[ale] debirf [was: Re: Custom bootable CD or DVD]

[Daniel Kahn Gillmor]

It's not clear to me whether your requirements include that the CD
must remain in the drive after boot or not.

If that's not a requirement, debirf (disclaimer: i'm half of upstream
on debirf) is good for making stock debian images that run entirely
From RAM (and can be loaded from a CD):

 http://cmrg.fifthhorseman.net/wiki/debirf

debirf provides a framework for making a customized image (kernel +
initramfs), and that image can then be burned to a CD or run via
netboot or just stashed in /boot as a rescue image or whatever.  Once
the image is running, you can remove the CD, or take the machine off
the network or whatever, and all is good.

The only downside to the debirf approach is that it requires a bit
more RAM, since the entire filesystem is held in memory.  But RAM is
cheap these days, right?  The minimal image will work on a machine
with 256MB of RAM, and it doesn't require much more than that to get
to a simple graphical environment (i haven't tested the load
requirements in a several months).

Running from memory is significantly faster than running from a CD,
fwiw, though the CD itself will eventually be mostly cached by the
kernel.  Your users will most likely appreciate the improved
responsiveness if you have enough RAM.

Regards,

        --dkg

PS for other ale users who run (and are comfortable with) debian, i
find debirf invaluable in recovery situations.  I have a small kernel
and initramfs stashed in /boot and pointed to from grub's menu.lst on
most of my systems.  debirf was inspired by Kent Robotti's RIP
(Recovery is Possible) Linux.  Having it available means that if
there's ever a serious disk problem, i have the flexibility of a
full-fledged debian OS running from RAM at my disposal.  Since no
disks are mounted, i have the complete run of the machine to
modify whatever i need to modify.
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