Burn multiple live isos on one DVD

[MilesT]

How would I burn both 32- and 64-bit Fedora 12 Live isos onto one DVD so that I can select either at boot?

[Dies]

You wouldn't.

[nimd4]

Originally Posted by Dies

You wouldn't.

Um, of course it could be done..

[Dies]

Originally Posted by nimd4

Um, of course it could be done..

Care to lay out the process for us?

No?

Then I don't see your point, other than to say nothing is impossible...

[nimd4]

Ah come on, man.. I just didn't like the no that you'd put down. Isn't here like a (cd/dvd) boot manager, or something, that could do this (theoretically )?..

[Dies]

Originally Posted by nimd4

Ah come on, man.. I just didn't like the no that you'd put down. Isn't here like a (cd/dvd) boot manager, or something, that could do this (theoretically )?..

I agree it does seem kind of crappy to just say "Nope, can't be done". But sometimes it is the answer that makes the most sense.

Theoretically, I guess you would just need to customize the bootloader to allow you to select the kernel you want then have that kernel mount the right "root" filesystem. Seems like a whole lot work just to avoid two disks.

[kyryder]

hmm I wonder if you could do this with revisor.

[MilesT]

well, I only ask because I have a bunch of DVD-Rs and I'd rather not use the 4gb of space on it for a 700mb iso, I should be able to burn 5 isos per disc, allowing a 5in1 live cd (f12 32&64, f11 32&64, slitaz, etc)

[kyryder]

I agree with Dies, seems like a lot of work for a couple of cd's

[pedora]

Could you do this on a usb stick?

I tried but failed. It was a lot of work and I guess I gave up for now. It involved creating some partitions and the required files for the boot loader.

I liked the idea of having iso files in a multi-boot set up since the boot up is faster than the CD/DVD but it seemed complicated when k3b or brasero can create an iso live CD quite quickly in comparison. However, the usb stick with live distros is still neat, I think.

[Dies]

Originally Posted by pedora

Could you do this on a usb stick?

It would be a lot easier on a USB stick since you could just install Grub2 to it then try to use the loopback option. Of course this still wouldn't work for Fedora, at least not yet. But it should work with Debian and other distros that have a "fromiso" or similar boot option.

[beaker_]

If grub 2 baulks at you, try grub for dos, an ext hard drive, and copy your os's as iso or raw images. Works good enough.

[kaafree]

Well, I am subscriber of Linux Format magazine. They ship DVD with every issue, that contains several different distributions (some are live, some are not). What is important, this DVD is bootable and one can easily select needed distro from grub menu. I am not so advanced but they use syslinux tools for that. And I guess they do not use grub2, as those dvds are shipped from ancient times.

[Gödel]

You need a 2GB usb stick (or bigger), insert it, unmount (eg right-click desktop icon) and assuming it's /dev/sdb do this as root:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sdb bs=512 count=1

parted /dev/sdb mklabel msdos
parted /dev/sdb mkpartfs p fat32 0% 50%
parted /dev/sdb mkpartfs p fat32 50% 100%

Then label the partitions (install mtools if necessary):

mlabel -i /dev/sdb1 ::LIVE1
mlabel -i /dev/sdb2 ::LIVE2


REMOVE USB STICK AND REINSERT (So both partitions get mounted in /media)

mkdir /mnt/iso

mount -o loop <path_to>/Fedora-12-i686-Live.iso /mnt/iso
cp -r /mnt/iso/* /media/LIVE1
umount /mnt/iso

mount -o loop <path_to>/Fedora-12-x86_64-Live.iso /mnt/iso
cp -r /mnt/iso/* /media/LIVE2
umount /mnt/iso

grub-install --root-directory=/media/LIVE1 /dev/sdb

vi /media/LIVE1/boot/grub/grub.conf

Create (new file) grub.conf with these entries:

title F12 LiveCD i686
root (hd0,0)
kernel /isolinux/vmlinuz0 ro root=LABEL=LIVE1 rootfstype=auto liveimg quiet rhgb selinux=0
initrd /isolinux/initrd0.img

title F12 LiveCD x86_64
root (hd0,1)
kernel /isolinux/vmlinuz0 ro root=LABEL=LIVE2 rootfstype=auto liveimg quiet rhgb selinux=0
initrd /isolinux/initrd0.img

And unmount/eject the usb stick (eg right click on gnome desktop icon)

The percentages for the partitions can be adjusted as appropriate, you'll need about 1GB per iso image, so on a 4GB stick you could create 4 partitions 0%-25%-50%-75%-100% and put 4 isos on. For more than 4 you need an extended partition (the 'p' in the mkpartfs command creates primary partitons), I'll leave that as an exercise.

[Dangermouse]

Thanks Gödel,

Just tried your excellent guide, works like a charm

Dave