Sunday, May 10, 2009

Create Multi Live Linux Distro in single CD/DVD

After googling around for few days i found this useful script from www.multicd.tuxfamily.org. Multicd.sh is a shell script written by maybeway36 which enables two or more Live Linux distros / utilities to be able to boot from single CD/DVD. It is really very simple to create multi Live Linux distro in a single disc. Create a folder in your home folder (Places--> Home folder) and name it as multicd. Put all the live Linux iso images along with multicd.sh script inside multicd folder. Close the window. Open terminal (Application -->> Accessories -->> Terminal)
and give the following commands

cd multicd
chmod +x multicd*.sh
sudo ./multicd*.sh

Above commands will execute multicd.sh. While executing, this script will download few packages from Internet and make a new iso image called multicd.iso for you inside multicd folder. Check the size of multicd.iso image file. If it exceeds more than 700 mb then you must insert DVD to write it. Choose burn image option from your favorite image burning software to write multicd.iso file. Upon reboot, with the CD/DVD present inside CD/DVD drive, new GRUB will display list of live distros available in the disc. Choose your favorite one to login...

Note: When you download any Linux iso image from internet it will look like this "ubuntu-9.04-desktop-i386" but this has to be renamed as ubuntu.iso (inside multicd folder). Presently this script supports 20 live distros. List of Live Linux distros supported in this script are given below (and the names accepted by this script are on the right side of each distro).

Ubuntu Live CD → ubuntu.iso
Linux Mint → linuxmint.iso (cannot be on the same DVD as Ubuntu)
Knoppix → knoppix.iso (Versions 5 and 6 supported. If you use the DVD version, KNOPPIX2 will be dropped. You can also use the 5.3.1 Japanese Edition if you prefer KDE.)
-customized-
Debian Live → binary.iso
-compilation-
Ultimate Boot CD → ubcd.iso
-very small-
DSL → dsl.iso
Tiny Core Linux → tinycore.iso
Puppy → puppy.iso
Feather → feather.iso
SliTaz → slitaz.iso
Austrumi → al.iso
GeeXboX → gbox.iso
-rather small-
Slax → slax.iso
Slax modules → *.lzm
DeLi Linux → deli.iso
TinyMe → timyme.iso
anitX → antix.iso
Wolvix → wolvix.iso
-partitoning and specialized-
RIPLinuX → riplinux.iso
SystemRescueCd → sysrcd.iso
Trinity Rescue Kit → trk.iso
Parted Magic → pmagic.iso
GParted Live → gparted.iso (can't be on same CD as Debian Live)
Offline NT Password & Registry Editor → ntpasswd.iso
EASEUS Disk Copy → diskcopy.iso
Clonezilla → clonezilla.iso
PING → ping.iso
-installers-
NetbootCD → netbootcd.iso
(versions 2.x and 3.x supported) Ubuntu (hardy or intrepid) mini.iso → ubuntu-mini.iso
Debian (etch, lenny or sid) mini.iso → debian-mini.iso
Fedora 9 netinst → fedora-boot.iso
openSUSE NET iso → opensuse.iso
Mandriva boot.iso → mandriva-boot.iso
Arch Linux FTP or CORE → arch.iso
FreeDOS base or full CD → fdbasecd.iso/fdfullcd.iso
-utilities-
Any floppy disk image → *.img or *.imz (could be Super Grub Disk, MS-DOS, etc.)
Any floppy disk image → games/*.img or games/*.imz (for bootable DOS disk images with games, like this one)
GRUB4DOS grub.exe → grub.exe
DBAN iso image → dban.iso
Balder (FreeDOS) → automatic
Memtest86+ → automatic

Any doubt and queries contact author through this mail id maybeway36@gmail.com (he does reply) and participate in this ubuntuforums thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1071869

2 comments:

  1. This is fantastic. Sadly, a person has to do a bit of searching to find this.

    Thanks for the post!

    ReplyDelete
  2. If I have both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Ubuntu, they both get named the same thing? I just want to keep the latest LTS version on a live flash (currently 14.04LTS), but I want to be able to choose between x86 and x64 .iso's in case I'm servicing an old PC, or if the user prefers 32-bit for compatibility issues.

    ReplyDelete