Remaster

=Remastering antiX live =

The primary purpose of live remastering is to make it as safe, easy, and convenient as possible for users to make their own customized version of antiX. The idea is that you use a LiveUSB or a LiveHD (a frugal install to a hard drive partition) as your computing environment. Add or subtract packages and then when you are ready to remaster, use the simple-to-use remaster app to do the remaster and then reboot. If something goes horribly wrong, simply reboot again with the rollback boot parameter, and you will boot into the previous environment.

If you are using a LiveUSB, then the LiveUSB is your target system. You can use it to install your customized version of antiX on other systems. If you are using a LiveHD (i.e., a "frugal install"), then you will need to create a LiveUSB or a LiveCD from the LiveHD in order to install elsewhere.

System Requirements
There are some simple and straightforward system requirements that are needed to perform live remastering. These (basically) are:

1. The boot device must be writable (live-USB or frugal install of antiX)

2. The boot device must have enough free space to create a new linuxfs file (the program automatically checks this for you)

3. The working system must have been created using a writeable Live-USB, or as a "frugal install"

In other words, the working system must be booted on a writeable device that has enough free space to create a new linuxfs file. Don't expect to write the remaster back to CD/DVD! (There is another tool for making an ISO backup of a running system, called iso-snapshot.)

Live Remaster Boot Options
There are only two live remaster boot option because live remastering is almost entirely handled by the live-remaster program. The only two option are to prevent live remastering and to rollback live remastering in case something goes horribly wrong.

noremaster
Add the "noremaster" boot parameter to the grub or syslinux boot line if you realize ahead of time (before booting into your new remastered system) that you don't want to use it, for whatever reason.

[example] quiet splasht disable=lxF noremaster

rollback
Add the "rollback" boot parameter to the grub or syslinux boot line if for some reason the computer isn't able to boot the newly remastered system (or for any other reason you may have).

[example] quiet splasht disable=lxF rollback

=The Remaster program handles everything for you automatically=

The program is easy to run and walks the user through it. It is present in all currently-supported ISO versions of antiX. The command line version is run from the terminal as "sudo live-remaster --cli" or as a selectable menu item in the Command line Control Centre ("antiX-cli-cc"). In antiX-base and antiX-full, it is also found in the main menu under Applications > System Tools > Remaster, as well as in the antiX Control Centre.

Step 1
Choose General or personal. Personal saves your user settings; gerneral does not.

Step 2
Do you want /home to be included in the remaster? If you keep lots of data in your /home folder, you may want to answer no. However, many people keep their big files in /home/Live-usb-storage/, which will not be included in the remaster anyway, by default. So in that case, it may be a good idea to include /home.

In a related note, you can edit the files and directories excluded from the remaster. The defaults are excellent in all but the most niche cases, but you can edit the file if you need to do so. It can be accessed easily from the antiX-cli-cc program (for advanced users).

Step 3
Ready to create your remaster. It compresses all your changes that you've made into the live-USB or frugal-install "linuxfs" file. It compresses your persistence file and/or running system changes into the 1 main file, so you can start your persistence file over from scratch, or run without persistence later, or install everything onto another computer.

You see the current space used, the estimated new size, and the various compression ratios available, and also the estimated space left over on your boot device (USB or HDD).

Click Yes to begin, or No (if you change your mind). It will ask for your compression choice and then start (if you choose yes).

At the end of the live-remaster process, if you are running with root persistence ( persistent / ), it will ask if you want to create a new root persistence file now. You can do so now, or on-demand during any future liveboot session. It keeps your current /home persistence, if you are using a persistent home.

When the live-remaster operation has completed, it is advisable to reboot immediately, since nothing new will be saved into your new remaster after the remaster program completes (unless you re-run it). a "small print disclaimer" . Not quite "everything" is handled automatically (and thankfully so). For sake of safety -- in case of need to rollback -- a copy of the linuxfs and, if applicable, the rootfs persistence file are retained on the liveUSB. During a live-remaster operation, they are renamed to *.old . During a subsequent live-remaster operation, the utility will recognize the presence of these retained-for-safekeeping copies and will prompt you, asking whether you now wish to delete those old files. In the meantime, the space occupied by those potentially huge files reduces the amount of available storage space on your liveUSB media. Conversely, if the capacity of your media is large, you may want to keep multiple copies of these files. (Change .old to a datetime string for matching linuxfs+rootfs pairs, then the utility will ignore them instead of prompting their removal.)

=Further reading= https://download.tuxfamily.org/antix/docs-antiX-13/FAQ/remaster.html