LiveCD, Create your own
PCLinuxOS has a tool called mylivecd which can be used to make an exact copy of your system in the form of an ISO image which can be used in the same way as the PCLinuxOS installation media. You can use an imaging program like ddcopy or K3B to create a liveCD/USB which you can install back to the same machine or another one. To keep the size of the image reasonable you may exclude specific files or directories (Videos, Music etc.) With /home on a separate partition, you can reinstall and keep all your settings and desktop tweaks. Your data partitions remain untouched provided that you only format the / (root) partition during reinstall.
If not already installed on your system then search in Synaptic for mylivecd. You will also need to have the draklive-install package installed. The mylivecd tool is a command-line program which needs to be run as root so you will need to open a root terminal (or a normal terminal and then execute the su command) to reach a root prompt. Then you just need 2 commands to create your remastered ISO:
umount -a mylivecd myimage.iso
The first command unmounts all your other drives and partitions leaving just your root (/) and home (/home) partition mounted. The second command starts the process of creating the ISO. In this example the final ISO image will be called myimage.iso but you can call it anything you wish.
[root@localhost terry]# mylivecd myimage.iso
mylivecd, version 0.9.10, http://pclinuxos.com/
Copyright (C) 2016, Texstar <texstar at gmail.com>
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
Disabling Services not needed on the LiveCD
running: /sbin/chkconfig --list
running: chkconfig --del atd
running: /sbin/chkconfig --list
running: chkconfig --del cups
running: /sbin/chkconfig --list
running: chkconfig --del cups-browsed
running: /sbin/chkconfig --list
running: chkconfig --del crond
running: /sbin/chkconfig --list
running: chkconfig --del rsyslog
running: /sbin/chkconfig --list
running: chkconfig --del xinetd
running: /sbin/chkconfig --list
running: chkconfig --del haldaemon
running: /sbin/chkconfig --list
running: chkconfig --del vnstat
running: /sbin/chkconfig --list
Creating initrd: [100.00% 00:00:11/00:00:11]
Setting filesystem parameters: [100.00% 00:00:29/00:00:29]
Creating compressed image: [100.00% 00:03:48/00:03:48]
Creating isolinux boot: [100.00% 00:00:00/00:00:00]
Creating UEFI boot image: [100.00% 00:00:01/00:00:01]
Creating final iso: [100.00% 00:00:10/00:00:10]
Restoring Services on the installed system
running: chkconfig --add atd
running: chkconfig --add cups
running: chkconfig --add cups-browsed
running: chkconfig --add crond
running: chkconfig --add rsyslog
running: chkconfig --add xinetd
running: chkconfig --add haldaemon
running: chkconfig --add vnstat
Created 'myimage.iso' (1819,279,360 bytes) in 00:04:46
This example also executes mylivecd with all options defaulted. In practice you may wish to include some extra options. For example, to keep the size of the ISO image manageable you may wish to exclude some files or directories from the image in which case you would add the --nodir option. For example:
mylivecd --nodir=^/home/terry/Videos myimage.iso
would exclude the Videos directory from the image. For a full list of the available options you do:
mylivecd --help
A word on size: If you try to remaster too large an install, remastering will fail. Also, if you do not have enough free space in your root directory (/), remastering will fail. To determine the size of your install and the amount of free space available, open a terminal and do:
df
In the output, look under Used for the amount of space you have filled. The total for your root and home (plus any other system directories you have on a separate partition) should not exceed 60% of the free space you have in the root (/) filesystem. Most failures of mylivecd are caused by not having enough space to create the remaster.
For those who prefer to use a graphical user interface there is a package called mylivegtk which provides a graphical front-end to the mylivecd command. Search in Synaptic for mylivegtk to install the application and it's dependencies. Once installed you will find it on the main menu under Archiving->MyLiveGTK
Here you can set any desired options and then click Go! to run the mylivecd command.
More on forum, section "LiveCD, MyliveCD, LiveUSB and Remastering"
