Notes on remastering an Ubuntu CD

Why would you want to do this?

I want to take the Hoary CD, remove all the graphical stuff, install a preseed ("answers") file for the installer, add some components from universe, and have a nice neat firewall-on-a-CD.

Procedure

Copy the CD to your hard drive. Important: Remember there is a folder called .disk in the root of the CD, which you will miss copying if you use 'cp /cdrom/*', as bash(1) will expand it without the dotfile.

Changing the logo

You can replace the splash screen (in isolinux/) with a LSS-format file; the best way is to start with a GIF and read the syslinux splash screen HOWTO.

Create a preseed file

Start at the Ubuntu Installation Guide for how to preseed your install.

Ask less questions at the installer phase

In the isolinux.cfg file in isolinux/, add a line somewhat like

LABEL firewall
  kernel /install/vmlinuz
  append preseed/file=/cdrom/preseed/firewall.seed preseed/locale=en_NZ kbd-chooser/method=us vga=normal initrd=/install/initrd.gz ramdisk_size=12288 root=/dev/rd/0 rw --

Threee important additions tell debian-installer how to behave:

preseed/file=/cdrom/preseed/firewall.seed

Load debconf information from this seed file

preseed/locale=en_NZ

Specify language and country

kbd-chooser/method=us

Specify keyboard mapping (note - this is different in Ubuntu to what's published about sarge)