Create Fedora Live Image with all your custom settings

[Sreyan Chakravarty]

Hi,

I use live environments for taking and restoring my root snapshots.
But everytime, I boot into a live environment I have to turn off the
bluetooth, set tap to click for my touchpad and adjust the terminal
fonts, etc.

It is way too repetitive, and I want to know if there is any way I can
turn an installation into a live image that I can boot from.

For example, I open a VM and make all my changes, and then use that as
my live image.

I have gone through the tutorials for creating live images, but they
all create the image from pre-defined kickstart files without any
changes to it.

Any way I can turn my installation into a live image ?

[Anthony F McInerney]

https://weldr.io/lorax/
There are various ways of customising the media.
Do you need it from boot or login?
Ansible might be just what you are looking for.

On Fri, 18 Dec 2020 at 13:53, Sreyan Chakravarty  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I use live environments for taking and restoring my root snapshots.
> But everytime, I boot into a live environment I have to turn off the
> bluetooth, set tap to click for my touchpad and adjust the terminal
> fonts, etc.
>
> It is way too repetitive, and I want to know if there is any way I can
> turn an installation into a live image that I can boot from.
>
> For example, I open a VM and make all my changes, and then use that as
> my live image.
>
> I have gone through the tutorials for creating live images, but they
> all create the image from pre-defined kickstart files without any
> changes to it.
>
> Any way I can turn my installation into a live image ?
>
> --
> Regards,
> Sreyan Chakravarty
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[Sreyan Chakravarty]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 7:30 PM Anthony F McInerney  wrote:
> https://weldr.io/lorax/
> There are various ways of customising the media.
> Do you need it from boot or login?
> Ansible might be just what you are looking for.

I need to boot from it, but I need it to contain all my settings.

[Anthony F McInerney]

On Fri, 18 Dec 2020 at 13:53, Sreyan Chakravarty  wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I use live environments for taking and restoring my root snapshots.
> But everytime, I boot into a live environment I have to turn off the
> bluetooth, set tap to click for my touchpad and adjust the terminal
> fonts, etc.
>
> It is way too repetitive, and I want to know if there is any way I can
> turn an installation into a live image that I can boot from.
>
> For example, I open a VM and make all my changes, and then use that as
> my live image.
>
> I have gone through the tutorials for creating live images, but they
> all create the image from pre-defined kickstart files without any
> changes to it.
>
> Any way I can turn my installation into a live image ?

Apologies for the previous top post. Just to add, you might consider the
settings you want that are delivered via existing in /home and configured
by defaults or settings outside home.  Home settings are best defined by
changing the system defaults, therefore new users get all the correct
settings you want.
If you just want your user to appear as you require, making home available
on a usb stick or other various mount options might be your best bet.

[Sreyan Chakravarty]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 7:33 PM Anthony F McInerney  wrote:
> Apologies for the previous top post. Just to add, you might consider the settings you want that are delivered via existing in /home and configured by defaults or settings outside home.  Home settings are best defined by changing the system defaults, therefore new users get all the correct settings you want.
> If you just want your user to appear as you require, making home available on a usb stick or other various mount options might be your best bet.

How do I make the home available on my image ?

[Anthony F McInerney]

On Fri, 18 Dec 2020 at 14:05, Sreyan Chakravarty  wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 7:33 PM Anthony F McInerney 
> wrote:
> > Apologies for the previous top post. Just to add, you might consider the
>
> settings you want that are delivered via existing in /home and configured
> by defaults or settings outside home.  Home settings are best defined by
> changing the system defaults, therefore new users get all the correct
> settings you want.
> > If you just want your user to appear as you require, making home
>
> available on a usb stick or other various mount options might be your best
> bet.
>
> How do I make the home available on my image ?

https://pagure.io/fedora-kickstarts/blame/fedora-live-workstation.ks?identif...

If you look at the main workstation ks you can see the customisations for
the 'liveuser' . You would need to customise the kickstart that you use at
the moment as your live image to include your required settings.

[Sreyan Chakravarty]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 7:45 PM Anthony F McInerney  wrote:
> https://pagure.io/fedora-kickstarts/blame/fedora-live-workstation.ks?identif...
>
> If you look at the main workstation ks you can see the customisations for the 'liveuser' . You would need to customise the kickstart that you use at the moment as your live image to include your required settings.

I am not sure what you are referring to.
I did not find any part related to customization.

[Sreyan Chakravarty]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 7:45 PM Anthony F McInerney  wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Dec 2020 at 14:05, Sreyan Chakravarty  wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 7:33 PM Anthony F McInerney  wrote:
> > > Apologies for the previous top post. Just to add, you might consider the settings you want that are delivered via existing in /home and configured by defaults or settings outside home.  Home settings are best defined by changing the system defaults, therefore new users get all the correct settings you want.
> > > If you just want your user to appear as you require, making home available on a usb stick or other various mount options might be your best bet.
> >
> > How do I make the home available on my image ?
>
> https://pagure.io/fedora-kickstarts/blame/fedora-live-workstation.ks?identif...
>
> If you look at the main workstation ks you can see the customisations for the 'liveuser' . You would need to customise the kickstart that you use at the moment as your live image to include your required settings.

Is there any way to add external files to kickstarts ?

[Michael Watters]

A live CD image with autofs and an NFS mounted home directory might be a
good option or you could mount your home via USB.

On 12/18/2020 9:05 AM, Sreyan Chakravarty wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 7:33 PM Anthony F McInerney  wrote:
> > Apologies for the previous top post. Just to add, you might consider the settings you want that are delivered via existing in /home and configured by defaults or settings outside home.  Home settings are best defined by changing the system defaults, therefore new users get all the correct settings you want.
> > If you just want your user to appear as you require, making home available on a usb stick or other various mount options might be your best bet.
>
> How do I make the home available on my image ?

