COVER STORY Custom NimbleX EASYBuilding a custom with BUILDER the NimbleX Live CD Generator

If you want customization without CD image on the basis of your specifica- Linux systems. It presents the user with tions. By simply selecting applications a series of choices defining the charac- all the fuss, then try building your from a series of menus, the Live CD teristics of the system and generates an Generator resolves own custom ISO image with the any dependencies behind the scenes. web-based Custom NimbleX Live Getting CD Generator. Started BY THOMAS PELKMANN Because the Live CD Generator is designed for speed imbleX [1] is a minimal Linux and ease of use, it distribution based on Slackware. does not offer the NThe compact NimbleX system full range of op- is used primarily for Live CDs and USB tions available if sticks, and according to the website, you are building a NimbleX also runs well from the hard complete system drive or even over the network. But per- from scratch. The haps the most interesting feature of Nim- tool resembles the bleX is the custom CD generation service graphical installa- Figure 1: The Live CD Generator starts with a simple welcome screen. available through the project website tion wizard in- The green progress indicator shows how much disk space your distri- [2]. The Custom NimbleX Live CD Gen- cluded with many bution needs. erator lets you select the components conventional and applications you want to include in the system, then it generates a Live www,sxc.hu

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Figure 2: The Custom and Recommended customization levels let Figure 3: Select wallpaper for your desktop or upload your own back- you add applications to the minimal system. ground image.

ISO image, which is then available for applications included in the category After you click through the application immediate download. will appear to the right. menus, it’s design time. The Wallpapers The Live CD Generator starts with After selecting your categories, click screen (Figure 3) lets you choose wallpa- a simple welcome page (see Figure 1). the right arrow to move to more granular per for your custom system. The tabs at A progress indicator at the top of the selections. Each category you select the top (Fields, Paradise, Space) subdi- browser window shows a value of leads to a subsequent menu displaying vide the wallpaper options by subject. 200MB, representing the size of a mini- options within the category. The Office The Upload tab gives you the option of mal NimbleX system. option, for instance, lets you select from uploading wallpaper from your own se- If you click the right arrow to proceed tools such as OpenOffice, KOffice, a PDF lection of photos. The wallpaper image to the next screen, the generator asks editor, a calculator, and the Kdissert is not tiled, but scaled, so sure you you to select a level of customization. mind-mapping utility. choose an image of sufficient quality. The options are: See the box “Custom NimbleX High- Ideally, the image size and screen resolu- • Minimal – The Minimal customization lights” for a sample of some popular tion should match. level is no customization. The CD Custom NimbleX options. The next screen lets you customize generator simply creates a bare-bones The generator offered no options for your sound settings. It is perfectly okay 200MB Live CD ISO image without the Libraries category at the time this to use the defaults – unless you know additional software. issue went to press. exactly what values your sound card • Custom – The user selects additional software from a menu of optional Custom NimbleX Highlights applications, libraries, and drivers. Office Opera 9.22 VirtualBox 1.4 • Recommended – Similar to the Cus- OpenOffice 2.3 Samba 3.0.23c ClamAV 0.90 tom option, but only a recommended KOffice 1.6 Wireshark 0.99 Wine 0.9.40 collection of tools is selected by de- Scribus 1.3.3 Nessus 2.2.9 JRE 1.6 fault and you can still deselect any of the tools you don’t want. Dia 0.94 OpenVPN 2.0.9 Man pages In this article, I focus on the Custom Kdissert 1.0.7 Ktorrent 2.1.4 Development option. The Recommended option is 1.9.3 Graphics Kdevelop 3.3.4 similar, and the Minimal option really Pdfedit 0.3.1 Gimp 2.2.16 KDEWebDev 3.5 doesn’t require much explanation be- Qalculate 0.96 Inkscape 0.45 Python 2.4 cause it just cooks up a CD without Games Blender 2.42 1.0.18 additional input. The Battle for Wesnoth 1.3.4 Multimedia pack Customizing globulation2 0.8.21 1.3.9 pack If you choose the Custom option and SuperTux 0.1.3 Jack and Qjackctl 0.103 Drivers click the right arrow, you’ll land on a Njam 1.25 Xine 0.99 Printer drivers screen that lets you select categories of Ksudoku 0.3 ardour2 2.0.2 Scanner drivers tools (Figure 2). For each category you Arcade emulators Rosegarden 1.5.1 Nvidia Desktop select, the Live CD Generator will pres- Network Audacious 1.3.2 Intel Pro Wireless 3945 ent a menu of optional software. If you Firefox 2.0 System WiFi experimental drivers hover your mouse over a category, the

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Figure 4: You can even choose a personal greeting that will play at Figure 5: Next, choose a root password and configure an additional system launch time. user account.

needs. Then go to the KDE Sounds tab to use the left arrow to go back to previous age repository for adding even more select a sound for booting and shutting screens and revise your selections. applications. NimbleX’s category system down your system. The sound also plays In the summary screen, accept the is sometimes inconsistent as concerns when you click an option. selected options and click the execute the needs of the target user. For example, The Boot audio greeting option in the arrow. The website takes just a couple of the multimedia category is designed last tab of the Sound Configuration seconds to create an ISO image of your for both consumers and producers of screen promises some originality: For ex- customized distribution. music, and the Live CD Generator offers ample, you can type an individual greet- You have 12 hours to download the applications like Jack and QJackCtl to ing in the box (say, Welcome to My Linux new ISO image. To start downloading, support music creation. But Custom box ) and click on the down arrow to press the arrow and burn the image onto NimbleX stops halfway and doesn’t listen to the screen reader’s rendering of a CD. Your own custom Linux is now offer anything in the line of virtual the welcome message (see Figure 4). ready to go. instruments. However, you can’t add a lengthy greet- ing – the welcome message is restricted Praise and Concerns Conclusions to 30 characters. Although the Custom NimbleX Live CD The idea of mixing your own distribu- The next is to define your root Generator is spartan, the unequivocal tion is fantastic, and the approach is password and create an additional user navigation is worthy of praise. Every- foolproof. If the Live CD Generator of- account (Figure 5). Next, choose the thing you need you can find with little fered a larger selection of state-of-the-art KDE desktop language and move to a danger of detouring or losing your way. programs, it would be perfect. But even summary of your selections (Figure 6). It couldn’t be easier to put together a at its current state of evolution, Custom If you want to change anything, you can custom distribution. NimbleX is still worthwhile. I The Live CD Generator is in- INFO tended as a spe- [1] NimbleX: http:// www. nimblex. net cialized tool for [2] Custom NimbleX: creating ready- http:// custom. nimblex. net/ made ISO images, [3] NimbleX package list: but keep in mind http:// nimblex. net/ package-list. html that Custom Nim- bleX offers noth- ing close to the Thomas Pelkmann scope of applica- has worked for tions available more than 20 years through a full as an author and Linux distribution editor for radio, newspapers, and such as OpenSUSE business and com- or Ubuntu. puter magazines.

Also, a full dis- THE AUTHOR Figure 6: Review a summary of your selections before generating tribution provides He has also written several technical books. your custom CD image. access to a pack-

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