Quickstart ========== Super Fast Quickstart --------------------- Building images with live-wrapper is quite simple. For the impatient: .. code-block:: shell sudo apt install live-wrapper sudo lwr This will build you a file named ``output.iso`` in the current directory containing a minimal live-image. .. warning:: Currently live-wrapper will create a lot of files and directories in the current working directory. There is a TODO item to move these to a temporary location and clean up afterwards, though this has not yet been fully implemented. You may want to use an empty directory to run ``lwr`` in. Customising the Image --------------------- There are a number of supported command-line arguments that can be passed to live-wrapper. These change the behaviour to create a customised image. Changing the Distribution ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By default, the ISO image will be built using the ``stable`` distribution. If you'd like to build using ``testing`` or ``unstable`` you can pass the ``-d`` parameter to live-wrapper like so: .. code-block:: shell sudo lwr -d testing Using an Alternative Mirror ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ By default, ``vmdebootstrap`` will use the mirror configured in your ``/etc/apt/sources.list``. If you have a faster mirror available, you may want to change the mirror you're using to create the image. You can do this with the ``-m`` parameter: .. code-block:: shell sudo lwr -m http://localhost/debian/ Customising Packages ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are two methods of specifying extra packages to be installed into the live image: the ``-t`` and the ``-e`` paramaters. The difference between these two parameters is that the list of tasks given to ``-e`` is passed to ``debootstrap`` for installation as part of the initial root filesystem creation, whereas the packages passed to ``-t`` are installed as part of the ``vmdebootstrap`` hook. This essentially means that any packages installed using ``-e`` will *not* have their "Recommends" installed, but will have their "Depends" installed while packages installed using ``-t`` will have both installed making ``-t`` the suitable place for the installation of task packages. There is no reason you cannot pass your entire package list to ``-t``, these are seperated mainly to help with the readability of parameters passed to live-wrapper. For example: .. code-block:: shell sudo lwr -e vim -t science-typesetting Testing the Image with QEMU --------------------------- You can easily test your created live images with QEMU. .. warning:: You will need to increase the amount of memory available to QEMU when running the live image. The image will crash if run with the default memory limit. To test the image using BIOS boot: .. code-block:: shell qemu-system-x86_64 -m 2G -cdrom live.iso For EFI boot you will need to install the ``ovmf`` package and then run: .. code-block:: shell qemu-system-x86_64 -bios /usr/share/ovmf/OVMF.fd -m 2G -cdrom live.iso Next Steps ---------- To learn more about using live-wrapper, you can read the man page or check out the :doc:`advanced` section of this documentation.