[Fedora-livecd-list] livecd-creator problems/questions

[Chris Hubick]

Hi,

I am having some problems with livecd-creator...

I am running from a Fedora 7.91 Desktop Live CD, and attempting to use a
kickstart file to generate a custom LiveCD (DVD) onto my USB hard drive:

cd /media/CHWData/chwlive/
mkdir tmp
livecd-creator --config=/media/CHWData/chwlive/chwlive.ks --fslabel=CHWLive --tmpdir=/media/CHWData/chwlive/tmp

1) Note that if the path to the tmpdir is too long, /sbin/losetup -a will
truncate the path in it's output, and livecd-creator will fail (after
tweaking, mine above is *just* short enough).

2) I want a pure x86_64 system with no multilib.  It took me some time to
figure out to include --exclude=*.i?86 on the repo line in my kickstart
file.  Is that the best way to do this?

3) Is there any way to find out the final list of packages for a kickstart
file after dependency resolution against a given set of repositories?

I keep tweaking my kickstart file to get things to fit within the required
size, but somehow I mistakenly add a package with a million dependencies
I didn't know about, and livecd-creator then goes to download them all.
It would be nice if there were an option, or separate tool, to print a
list of packages for approval first, or at least a summary and size?

4) How do I build a LiveCD based on a specific (stableish) test release
(7.91)?  Given two repos:

repo --exclude=*.i?86 --name=f8t2 --baseurl=http://fedora.mirror.iweb.ca/development/x86_64/os/
repo --exclude=*.i?86 --name=f8t2 --baseurl=http://fedora.mirror.iweb.ca/releases/test/7.91/Fedora/x86_64/os/

The first one will work, but the second will fail, because the release
folder doesn't contain all the same packages (ie, rdesktop) (why)?

5) /usr/share/livecd-tools/livecd-fedora-desktop.ks has a directive:
%include livecd-fedora-base-desktop.ks

Where is that include file located?  With the Fedora 7 setup examples,
everything is in the one kickstart file, and easy to reference, but I have
no idea how to find that information now?

6) How do I customize what user is created, auto-login, etc?  That used to
be in the bottom of the kickstart as well, but is gone now?

7) Is there any easy way to tell what is being downloaded and how fast?
As it stands now, I have to browse into the tmpdir with Nautilus and
watch.

8) I waited hours while it downloaded my packages, and then finally I came
back to see this error:

tune2fs 1.40.2 (12-Jul-2007)
Setting maximal mount count to -1
Setting interval between checks to 0 seconds
No Repositories Available to Set Up
No Repositories Available to Set Up
Excluding Packages from None
Finished
Installation target uncompressed data size is 136 MB
umount: /media/CHWData/chwlive/tmp/livecd-creator-DTaMtf/install_root:
device is busy
umount: /media/CHWData/chwlive/tmp/livecd-creator-DTaMtf/install_root:
device is busy
ioctl: LOOP_CLR_FD: Device or resource busy
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/livecd-creator", line 1341, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/usr/bin/livecd-creator", line 1315, in main
    target.install()
  File "/usr/bin/livecd-creator", line 849, in install
    self.installPackages()
  File "/usr/bin/livecd-creator", line 535, in installPackages
    self.ayum.runInstall()
  File "/usr/bin/livecd-creator", line 316, in runInstall
    return self.runTransaction(cb)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/yum/__init__.py", line 581, in
runTransaction
    raise Errors.YumBaseError, errors
yum.Errors.YumBaseError: [('installing package
gnome-power-manager-2.19.92-1.fc8 needs 6MB on the
/media/CHWData/chwlive/tmp/livecd-creator-DTaMtf/install_root filesystem',
(9, '/media/CHWData/chwlive/tmp/livecd-creator-DTaMtf/install_root',
5480448L)), ('installing package gnome-utils-2.19.92-1.fc8 needs 19MB on
the /media/CHWData/chwlive/tmp/livecd-creator-DTaMtf/install_root
filesystem',....

[...on and on and on with every package until a command prompt]

9) It deleted everything it downloaded!  Gah!  How do I stop this?

So If I want to try again after the above crash, I have to wait hours?  If
the final iso doesn't fit on my disc or SD card, I have to download
everything again for each attempt I want to make?  Do you see how much of
a problem this is when combined with the fact there is no way to tell how
large it's going to be ahead of time?  Can we make it so if you specify a
tmpdir, that it just reuses that directory directly, along with any
existing yum-cache, and doesn't delete it after?

Help much appreciated, thanks!!

---
Chris Hubick
mailto:chris at hubick.com
http://www.hubick.com/