Basics of Creating a LiveISO

Most of my guides relating to Creating a Custom LiveISO will follow this template, as such, I will just link back to this page in those articles and only put the relevant information in that article.

Definitely check out my section on Custom Grub Entries to boot LiveISO's from HD!

Pre-Req:

sudo apt-get install -y squashfs-tools

Example:

Copy iso to /tmp & rename live.iso

mkdir /tmp/mnt
sudo mount -o loop /tmp/live.iso /tmp/mnt
sudo find /tmp/mnt \( -name '*.squashfs' -o -name "*.SQFS" \) -exec unsquashfs -d /tmp/squashfs-root/ {} \;
sudo umount /tmp/mnt
sudo rm /tmp/mnt -R
cd /tmp/squashfs-root

This leaves you with:

/tmp/live.iso 
/tmp/squashfs-root/FilesFromSquashedFS

Make Changes….. (This is where the "other guides" fall)

Then:

cd /tmp
sudo mksquashfs /tmp/squashfs-root filesystem.squashfs
sudo rm /tmp/squashfs-root -R

This leaves you with:

/tmp/live.iso 
/tmp/filesystem.squashfs

Note: “filesystem.squashfs” may not be the output you need, make sure to name whatever original file inside ISO was.

Then use ISOMaster to remove old squashed FileSystem and insert new one. While some ISO’s come with ./mkiso scripts, I prefer ISO Master, as it keeps the original ISO file structure and is really easy to use. Hasn’t failed me yet!

LiveISO Related Programs: