nerun / remastersys

A tool for creating Live CD backups and remasters for GNU/Linux Debian.

REMASTERSYS

Please, note that:

• MX Linux is not Debian.
• Mint is not Debian.
• Ubuntu is not Debian.
• Debian 12 is not Debian 11.

Remastersys is a tool that can be used to do two things with an existing Linux Debian installation:

• A full system backup, including personal data, to a Live ISO that you can use anywhere and install.
• A distributable copy you can share with friends. This will not have any of your personal user data in it.

Just burn your Distro or Backup image onto a USB stick (using Remastersys Bootable USB or other tool of your choice, like Balena's Etcher or Ventoy), then insert the media/pendrive into the PC and reboot.

This is a fork of the famous Remastersys (ver. 3.0.0-1), developed by Tony "Fragadelic" Brijeski and discontinued in April, 2013.

Changelog

There are still a few bugs, but there are also many new features compared to the original remastersys:

• Full internationalization (scripts, menu entries and desktop files). Easy to create locales for other languages with Poedit. Defaults to English, but Brazilian Portuguese is also available.
• All scripts have been revised (sometimes rewritten), adding several improvements to source code, including more readable formatting, increased performance, various bug fixes, visual improvements of terminal messages and code cleanup and optimization.
• Updated versions of Isolinux (4.02 > 6.04) and Memtest86 (4.00 > 4.3.7). Also added Memtest86+ v6.00-beta3 to Live CD.
• Changed makesquashfs' compression method from gzip to zstd. Zstd generates images up to 10% smaller in almost half the time.
• Added full support to ISO 9660 (also known as ECMA-119) version 2. It is now possible to create ISO images larger than 4 GiB which, in turn, can also include single files larger than 4 GiB.
• Xorriso is the new standard tool for creating ISO images replacing the outdated genisoimage, which will only be used if xorriso is not detected on the system.
• Removed support to Plymouth, but can be reinserted it in the future.
• Replaced gksu/gksudo/kdesu by ysudo (new tool).
• Updated icons and images.
• Improved man pages and help files.
• Dependencies:
  • Excluded: live-config-sysvinit (just used by Devuan), memtest86+, mkisofs and xresprobe.
  • Included: live-config-systemd, syslinux-common, syslinux-efi, syslinux-utils, sudo, zstd.
  • Changed: xorriso is now preferable to genisoimage.

Read detailed Changelog

They are:

• /usr/share/doc/remastersys/changelog.gz
• /usr/share/doc/remastersys/changelog.Debian.gz
• /usr/share/doc/remastersys-gui/changelog.gz
• /usr/share/doc/remastersys-gui/changelog.Debian.gz

Use command zless to read from inside gziped changelog:

$ zless /usr/share/doc/remastersys/changelog.gz

Or, use commands zcat and head to read only the first 20 lines:

$ zcat /usr/share/doc/remastersys/changelog.gz | head -n 20

Current state

This program has 2 packages: remastersys (program itself, terminal mode) and remastersys-gui (graphical interface). Main features seems to work, but there are some bugs.

Basic usage

• If there are no Debian packages to download and install in releases section, you should create debian packages:
  • run: ./package-creator
  • write version number or accept suggested version by hitting ENTER
  • update changelogs if you wish (in "nano"), answering (y/n) and hit ENTER
• Install both packages: sudo apt install ./remastersys*.deb
• Read instructions:
  • man remastersys
  • sudo remastersys --help
• If you have installed the GUI package, you should be capable to search for these shortcuts in the menu:
  • Remastersys Bootable USB
  • Remastersys Creator
  • Remastersys GRUB Restorer
  • Remastersys Installer