
If people want to create/remaster the live CD, they can go to the documentation that I used:
http://linux.web.psi.ch/livecd/
http://linux.dell.com/files/openmanage-contributions/omsa-45-live/OMSA-LiveC...
The scripts that I used are here:
http://mirror.centos.org/centos/4/build/livecd/
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please ... don't redistribute modified CDs as CentOS.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are downloading something from someone and you think it is CentOS, don't do so unless you see the MD5 sum posted on CentOS.org or some other source that you trust. One could put some bad stuff on a LiveCD and distribute it ... stuff that would phone home, open up certain daemons, etc. (Much like Windows Genuine Advantage :)
Thanks, Johnny Hughes
Johnny Hughes wrote:
But a rising tide does lift all boats. If the guy needs to modify the live CD to do something specific for his purposes, customers, or whatever, does that hurt CentOS, or help it a little?
it might help a bit, as long as people give Credit for the work done, and use the 'Based on the CentOS LiveCD' line....
If people want to create/remaster the live CD, they can go to the documentation that I used:
http://linux.web.psi.ch/livecd/
http://linux.dell.com/files/openmanage-contributions/omsa-45-live/OMSA-LiveC...
The scripts that I used are here:
There is also some documentation here :
http://www.byteclub.net/wiki/CentOS_Live
Steve wrote on Sat, 10 Jun 2006 17:54:17 -0500:
At first I took it as
I took it "as is". He answered the only question in that posting very thruthfully. Nothing more, nothing less.
Kai
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Antonio Ortega Brook -
Chris Fox -
Craig White -
Daniel de Kok -
Joe Klemmer -
Johnny Hughes -
Kai Schaetzl -
Karanbir Singh -
Lamar Owen -
Leonard Isham -
Les Mikesell -
Rodrigo Barbosa -
Scott Silva -
Steve