Arch Linux

Zohran

Member

Registered: 2017-01-19

Posts: 47

Generate an ISO for a new Linux distro

Hi guys, I am Fulgurance (it's mainly my alias). I am the one who created ISM (ingenius system manager) for Linux.

It's a new package manager that can build fully a linux system from scratch. It go deeper than emerge, because it handle the dependency calculation even for the cross toolchain (with passes for who knows LFS book).

I am seeking just for a bit of help for one thing: make an iso.

I don't really have experience to make an iso of a linux system, and the documentation about the topic is really bad/poor.

I need a clear and full tutorial about it.

Basically I would like to make a bootable UEFI iso with squashfs. I have already a copy of my new system in a .tar.xz.

This is my project if you are curious:

https://github.com/fulgurance/ism

I am close to release the first alpha of my system

Another question, where can I ask to rename my pseudo as Fulgurance ?

(as you can notice, since I registered in the archlinux forum, I did some progress  with Linux xD)

Last edited by Zohran (2025-06-08 17:30:41)

Halano

Member

From: Egypt

Registered: 2023-02-07

Posts: 65

Website

Re: Generate an ISO for a new Linux distro

squashfs-tools
xorriso
syslinux

then make your bootable iso clone of your current system.

sudo pacman -Sy squashfs-tools xorriso syslinux

Good luck.

---

.:HalanoTheSmartMoth:.

cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 1,510

Re: Generate an ISO for a new Linux distro

from forcing myself through base LFS (not bothered with BLFS/ALFS/mutli-lib or GLFS) I learned: the most important tool a modern linux distribution offers is a good package management with proper dependency resolution
also: although building from source can grant additional optimization by building for your system instead of run bloated code with either base-level compilation or contain multiple code-paths and use what your system provides at runtime - and with the addition todays systems are powerful enough to fully build a clean linux system from source within a short time - I myself see this as nishe as it became since the first proper distributions became mainstream
to quote myself to a LFS users comment "I don't trust anything I not built myself": "Do you a) have the time and b) the skill to go through gigabytes of source to make an informed decision? Or do you just not trust pre-built packages?" - without any reply and given said LFS user already is quite introverted my money is on the latter one
so - same question goes to you: what's the actual point behind this project except from just "because you can"?

Zohran

Member

Registered: 2017-01-19

Posts: 47

Re: Generate an ISO for a new Linux distro

squashfs-tools
xorriso
syslinux

then make your bootable iso clone of your current system.

sudo pacman -Sy squashfs-tools xorriso syslinux

Good luck.

Hi, thank you for your answer

So I know about which program I need no worries, but I am looking about the way to do it.

I have already my filesystem into a squashfs, but I really don't know how to make  a bootable iso with this then

Basically, this is the command I ran to get an iso, but when I boot it, I just got a grub shell, no menu entry. Why ? (and I setted a grub.cfg file)

grub2-mkrescue --iso-level 3 -o livecd-20250605.iso livecd -V livecd-20250605

Last edited by Zohran (2025-06-09 09:07:34)