Download a Fedora 12 DVD image from a fedora mirror site on the official Fedora Public Active Mirrors list.
====example:====
http://nas1.itc.virginia.edu/fedora/releases/12/Fedora/x86_64/iso/Fedora-12-x86_64-DVD.iso
http://nas1.itc.virginia.edu/fedora/releases/12/Fedora/x86_64/iso/Fedora-12-x86_64-CHECKSUM
When it’s done downloading, compare the checksum of your copy to the original.
$ sha1sum Fedora-12-x86_64-DVD.iso
c899659b8a7ceb8f005fc1a300b4e21c984a48fd7b8d8a332ed24bf8c3c479e8
$ grep “Fedora-12-x86_64-DVD.iso” Fedora-12-x86_64-CHECKSUM
c899659b8a7ceb8f005fc1a300b4e21c984a48fd7b8d8a332ed24bf8c3c479e8
Install it on a system with the packages you want to be installed on your custom DVD distribution. (install it on a virtual machine if you want)
/root/anaconda-ks.cfg is a kickstart based on your current installed system. Edit this file and if you need anything tweaked, choose the options you want here. You can also install the package “fedora-kickstarts” if you want a gui that helps you along the way with the building/editing of your kickstart file. The hand holding helped me a lot. (The package “spin-kickstarts” is also a bunch of kickstarts from the official Fedora Spins if you want to start from there)
Install isomaster
$ sudo yum install isomaster
Open Fedora-12-x86_64-DVD.iso in isomaster and copy /isolinux/isolinux.cfg to another directory, i’ll use /tmp/ for my example.
Edit /tmp/isolinux.cfg and add the following to the end of the line that begins with “append initrd” so it looks like this:
append initrd=initrd.img ks=cdrom:/anaconda-ks.cfg
Going back to isomaster — copy your “anaconda-ks.cfg” to the root directory of the image. (so that it’s at the same level as “media.repo”, “GPL”, and the isolinux directory).
Add your modified /tmp/isolinux.cfg to the image in place of the original (inside the isolinux directory)
Save your new image as Fedora-12-x86_64-rootninja-DVD.iso
Burn it to DVD.
*Done*
I use brasero, but you can use k3b, gnomebaker, or whatever — just make sure you burn the iso as an image, not as a file. You want the contents of the image on the disc, not a disc with the iso file by itself. You should have just rolled your eyes reading that because if you’re attempting this whole ball of wax, you already know how to burn a dvd, right?
Hi,
I tried this method and created a custom fedora 12 ISO and burned it to a DVD. While trying to install this I got the following error (right after selecting the disk partitioning information) – “unable to read package metadata. This may be due to missing repodata directory. Please ensure that your install tree is correctly generated. Could not retrieve /mnt/sysimage/var/cache/yum/anaconda-installationRepo-20091081904-x86_64/… matching remote checksum from anaconda-installationRep-20091081904-x86_64/… .
Howover if I don’t modify the isolinux.cfg file to add the ks.cfg file (append initrd=initrd.img ks=cdrom:/ks.cfg ), then I don’t get any error while installing.
-Nirmal
it appears that anaconda will not handle the case that the cd/dvd is booted from a second usb-connected drive, and ill always attempt to find the kickstart file on the first drive.
greetings, eMBee
i am very happy to find your posting. after having spent all of yesterday trying to get revisor to rebuild images because the kickstart boot option was missing, until i gave up and found your details on how to fix an existing image instead. (then i discovered that revisor does not even support having a kickstart option in the menu that is not selected by default, meaning that manual editing of the isolinux file is the only option.)
now i am down to building the install image with isomaster and manual editing only.
thank you.
greetings, eMBee.