[CentOS-devel] custom iso spin

On Thursday, December 29, 2011 10:46:22 AM Karanbir Singh wrote:
> We could, should there be a need, even have rpms that are not a part of
> the distro ( eg. somethings from an external third party repo ). There
> would be some stuff that needs resolved and make sure all licenses etc
> are in place, and some level of assurances are in place for upgrade path
> etc. But it can be done, fairly easily.
...
> > Is there some documentation on building a custom iso spin?
> > I would also like to be able to drive the tools.
> 
> What does that mean 'drive the tools' ?

Karabir, and all,

I'm interested in this as well, for some other reasons.

I'd like to make an install USB with all the CentOS packages, sorted into repositories, and with updates integrated.  Also, I'd like to put some select third party repos, and be able to use them at install time (anaconda is capable of using any repo at install time, of course).   With 16 and 32GB USB bootable USB sticks somewhat affordable now, I can see great utility in being able to carry a key around to do installs to non-network attached PC's (of which we have a few) as well as being able to yum update off of that media (as documented in a form in the CentOS-Media.repo file).

And, like the OP, I'd like to drive the tools, meaning build it myself so that I can include packages that CentOS can't distribute (in particular, some site-developed packages that for various reasons we can't or won't distribute).  The SL project documents a good deal of this process in their 'sites' documentation, incidentally.