# Making a live CD off an installation.

## dE_logics

My objective is to bring a generic installed Gentoo (with all possible drivers) on the Live DVD (or even DL one) AND copy the squashfs image off the live CD to another system to make a desktop very much identical to the one on the Live CD (of course after being copied, fstab and GRUB has to be configured).

So what I have to do is install my desired Gentoo, emerge livecd-tools (and not to remove anything as stated here), configure grub with some options that I don't know about.... and that's about it? Then make a bootable image off it?

Hard to believe. I thought some init scripts should be added to the runlevels... mostly that of from livecd-tools, a few GRUB things had to be done to things outside the squash filesystem, configuring aufs etc... but none of them happened.

So final question is am I on the right track? And is there any OS independent method to make a live CD?

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## dE_logics

Ok, so I can make a bootable disk using GRUB... but then how do I boot using the squashFS image?

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## xaviermiller

With this: http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Build_Your_Own_LiveCD_or_LiveDVD ?

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## dE_logics

Ok, I successfully made a live DVD using the squashfs image in the Live Sabayon DVD... then I tried to do the same with an installed Ubuntu, but it never worked out. It said give up waiting for root device.

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## xaviermiller

The initramfs must be able to wait until all needed devices are up (root_wait or so in Gentoo)

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## dE_logics

rootdelay=x?

I don't think it'll work. It waited for a minute before declaring that message.

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## dE_logics

These are the boot time options that I've set - 

```

default 0

timeout 30

title=LiveCD

        kernel /boot/vmlinuz real_root=/dev/loop0 looptype=squashfs loop=/image.squashfs udev nodevfs cdroot dodmraid 

        initrd /boot/initrd
```

Almost all these options are not supported by the vanilla kernel (http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt)... these are gentoo-sources specific option. I need a method which's very Generic.

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