How to make a custom installcd from scratch?

fpemud · Guru Joined: 15 Feb 2012 Posts: 349

What I have done:
1. read the RelEng project wiki.
2. downloaded https://gitweb.gentoo.org/proj/releng.git
3. installed dev-util/catalyst.
4. I guess I should use the following files:
./specs/amd64/stage4-nomultilib-minimal.spec
./specs/amd64/installcd-stage2-minimal.spec
./specs/amd64/stage4-minimal.spec

What's should I do next?
I'd like to build the original minimal installation CD as my first step.

duane · Posted: Wed Jun 09, 2021 12:02 am Post subject:

When I made a personal gentoo iso, I took the easy route. I installed gentoo to a subdirectory, then I used grub-mkrescue to create an iso out of it that would run on thumb drive or dvd. When I wanted to update it, I just had to update the spare gentoo installation and remake the iso. I wanted a read-only, emergency disc, with all of my favorite programs and desktop environment on it.

However, it's a lot easier for me to just use archiso. I don't use my emergency disc very often, so spending a lot of time compiling it was a waste. With arch, I can easily rebuild the whole thing from binaries in under an hour. Also, my arch installation is a lot smaller than my gentoo installation since there's no need for all the build tools. That leaves room for games.

Edit: The one thing my gentoo iso did, that arch won't do, is boot on a 32-bit processor. However, the only x86 system that I had to maintain was decommissioned recently, so that's no longer an issue.

NetTrodon · n00b Joined: 12 Dec 2004 Posts: 19

I just have got my first Install CD with catalyst, I just did:

1. emerge --sync

2. USE="system-bootloader iso" emerge dev-util/catalyst

3. Downloaded https://gitweb.gentoo.org/proj/releng.git

4. Made a copy of installcd-stage1.spec and installcd-stage2-minimal.spec

5. Modified installcd-stage1.spec and installcd-stage2-minimal.spec

Changed @TIMESTAMP@ to 2021.06.24
Changed @REPO_DIR@ to /root/releng-master

6. I downloaded the Stage 3 seed tarbal and made a repository snaphost according to Gentoo Wiki (https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Catalyst)

7. catalyst -f installcd-stage1.spec

And waited around 13 hours of compiling, my server is low-end

8. catalyst -f installcd-stage2-minimal.spec

And waited around 3 hours of compiling, the iso was now ready

Right now I will test the ISO with an USB Drive.

UPDATE:

The ISO is working fine.