- Selecting Packages
- Creating the Distribution
- Editing the Boot Disk
- Customizing Anaconda
- Creating the Kickstart
- Making the ISOs
In order to have the CDs bootable, we need to have a boot disk image. For RHEL 4, these files are located in the isolinux/ directory on the first RHEL CD.
We modified the isolinux.cfg file so that the default option was a ResNet/DHCP network configuration kickstart file, and we also added an option for an install not pre-configured for netw ork use. For information on creating the kickstart files, see "Creating the Kickstart".
default R
prompt 1
timeout 600
display boot.msg
F1 boot.msg
F2 options.msg
F3 param.msg
F4 rescue.msg
F5 help.msg
label linux
kernel vmlinuz
append initrd=initrd.img
label R
kernel vmlinuz
append ks=cdrom:/dhcp.ks.cfg initrd=initrd.img
label other
kernel vmlinuz
append ks=cdrom:/ppp.ks.cfg initrd=initrd.img
We also modified the various message files to reflect UB specific information, including the help.msg file. Finally, we modified the splash.lss file so that we have a nice pretty UB graphic in place of the RedHat graphic.
The graphic is in a somewhat odd format, called LSS16. As the name indicates, it is limited to 16 colors. To edit the graphic, first convert it to a PPM:
lss16toppm < splash.lss > splash.ppm
Next, edit the file using The Gimp. Save the resulting file as an indexed gif with no more than 14 colors (plus black and white, for a total of 16). Then, convert the file to a pnm/ppm:
giftopnm < splash.gif > splash.ppm
Before taking the next step and converting the ppm file to an LSS, ensure that the LANG environment variable is set to en_US. RedHat 9's default LANG variable is en_US.UTF-8, which will cause the LSS conversion to fail. To actually convert the ppm to a n lss, use this command:
ppmtolss16 < splash.ppm > splash.lss
A note on the .msg files: These are the message files displayed when the appropriate key (as indicated in the isolinux.cfg file) is pressed. The color codes in these files refer to the index of the graphic contained in splash.lss.
With the bootdisk image finished, we moved onto "Customizing Anaconda".
Send Questions and comments to ublinux-support@buffalo.edu.
Last Modified 8/25/05