rootninja

Download a Fedora 12 DVD image from a fedora mirror site on the official http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist” alt=”official fedora mirrors site”>Fedora Public Active Mirrors list.

example:

http://nas1.itc.virginia.edu/fedora/releases/12/Fedora/x86_64/iso/Fedora-12-x86_64-DVD.iso
http://nas1.itc.virginia.edu/fedora/releases/12/Fedora/x86_64/iso/Fedora-12-x86_64-CHECKSUM

When it’s done downloading, compare the checksum of your copy to the original.

$ sha1sum Fedora-12-x86_64-DVD.iso
c899659b8a7ceb8f005fc1a300b4e21c984a48fd7b8d8a332ed24bf8c3c479e8
$ grep “Fedora-12-x86_64-DVD.iso” Fedora-12-x86_64-CHECKSUM
c899659b8a7ceb8f005fc1a300b4e21c984a48fd7b8d8a332ed24bf8c3c479e8

Install it on a system with the packages you want to be installed on your custom DVD distribution. (install it on a virtual machine if you want)

/root/anaconda-ks.cfg is a kickstart based on your current installed system. Edit this file and if you need anything tweaked, choose the options you want here. You can also install the package “fedora-kickstarts” if you want a gui that helps you along the way with the building/editing of your kickstart file. The hand holding helped me a lot. (The package “spin-kickstarts” is also a bunch of kickstarts from the official Fedora Spins if you want to start from there)

Install isomaster

$ sudo yum install isomaster

Open Fedora-12-x86_64-DVD.iso in isomaster and copy /isolinux/isolinux.cfg to another directory, i’ll use /tmp/ for my example.

Edit /tmp/isolinux.cfg and add the following to the end of the line that begins with “append initrd” so it looks like this:

append initrd=initrd.img ks=cdrom:/anaconda-ks.cfg

Going back to isomaster — copy your “anaconda-ks.cfg” to the root directory of the image. (so that it’s at the same level as “media.repo”, “GPL”, and the isolinux directory).

Add your modified /tmp/isolinux.cfg to the image in place of the original (inside the isolinux directory)

Save your new image as Fedora-12-x86_64-rootninja-DVD.iso

Burn it to DVD.

*Done*

I use brasero, but you can use k3b, gnomebaker, or whatever — just make sure you burn the iso as an image, not as a file. You want the contents of the image on the disc, not a disc with the iso file by itself. You should have just rolled your eyes reading that because if you’re attempting this whole ball of wax, you already know how to burn a dvd, right?