How to build a Live distro?

Step 1

Install your favourite distro to disk partition, or into a folder on your existing system.
Debian is recommended but not required.

Step 2

Make sure that squashfs and either aufs or overlayfs kernel modules are supported by your kernel. Chances are your distribution supports them automatically.

Step 3

Remove all unnecessary files, to make your Live Linux system as small as possible (this step is optional). It is recommended to remove udev's persistent net rules and other settings of your distro, which may prevent it from functioning correctly on different hardware.

Step 4

Download Linux Live Kit from GitHub and put it in /tmp. Read files in ./DOC/ to learn how it works (this step is optional). Edit .config file if you need to modify some variables.

Step 5

Finally log in as root and run the ./build script. Your Live Kit ISO image will be created in /tmp.

Step 6

To make bootable USB, unpack the generated TAR archive (also from /tmp) to your USB device and run bootinst.sh from the boot sub-directory.

Built for developers

Linux Live Kit is the most innovative toolkit available. AuFS provides better stability compared to old unionfs, squashfs with XZ support provides great compression ratio and amazing decompression speed. What's new compared to old Linux Live scripts (last released in 2011)?

  • aufs or overlayfs is used instead of unionfs, brings great stability and features
  • squashfs supports XZ compression including BCJ filters for incredible compression
  • CD tree is simplified, you may call your distro as you like, eg. slax, knoppix, etc.
  • support for booting from USB device as well as CD/DVD discs
  • persistent changes storage DynFileFS provides dynamic-size filesystem
  • support for writing persistent changes even to VFAT or NTFS
  • support for loading your LiveKit data from different directory or even from an iso file
  • an install script to make your device boot in Linux and Windows
Read current changelog