A good way would be making a live CD from a current installation. This can be done using a virtual machine (just don't install any VM tools inside the guest OS)
So, first we need a fresh install(if you can't install it for real, try using a virtual machine) with only things that you need (in your case thunderbird, samba and ssh). Then we tweak the system and record where the tweaks are (e.g. you change your desktop background, the settings are in ~/.gconf or you add firefox shortcuts, they are located in ~/Desktop). This is needed for step 4.
Set up some variables:
export WORK=~/temp
export CD=~/livecd
export FORMAT=squashfs
export FS_DIR=casper
Replace ~/temp with a path to a temporary
directory in which we will work in.
Replace ~/livecd with a path to the
CD tree.
Make the folder structure. sudo mkdir -p ${CD}/{${FS_DIR},boot/grub} ${WORK}/rootfs
Now we will need to install some packages:
sudo apt-get install grub2 xorriso squashfs-tools
Now we will copy the current installation, modify the exclude flags to fit your needs:
sudo rsync -av --one-file-system --exclude=/proc/* --exclude=/dev/* \
--exclude=/sys/* --exclude=/tmp/* --exclude=/home/* --exclude=/lost+found \
--exclude=/var/tmp/* --exclude=/boot/grub/* --exclude=/root/* \
--exclude=/var/mail/* --exclude=/var/spool/* --exclude=${WORK}/rootfs \
--exclude=/etc/fstab --exclude=/etc/mtab --exclude=/etc/hosts \
--exclude=/etc/timezone --exclude=/etc/shadow* --exclude=/etc/gshadow* \
--exclude=/etc/X11/xorg.conf* --exclude=/etc/gdm/custom.conf \
/ ${WORK}/rootfs
If you have a separate boot partition, execute this: sudo cp -av /boot/* ${WORK}/rootfs/boot
In your case, you want to copy settings and some files from the home directory. First, define what directories we want to copy:
CONFIG='.config .gconf Desktop someotherfolder andanotherfolder'
And now we copy that:
cd ~ && for i in $CONFIG
do
sudo cp -rpv --parents $i ${WORK}/rootfs/etc/skel
done
Now we chroot into the new system and modify it.
sudo mount --bind /dev/ ${WORK}/rootfs/dev
sudo mount -t proc proc ${WORK}/rootfs/proc
sudo mount -t sysfs sysfs ${WORK}/rootfs/sys
sudo mount -t devpts devpts ${WORK}/rootfs/dev/pts
sudo chroot ${WORK}/rootfs /bin/bash
The next commands are done in chroot:
LANG=
apt-get update
apt-get install casper
Casper contains live scripts.
If you want an installer too, run this:
apt-get install ubiquity ubiquity-frontend-gtk
Or if you want KDE:
apt-get install ubiquity ubiquity-frontend-kde
Update modules.dep and initramfs:
depmod -a $(uname -r)
update-initramfs -u -k $(uname -r)
Remove non-system users - do not worry, we have copied the settings and data into the "skeleton" of users. That means all new users will have them.
for i in `cat /etc/passwd | awk -F":" '{print $1}'`
do
uid=`cat /etc/passwd | grep "^${i}:" | awk -F":" '{print $3}'`
[ "$uid" -gt "999" -a "$uid" -ne "65534" ] && userdel --force ${i} 2>/dev/null
done
Clean up:
apt-get clean
find /var/log -regex '.*?[0-9].*?' -exec rm -v {} \;
find /var/log -type f | while read file
do
cat /dev/null | tee $file
done
rm /etc/resolv.conf /etc/hostname
Exit chroot. exit
Now, we copy the kernel:
export kversion=`cd ${WORK}/rootfs/boot && ls -1 vmlinuz-* | tail -1 | sed 's@vmlinuz-@@'`
sudo cp -vp ${WORK}/rootfs/boot/vmlinuz-${kversion} ${CD}/boot/vmlinuz
sudo cp -vp ${WORK}/rootfs/boot/initrd.img-${kversion} ${CD}/boot/initrd.img
sudo cp -vp ${WORK}/rootfs/boot/memtest86+.bin ${CD}/boot
If you have installed the installer, you will need to do this, so that the installer doesn't install things like casper:
sudo chroot ${WORK}/rootfs dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Package} ${Version}\n' | sudo tee ${CD}/${FS_DIR}/filesystem.manifest
sudo cp -v ${CD}/${FS_DIR}/filesystem.manifest{,-desktop}
REMOVE='ubiquity casper user-setup os-prober libdebian-installer4'
for i in $REMOVE
do
sudo sed -i "/${i}/d" ${CD}/${FS_DIR}/filesystem.manifest-desktop
done
Unmount what we have mounted:
sudo umount ${WORK}/rootfs/proc
sudo umount ${WORK}/rootfs/sys
sudo umount ${WORK}/rootfs/dev/pts
sudo umount ${WORK}/rootfs/dev
Convert to squashfs:
sudo mksquashfs ${WORK}/rootfs ${CD}/${FS_DIR}/filesystem.${FORMAT}
Make filesystem.size:
echo -n $(sudo du -s --block-size=1 ${WORK}/rootfs | tail -1 | awk '{print $1}') | sudo tee ${CD}/casper/filesystem.size
And md5: find ${CD} -type f -print0 | xargs -0 md5sum | sed "s@${CD}@.@" | grep -v md5sum.txt |sudo tee ${CD}/md5sum.txt
Now grub.cfg:
sudo nano ${CD}/boot/grub/grub.cfg
(replace nano with your fav text editor, it doesn't matter)
Paste this and save:
set default="0"
set timeout=10
menuentry "Ubuntu GUI" {
linux /boot/vmlinuz boot=casper quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry "Ubuntu in safe mode" {
linux /boot/vmlinuz boot=casper xforcevesa quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry "Ubuntu CLI" {
linux /boot/vmlinuz boot=casper textonly quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry "Ubuntu GUI persistent mode" {
linux /boot/vmlinuz boot=casper boot=casper persistent quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry "Ubuntu GUI from RAM" {
linux /boot/vmlinuz boot=casper nopersistent toram quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry "Check Disk for Defects" {
linux /boot/vmlinuz boot=casper integrity-check quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry "Memory Test" {
linux16 /boot/memtest86+.bin
}
menuentry "Boot from the first hard disk" {
set root=(hd0)
chainloader +1
}
If you want, you can add an additional menu entry, which allows you to jump straight into Ubiquity.
menuentry "Install Ubuntu" {
linux /boot/vmlinuz boot=casper only-ubiquity quiet splash
initrd /boot/initrd.img
}
Make the CD/DVD!
sudo grub-mkrescue -o ~/live-cd.iso ${CD}
Test it using a virtual machine!
