making custom iso images

[Geoff Shang]

Hi:

First, I highly recommend the CD writing howto.  It's packed with lots of
useful info.

You will need mkisofs and something with which to write the image to a CD
(such as cdrecord).  Here's what I'd do:

1. mount the iso image.  This is a real neat thing you can do with linux,
saving you the bother of burning it to a CD first.  Note that if you
already have it on a CD then you may as well not bother as you'll need to
transfer it all to your hard drive anyway.  To mount the ISO image, do the
following:

	mount -t iso9660 -o loop filename.iso /mountpoint

For example:

mount -t iso9660 -o loop image.iso /mnt

Note that you need the loopback device in your kernel in order to do this.

2.  If you've mounted the iso, copy everything out into some other place on
your hard drive.  If you've mounted a CD, do the same.  The reason is that
neither the iso image or the CD itself will let you change the files
without moving them first.

3.  change files as necessary.

4.  Make the image with mkisofs.  This is the tricky bit.  You'll need to
make it bootable, and this is something I can't advise you on ... but the
howto will tell you what you need to know.  Remember that you'll need to
change the kernel in the boot image on the CD.

5.  Write the image to a CD.  The bootable bit will be important here too.

Hope this helps to a point.  Remember to get the latest version of any
howto you want to read.  You can get the CD writing howto from
http://wt.xpilot.org/linux/

Geoff.