[Sreyan Chakravarty]

On Sat, Dec 19, 2020 at 1:23 AM Michael Watters  wrote:
> A live CD image with autofs and an NFS mounted home directory might be a
> good option or you could mount your home via USB.
>
> On 12/18/2020 9:05 AM, Sreyan Chakravarty wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 7:33 PM Anthony F McInerney  wrote:
> > > Apologies for the previous top post. Just to add, you might consider the settings you want that are delivered via existing in /home and configured by defaults or settings outside home.  Home settings are best defined by changing the system defaults, therefore new users get all the correct settings you want.
> > > If you just want your user to appear as you require, making home available on a usb stick or other various mount options might be your best bet.
> >
> > How do I make the home available on my image ?

Does anyone know how to set the password in a kickstart for live-user ?

[Samuel Sieb]

On 12/22/20 3:18 AM, Sreyan Chakravarty wrote:
> Does anyone know how to set the password in a kickstart for live-user ?

Have you tried looking at the kickstarts for the existing live images? 
Check the "fedora-kickstarts" package.

[Matthew Miller]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 07:23:10PM +0530, Sreyan Chakravarty wrote:
> I use live environments for taking and restoring my root snapshots.
> But everytime, I boot into a live environment I have to turn off the
> bluetooth, set tap to click for my touchpad and adjust the terminal
> fonts, etc.

It is possible to create a Live USB with a persistant overlay so changes are
preserved. It's also a good idea to have a separate /home when doing this,
so that changes to your home directory don't take up space in the overlay.

We recently had a thread on the Fedora Devel list about exactly this. See
instructions in this message in that thread:

https://lists.fedoraproject.org/archives/list/[e-mail]/...

[Samuel Sieb]

On 12/18/20 5:53 AM, Sreyan Chakravarty wrote:
> I use live environments for taking and restoring my root snapshots.
> But everytime, I boot into a live environment I have to turn off the
> bluetooth, set tap to click for my touchpad and adjust the terminal
> fonts, etc.
>
> It is way too repetitive, and I want to know if there is any way I can
> turn an installation into a live image that I can boot from.

There is the already described option of creating the live USB with an 
overlay and a home directory.  There are some limitations with that, 
like running out of overlay space and not being able to update the kernel.
> For example, I open a VM and make all my changes, and then use that as
> my live image.

If your VM is smaller than the USB drive, you could write the VM image 
to the USB drive (after converting from qcow2 to raw) and that should 
work.  You can resize the partition to fill the drive after.
> I have gone through the tutorials for creating live images, but they
> all create the image from pre-defined kickstart files without any
> changes to it.
>
> Any way I can turn my installation into a live image ?

If you really want to use an existing install, you could create the 
partitions on the flash drive and copy the files from the other install 
onto it.  You'll have to update the fstab and fix the booting to make it 
work.

The possibly easier method is to just do an install directly to the 
flash drive.  Then it's a normal Fedora install that you can customize 
as you want.  You could do updates and even full version upgrades on it.

[Michael Hennebry]

On Sat, 19 Dec 2020, Samuel Sieb wrote:
> The possibly easier method is to just do an install directly to the flash 
> drive.  Then it's a normal Fedora install that you can customize as you want. 
> You could do updates and even full version upgrades on it.

I've got an SD card in an SD card reader.
I never could get persistent overlays to work.
I could do a normal install and boot from it.

[Chris Murphy]

On Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 9:09 AM Michael Hennebry <
[e-mail]> wrote:
> On Sat, 19 Dec 2020, Samuel Sieb wrote:
> > The possibly easier method is to just do an install directly to the
>
> flash
> > drive.  Then it's a normal Fedora install that you can customize as you
>
> want.
> > You could do updates and even full version upgrades on it.
>
> I've got an SD card in an SD card reader.
> I never could get persistent overlays to work.
> I could do a normal install and boot from it.

livecd-tools can do this.

# livecd-iso-to-disk --noverify --format --efi --reset-mbr --overlayfs
--overlay-size-mb 4095 --home-size-mb 4095 --unencrypted-home
/mnt/libvimages/Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-33-1.2.iso /dev/sdX

It will boot UEFI or BIOS. The backing files are limited to 4G because FAT
because UEFI.

Another option is btrfs seeding.
https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Seed-device

The seed is read only. Sprout is read-write, for persistence. All changes
go to the sprout. A reset means wiping the sprout. Removing the seed device
results in replication, i.e. seed is copied to the sprout. Copy is at the
block group level, so compressed extents are not decompressed. Makes for
faster replication.

--
Chris Murphy
>

[Michael Hennebry]

On Mon, 21 Dec 2020, Chris Murphy wrote:
> On Sun, Dec 20, 2020, 9:09 AM Michael Hennebry <
> [e-mail]> wrote:
> > I've got an SD card in an SD card reader.
> > I never could get persistent overlays to work.
> > I could do a normal install and boot from it.
>
> livecd-tools can do this.
>
> # livecd-iso-to-disk --noverify --format --efi --reset-mbr --overlayfs
> --overlay-size-mb 4095 --home-size-mb 4095 --unencrypted-home
> /mnt/libvimages/Fedora-Workstation-Live-x86_64-33-1.2.iso /dev/sdX

I no longer remember what technique I used.
Just that I followed directions and got
no error messages until I tried to use it.
Given the ability to do an actual install to SD,
pursuing it seems not worth much time.