multicd.sh - combine Linux ISOS into one

[maybeway36]

Cool, I've never seen that before. It looks like uses a USB drive and has a GUI built with gtkdialog (which maybe I should check into.) My script uses CDs or DVDs, mainly because I have a bunch of those but only one spare USB drive (and it's just 1GB).
Other things that share a similar idea are UNetbootin and ULTILEX.
In other news, v5.8 out:

#v5.8 - Added Windows 7 recovery disc plugin. Incorporated fixes for Arch Linux plugins. Various bugfixes. Step 1 now run as root again (there were file permission issues) but still checks md5sums first. (September 17, 2010)

[borolo]

Great tool. thanks.

I'm a newbie and I'm getting an error when making the disk. It starts fine and stops during puppy linux:

GParted Live
Parted Magic
Puppy Linux
Slax
SliTaz
SystemRescueCd
Trinity Rescue Kit
Ultimate Boot CD
Ubuntu
Memtest86+

Continuing in 2 seconds - press Ctrl+C to cancel
Copying GParted Live...
Copying Parted Magic...
Copying Puppy...
cp: reading `puppy/lupu-511.sfs': Input/output error

any ideas?

thks

[maybeway36]

That's an odd error. I tried putting Lucid Puppy 5.11 into the script and it worked fine for me. Usually when I see "Input/output error" in Linux it means it can't read from the disk.

[borolo]

Strange. Perhaps something wrong with the Iso and download again? I tried it on two different pcs. Will do that and let you know.

[borolo]

Ok I downloaded the iso again and it works. thanks.

Still getting some problems with UBCD, it says that all isolinux files inside the ISO are being used and it skips them.

emilio@emilio-desktop:/mnt/ubt_xp/con nombres cambiados/multicd$ sudo ./multicd*.sh
[sudo] password for emilio:
GParted Live
Parted Magic
Puppy Linux
SliTaz
SystemRescueCd
Trinity Rescue Kit
Ultimate Boot CD
Windows 7 Recovery Disc (Not open source - do not distribute)
Memtest86+

Continuing in 2 seconds - press Ctrl+C to cancel
Copying GParted Live...
Copying Parted Magic...
Copying Puppy...
Copying SliTaz...
Copying SystemRescueCd...
Copying Trinity Rescue Kit...
Copying Ultimate Boot CD...
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/isolinux/main.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/bios.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/cpu.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/defaults.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/hdd.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/main.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/memory.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/others.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/periph.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/system.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/hdd/bootmgmt.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/hdd/cloning.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/hdd/devmgmt.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/hdd/diag.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/hdd/editing.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/hdd/install.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/hdd/partmgmt.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/hdd/recovery.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/ubcd/menus/syslinux/hdd/wiping.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/pmagic/boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Can't remove multicd-working/pmagic/boot/syslinux/syslinux.cfg: Text file busy, skipping file.
Copying Windows 7 Recovery Disc...
Downloading SYSLINUX...
Unpacking and copying files...
Writing isolinux.cfg...
Building CD image...
emilio@emilio-desktop:/mnt/ubt_xp/con nombres cambiados/multicd$

++++++++++++

Another question, once I have the iso created is there a way to boot it from a USB stick?

[maybeway36]

Ok I downloaded the iso again and it works. thanks.

Still getting some problems with UBCD, it says that all isolinux files inside the ISO are being used and it skips them.

No clue what that means. The ISO might still work, though.

Another question, once I have the iso created is there a way to boot it from a USB stick?

You could try UNetbootin, but I can't guarantee that it will work.

[ckenneal]

Sorry, I am new to the forum. Great program or script you have. I made a disc similar to Borolo;

Lupu Puppy Linux 5.11
RIPlinux
Trinity Rescue Kit
Ultimate Boot CD

I did not copy some of the files from TRK (latest download TRL3.4 build 367, 2 days ago). Don't know the file structure of TRK. It seems to combine TRK into a boot directory, and then loses files. I get a menu and it boots into TRK, but choosing a TRK menu item gives error saying inodes not there, or something lots of them and moves to fast to read. I modified the puppy.sh plugin to read lupu-511 and that worked fine. So do the others.
What is the language that the script is written in. I want to learn more about the commands. Thanks. Hope you can help.

[acbatman54]

First off, MultiCD is awesome! Thank you for making this process a lot easier.

I just wanted to make a request. I wish I there was a way to make all of the isolinux.cfg menu options the same, i.e. either they all have submenus or none of them do. I've been bashing my head against my desk trying to get them all lined up. Out of the 7 entries I have on my menu (Local HDD, GParted, Clonezilla, DBAN, NTPASSWD, BackTrack, & Ubuntu), I can usually only get about 5 to work right. Clonezilla and BackTrack are the major pains in my ***. I'm using all of the latest ISO's. Is there a "plugin" repository somewhere that I'm not aware of?

Anyways, thanks again. Hopefully I can Google my way out of this one like I usually do!

P.S. I believe there is an issue with "gparted.sh" as of release multicd-5.8. The gparted-live-0.6.4-1.iso has initrd1.img & vmlinuz1 while the script still refers to them as initrd.img & vmlinuz. Simple to fix on our end but just wanted to put that out there.

[maybeway36]

I did not copy some of the files from TRK (latest download TRL3.4 build 367, 2 days ago). Don't know the file structure of TRK. It seems to combine TRK into a boot directory, and then loses files.

I just fixed this; it will be in the 5.9 release.

What is the language that the script is written in. I want to learn more about the commands. Thanks. Hope you can help.

It's written in shell scripting, which is basically the Linux version of DOS's batch files (but much more powerful, thanks to programs like sed and awk.)
The How It Works section (which I'm going to update soon) gives an example of a script and how it works.

I just wanted to make a request. I wish I there was a way to make all of the isolinux.cfg menu options the same, i.e. either they all have submenus or none of them do.

Some of the plugins, like Clonezilla and Trinity, actually copy the isolinux.cfg from the original ISO and then edit it; that's why they have submenus. I might try making a no-submenu option using sed, though.

I've been bashing my head against my desk trying to get them all lined up. Out of the 7 entries I have on my menu (Local HDD, GParted, Clonezilla, DBAN, NTPASSWD, BackTrack, & Ubuntu), I can usually only get about 5 to work right. Clonezilla and BackTrack are the major pains in my ***.

What problems are you having with them? GParted I'm going to fix right now like you said, and Clonezilla seems to work (I just tested it.)

I'm using all of the latest ISO's. Is there a "plugin" repository somewhere that I'm not aware of?

Nope - all the plugins I know of are the ones that come with the script.

[ckenneal]

Thanks for that maybeway36. By the way, this whole concept and work is absolutely great. When do you think the new release (5.9) will be up. Thanks again for the response.