Ubuntu QA:
BlogBrainstormPackage status
Log in
Ubuntu QA
The Ubuntu community has contributed 21986 ideas, 135057 comments, 2615221 votes
Idea sandbox Idea sandbox
Popular ideas Popular ideas
Ideas in development Ideas in development
Implemented ideas Implemented ideas
Idea #404: Allow current configuration to be written to a Live CD/DVD/USB/etc.

bug This idea is a duplicate of Idea #1: Easy way of backing up/moving your documents and settings.
Written by youshotwhointhewhat the 29 Feb 08 at 01:36. Category: Installation. Related project: Nothing/Others. Status: New
Rationale
Every time I install linux for someone else (or reinstall on my own machine) I have to spend a significant amount of time adding software and configuring the system to work the way I want it to. It would be nice if I could save my current Ubuntu configuration to some sort of media (CD, DVD, etc) so that I could just pop it into a computer and have my own customized version of Ubuntu installed.

This would also allow me to customize an Ubuntu setup for someone (for example my mom) and then I could send them a Live CD to try it out.
Tags: (none)

639
votes
closed
Solution #1: Auto-generated solution of idea #404
Written by youshotwhointhewhat the 29 Feb 08 at 01:36.
Ubuntu Brainstorm was updated in January 2009. Since the idea #404 was submitted before this update, its rationale and solution are not separated. Please vote accordingly, and if you have the necessary rights, please separate the rationale from the solution. Thanks!

Propose your solution

Attachments
No attachments.


Duplicates


Comments
BakonJarser wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 04:18
Is this what you're trying to do?

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=688872&highlight=custom+install

youshotwhointhewhat wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 04:28
Yes something along those lines. Thanks for the link.

It would be nice to see this evolve into a fairly automatic tool with a GUI frontend. Something that would let the user pick a destination media and select/deselect components to be included.

sharris203 wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 05:41
Check out "remastersys". When I installed it, it came with a GUI for easy usage.

pimlottc wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 08:39
This would also be very useful for creating a backup of your configuration files.

eindgebruiker wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 12:02
Basically my system consists of three parts:

1. a base Ubuntu install
2. my configurations and extra applications
3. my documents

#1 can be easily downloaded, #3 can be easily copied/backed up. If by this idea you mean backing up/restoring #2 I'm all for it.

(If you mean 1+2+3 you can easily run into disk space limits.)

youshotwhointhewhat wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 00:10
While this would serve the purpose of backing up your configurations and extra applications, by saving it as a Live CD (with the base ubuntu install) you open up many other possibilities. So basically I am proposing storing 1+2 as a Live CD/DVD/USB/etc.

I could create a customized version of ubunutu for people who know very little about computers. Or on the other hand, I could create a customized version for developers. While ubuntu does a pretty good job of picking sane defaults, the default setup is never going to be able to please everyone.

maynoth wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 02:01
yes this is an awesome idea!

NJHewitt wrote on the 1 Mar 08 at 11:38
I think SimplyMEPIS includes this feature.

antistress wrote on the 2 Mar 08 at 23:03
a first step should be to encourage softwares to respect FreeDesktop specs http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Specifications/basedir-spec :

The default for $XDG_CONFIG_HOME is $HOME/.config, the default for $XDG_DATA_HOME is $HOME/.local/share

see also http://ploum.frimouvy.org/?184-cleaning-user-preferences-keeping-user-data and comment#8

mwooten111 wrote on the 6 Mar 08 at 17:47
This is a feature the SuSE installer had back when I was on that distro. During the install you could save your selected packages to a floppy, and then during your next install load the package list back. It was a great feature, especially since I was just toying with it and reinstalling it frequently. I would like to see the feature apply to the full current state of the machine with all packages at any point in time, not just install, and add the ability to include other apt repositories during install as well.

ophilar wrote on the 18 Mar 08 at 14:54
Just posted the same idea... I should've read the comments. I'm all for it, especially for the customized installations. I saw quite a few ideas posted in support of this.
While I thought I was elaborating, apparently there's no need. Well, one difference though is that I still think that packs are a suitable customization tool, but first thing first - get the customization idea on track.

nitro182 wrote on the 13 Apr 08 at 22:09
A customized LiveCD. Also copy the installed packages. Wow beautiful idea.

mprince wrote on the 13 May 08 at 15:36
One potential hangup is the media non-free formats. I don't know ubuntu devs will want a bunch of disks floating around that include libdvdcss etc.

I still voted +1

Maybe this it not a problem. It would still be really useful even with some limitations.

gabtrat wrote on the 24 May 08 at 06:55
Great idea!
This would save me so much time.

sonicskywalker wrote on the 26 Jun 08 at 13:27
I could definitely use something like this. I would recommend making the upgrade a part of the installation process. When ithe installer came to that step, it would ask you what media the files are on and then install the packages.


Post your comment