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Revision as of 01:19, 7 October 2008 by Katzj (talk | contribs) (various updates for Fedora 10)

Fedora Live Images

The Fedora 25 release includes several Live ISO images in addition to the traditional installation images. These ISO images are bootable, and you can burn them to media and use them to try out Fedora. They also include a feature that allows you to install the Live image content to your hard drive for persistence and higher performance.

Available Images

For a complete list of current spins available, and instructions for using them, refer to:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/CustomSpins

Usage Information

To boot from the Live image, insert it into your computer and restart. To log in and use the desktop environment, enter the username fedora. There is no password on this account. The GNOME-based Live images automatically login after one minute, so users have time to select a preferred language. After logging in, if you wish to install the contents of the live image to your hard drive, click on the Install to Hard Drive icon on the desktop.

Text Mode Installation

You can do a text mode installation of the Live images using the liveinst command in the console.

USB Booting

Another way to use these Live images is to put them on a USB stick. To do this, install the livecd-tools package from the repository. Then, run the livecd-iso-to-disk script:

/usr/bin/livecd-iso-to-disk /path/to/live.iso /dev/sdb1

Replace /dev/sdb1 with the partition where you want to put the image.

This is not a destructive process; any data you currently have on your USB stick is preserved.

Persistent Home Directory

Support for keeping a persistent /home with the rest of the system stateless has been added for Fedora 10. This includes support for encrypting /home to protect your system in the case where your USB stick is lost or stolen. To use this, download the live image and run the following command:

livecd-iso-to-disk --home-size-mb 512 /path/to/live.iso /dev/sdb1

Replace /dev/sdb1 with the partition where you want to put the image.

Replace 512 with the desired size in megabytes of the persistent /home. The livecd-iso-to-disk shell script is stored in the LiveOS directory at the top level of the CD image. The USB media must have sufficient free space for the Live image, plus the /home, plus any other data to be stored on the media. By default, this will encrypt your data and prompt for a passphrase to use. If you want to have an unencrypted /home, then you can specify --unencrypted-home

Note that later runs of livecd-iso-to-disk will preserve the /home that is created on the USB stick and it will continue to be used even if you change your live image.

Live USB Persistence

Support for persistent changes with a Live image exists for Fedora 9 and later. The primary use case is booting from a Live image on a USB flash drive and storing changes to that same device. To do this, download the Live image and then run the following command:

livecd-iso-to-disk --overlay-size-mb 512 /path/to/live.iso /dev/sdb1

Replace /dev/sdb1 with the partition where you want to put the image.

Replace 512 with the desired size in megabytes of the persistent data, or overlay. The livecd-iso-to-disk shell script is stored in the LiveOS directory at the top level of the CD image. The USB media must have sufficient free space for the Live image, plus the overlay, plus any other data to be stored on the media.

Booting a Live Image Off of USB on Intel-based Mac Hardware

Fedora 10 includes support for putting the live image onto a USB image and then booting it on Intel Mac hardware. Unlike for most x86 machines, this unfortunately requires reformatting the USB stick which you are using. To set up a stick for this, you can run

/usr/bin/livecd-iso-to-disk --mactel /path/to/live.iso /dev/sdb1

Replace /dev/sdb1 with the partition where you want to put the image.

Note that all of the other arguments for the livecd-iso-to-disk tool as described above can be used here as well.

Differences From a Regular Fedora Install

The following items are different from a normal Fedora install with the Live images.

  • Live images provide a subset of packages available in the regular DVD image. Both connect to the same repository that has all the packages.
  • SSH is disabled by default. SSH is disabled because the default username in the Live images does not have any password. However, installation to hard disk prompts for creating a new username and password.
  • Live image installations do not allow any package selection or upgrade capability since they copy the entire file system from media or USB disks, to the hard disk. After the installation is complete, and your system has been rebooted, you can add and remove packages as desired with the Add/Remove Packages tool, yum, or the other software management tools.
  • Live images do not work on i586 architecture.