Remastersys is a tool that can be used to do 2 things with an existing Debian, Ubuntu or derivative installation.
- It can make a full system backup including personal data to a live cd or dvd that you can use anywhere and install.
- It can make a distributable copy you can share with friends. This will not have any of your personal user data in it.
How did it come to be?
It was initially created by my desire to be able to easily backup or create a distributable copy of an Ubuntu or derivative installation. Inspiration for this tool came from the mklivecd script that Mandriva uses and the remasterme script that is in PCLinuxOS. I had originally looked at some way to port these over to Ubuntu but that proved to be way too much work as it wasn't compatible with casper and ubiquity and used too many Mandriva specific things, so I set out to create remastersys from scratch.
After studying casper and ubiquity along with some wikis on the internet, I created the first version of remastersys. The biggest problem had to do with the making of the live cd user. I had initially made a small workaround that created the livecd user during the building of the livecd system but that wasn't always consistent and became a showstopper with Feisty. I took a few months off from working on it to enjoy the summer with my family.
I was about to give up on it until I received a nice message from Chris of Klikit who informed me he had used remastersys to create Klikit. After taking a look at Klikit and seeing how great it was, I decided to push the rest of the way and finish it. I ironed out the last few bugs and remastersys 2.0 was born.
The Debian port came to be from interest in the debian community as they could not get the Ubuntu version to work due to dependencies specific to Ubuntu.
As soon as I finished working on the remastersys-installer which is a very basic text-based installer, I started working on the debian port. There are many shared ideas and tools between debian and ubuntu so it wasn't all that hard but since no installer was present I waited until I finished it in order for remastersys to be a full service tool for Debian. This is the only reason it took so long.
Thanks to all the testers of both versions without whose help I wouldn't have had the confidence to release it to everyone.
At the moment I, Tony Brijeski, am the only developer/coder/scripter or whatever you want to call me, that has created remastersys, remastersys-gui and remastersys-installer and continue to work on it.
Remastersys is almost never stagnant. I don't have any release schedules as I release new versions as I come up with better ways to do things or fixes or workarounds need to be put in place and I'm notified of them through the forum.
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