Fedora 9.. Remastered

I needed to modify a package supplied by Fedora 9 DVD and make a DVD of my own. Creating a new iso Image out of source files is called remastering.

Now let me explain how can you do it too!

1. Modifying the required package.

Install the Source Rpm (SRPM) of the required package using yum-install. Once you do that, the Source Packages will be installed in /usr/src/redhat. There you’ll see folders such as SOURCES, SPECS, BUILD, etc.

Now, go to the source folder. You’ll see a lot of configuration files, a Source tar ball etc. Make whatever change you want. I’ll wait.

Now, once that is done, go to the SPECS folder. You’ll find a file called <package_name>.spec. That is the RPM specification file which describes how the RPM should be built. Build binaries by using rpmbuild -bb <spec_file> ( -bb stands for build binary). This should build the RPM file. If everything goes well, you’see a  new shiny RPM file waiting for you.

2. Build the DVD iso image

Now, once the RPM file is ready, lets include it in our own remastered ISO. Its not at all simple. You have to make sure you get the bootrecord burnt properly. This requires that you remember numerous lengthy parameters to pass to mkisofs and genisoimage. Scary right ? Not so. Enter jigdo. If you looked at the link, I’m sure you’d be thinking ‘How the heck is a download manager going to help me create an ISO image. Crazy ?’. The same thing came to my mind when I came across jigdo for the first time. (If you don’t have it, go ahead and do a yum install )

Now, the interesting part – using jigdo to create our ISO image. Mount the original ISO through a loopback device. Copy all the contents into a separate directory. Find the directory called Packages and copy our newly created RPM into it overwriting the existing one. You need to get a jigdo file for your distro first. Fedora users, here’s one for a Fedora 9 DVD.

Now run a command called jigdo-lite. It will ask you a couple of questions on where your jigdo file is and where your DVD package directory is. Once you are done with this, wait and watch as jigdo-lite magically creates a new Fedora DVD ISO image! You need to have a working Internet connection active as jigdo-lite will attempt to download a Template File for the DVD ISO image.

It was fun! Wasn’t it ?