Preamble
Just a quick and dirty write up of what you ought to do if you have a mate out in the digital sticks (i.e. no broadband) who is keen to use Kubuntu with all the bells and whistles of a full media distro. For more detailed info go here.
You _could_ give him/her a live CD, download all the required packages (lame, flash, libdvdcss2, firefox etc.) on a stick and be done with it. The drawbacks of this are that your mate will have to install the packages him/herself or watch you in awe while you're doing it, thinking "wtf?".
Alternative: simply hand him/her an installable live CD with all the codecs (and any other packages they might be interested) already on board.
Procedure
The process itself could not be simpler. You will need a package called uck (ubuntu customisation kit). Install it by going here and downloading the deb
http://sourceforge.net/projects/uck/
Install it by typing
Once it is installed just call it up (it sits in system - uck). It will ask you where about the locales, which DE to use (KDE I take it 
) and wants to know the path to the iso which you want to remaster. It then creates the CD environment and even gives you the choice of going either into synaptic (the venerable gui package manager) or the chrooted command line.
Lost? Basically you can now chop and change the packages of your new live CD as if you were on your own system. You have synaptic at your fingertips, a top notch (okay, I don't like it...) package manager which lets you add the medibuntu repo and install the above listed packages for example.
Once you have installed all the codecs, games, specialist software you require you can now close synaptic and tell uck to continue its magic.
Or you have the option of the command line. What happens behind the scenes here is that you are effectively logged into the root directory of your live CD, also known as a chroot jail/environment. You can now do stuff like changing the appearance of your very own live CD, adding custom icon sets, sound themes, splashes and mouse pointers to name but a few by copying them over to your chroot environment. Granted, this is merely scratching the surface, but this is only a quick and very dirty write up. To get out of the chroot environment and back to uck I _think_ you have to type "exit".
Burn CD
uck will end with a window telling you where your very own iso is stored. Make a note of the path. You can now burn this onto a CD using k3b
Live USB Stick
Or you can put it onto a stick using another handy little helper called "Create a USB Startup Disk". Mind, usb-creator is only available in 8.10. If you want to install it on 8.04 go here - I haven't tested this. If it does not install you may want to check on unetbootin. To install on 8.10 type
See the above notes for installing uck in case of problems. Once installed you will find it in system - Create a USB Startup Disk. Insert your usb stick, click on the program icon, point it to your iso and wait.
Further thoughts
There are about a thousands tricks how to make your iso smaller, prettier, more efficient, change its boot behaviour, insert themes, etc. I know some, others I am unaware of.
I have successfully used Xnest in the chroot environment which is handy if you want to change core KDE parts and see the effect of your actions straight away. I also came across uck rather late in the day, having previously remastered "by hand". I must say, uck fits the bill and saves on typing.
On possibilities - you can make your own custom KDE (colours, behaviour, menus, taskbars, add-ons, etc.), firefox (incl. add-ons, themes and bookmarks), change the behaviour/appearance of all the apps, get rid of grub and dump a gfxboot in there, install splashy and create your own theme for it - you name it, it can be done.
I'd be more than happy to discuss remastering stuff in further detail but am off for a week (thanks Fintan, a sort of holiday).
So any questions, suggestions, ideas, please post.
Just a quick and dirty write up of what you ought to do if you have a mate out in the digital sticks (i.e. no broadband) who is keen to use Kubuntu with all the bells and whistles of a full media distro. For more detailed info go here.
You _could_ give him/her a live CD, download all the required packages (lame, flash, libdvdcss2, firefox etc.) on a stick and be done with it. The drawbacks of this are that your mate will have to install the packages him/herself or watch you in awe while you're doing it, thinking "wtf?".
Alternative: simply hand him/her an installable live CD with all the codecs (and any other packages they might be interested) already on board.
Procedure
The process itself could not be simpler. You will need a package called uck (ubuntu customisation kit). Install it by going here and downloading the deb
http://sourceforge.net/projects/uck/
Install it by typing
sudo dpkg -i package_name
) and wants to know the path to the iso which you want to remaster. It then creates the CD environment and even gives you the choice of going either into synaptic (the venerable gui package manager) or the chrooted command line.Lost? Basically you can now chop and change the packages of your new live CD as if you were on your own system. You have synaptic at your fingertips, a top notch (okay, I don't like it...) package manager which lets you add the medibuntu repo and install the above listed packages for example.
Once you have installed all the codecs, games, specialist software you require you can now close synaptic and tell uck to continue its magic.
Or you have the option of the command line. What happens behind the scenes here is that you are effectively logged into the root directory of your live CD, also known as a chroot jail/environment. You can now do stuff like changing the appearance of your very own live CD, adding custom icon sets, sound themes, splashes and mouse pointers to name but a few by copying them over to your chroot environment. Granted, this is merely scratching the surface, but this is only a quick and very dirty write up. To get out of the chroot environment and back to uck I _think_ you have to type "exit".
Burn CD
uck will end with a window telling you where your very own iso is stored. Make a note of the path. You can now burn this onto a CD using k3b
Live USB Stick
Or you can put it onto a stick using another handy little helper called "Create a USB Startup Disk". Mind, usb-creator is only available in 8.10. If you want to install it on 8.04 go here - I haven't tested this. If it does not install you may want to check on unetbootin. To install on 8.10 type
Code:
sudo apt-get install usb-creator
Further thoughts
There are about a thousands tricks how to make your iso smaller, prettier, more efficient, change its boot behaviour, insert themes, etc. I know some, others I am unaware of.
I have successfully used Xnest in the chroot environment which is handy if you want to change core KDE parts and see the effect of your actions straight away. I also came across uck rather late in the day, having previously remastered "by hand". I must say, uck fits the bill and saves on typing.
On possibilities - you can make your own custom KDE (colours, behaviour, menus, taskbars, add-ons, etc.), firefox (incl. add-ons, themes and bookmarks), change the behaviour/appearance of all the apps, get rid of grub and dump a gfxboot in there, install splashy and create your own theme for it - you name it, it can be done.
I'd be more than happy to discuss remastering stuff in further detail but am off for a week (thanks Fintan, a sort of holiday).
So any questions, suggestions, ideas, please post.
) which deal with the different aspects - it is after all quite a comprehensive field. So far I can see one on the theory behind it, one on doing it on the command line only and a bunch on what you can do in chroot ranging from saving space, various ways of changing KDE and/or home, theming, things one can do with Xnest, splashy and gfxboot.
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