A Unique Linux Backup to Live Media Tool for Debian and Ubuntu
Contrary to some rumours floating around the internet, Remastersys is alive and well.What is remastersys?
Remastersys is a tool that can be used to do 2 things with an existing Debian, Ubuntu or derivative installation.
- It can make a full system backup including personal data to a live cd or dvd that you can use anywhere and install.
- It can make a distributable copy you can share with friends. This will not have any of your personal user data in it.
The resulting iso file can be used
on any other PC that still meets the original minimum requirements of
Ubuntu or Debian. Things like the graphics card and other
hardware will be configured and setup automatically and you do not have
to use identical hardware. Ubuntu's live boot tool, casper,
currently blacklists Nvidia and AMD proprietary drivers so they will
not be available on the live system and will need to be reinstalled
after installation of your custom system.
Currently there is a size
limitation imposed by the genisomage tool in Ubuntu and Debian.
This tool is used to create the iso file. This limits the maximum
single file size for the iso to be set at 4GB which means the entire
compressed filesystem.squashfs file(your complete compressed system)
must fall under this size. If it does not then the iso file will
not be created. It is recommended to remove most media files and
any virtual machine hard drives like the ones used by qemu, Virtual
Box, etc off the system while you run the backup mode or make sure you
add these files to the excludes in the /etc/remastersys.conf file
either manually or through the gui. Due to the size restriction
it is best to think of Remastersys Backup as a tool to backup your
applications and your personal config files while leaving your media
files, etc out of it as they can be easily backed up to a dvd or
external portable drive and copied back afterwards.
I personally use remastersys to make numerous backups of the computers I have at home running Ubuntu and Debian and also use it to create custom installs for the different needs of the PC's in my home. I share some of these from time to time and Remastersys Squeeze Distribution is one of the ones I am currently using. If you would like more information about it please click the Remastersys Squeeze Distribution link at the top of this page.
How did it come to be?
It was initially created by my desire to be able to easily backup or create a distributable copy of an Ubuntu or derivative installation. Inspiration for this tool came from the mklivecd script that Mandriva uses and the remasterme script that is in PCLinuxOS. I had originally looked at some way to port these over to Ubuntu but that proved to be way too much work as it wasn't compatible with casper and ubiquity and used too many Mandriva specific things, so I set out to create remastersys from scratch.
After studying casper and ubiquity along with some wikis on the internet, I created the first version of remastersys. The biggest problem had to do with the making of the live cd user. I had initially made a small workaround that created the livecd user during the building of the livecd system but that wasn't always consistent and became a showstopper with Feisty. I took a few months off from working on it to enjoy the summer with my family.
I was about to give up on it until I received a nice message from Chris of Klikit who informed me he had used remastersys to create Klikit. After taking a look at Klikit and seeing how great it was, I decided to push the rest of the way and finish it. I ironed out the last few bugs and remastersys 2.0 was born.
The Debian port came to be from interest in the debian community as they could not get the Ubuntu version to work due to dependencies specific to Ubuntu.
As soon as I finished working on the remastersys-installer which is a very basic text-based installer, I started working on the debian port. There are many shared ideas and tools between debian and ubuntu so it wasn't all that hard but since no installer was present I waited until I finished it in order for remastersys to be a full service tool for Debian. This is the only reason it took so long.
Thanks to all the testers of both versions without whose help I wouldn't have had the confidence to release it to everyone.
At the moment I, Tony Brijeski, am the only developer/coder/scripter or whatever you want to call me, that has created remastersys, remastersys-gui and remastersys-installer and continue to work on it.
Remastersys is almost never stagnant. I don't have any release schedules as I release new versions as I come up with better ways to do things or fixes or workarounds need to be put in place and I'm notified of them through the forum.