Creation of a Fedora Core boot CD

Introduction

Fedora Core is a Linux distribution. You can get it there.
This tutorial will guide you, step by step, through the creation of a boot CD for Fedora Core.
For this tutorial, we used Fedora Core 4 64 bits and Fedora Core 3 32 bits. But it should work with most versions.

Summary

Introduction
Material
Instructions

Material

You need (if you want to follow exactly and serenely our walkthrough) :

Some Windows 32 or 64 bits installed and operational
Some burning software (if you don't have one, you can use DeepBurner - not tested but free)
Fedora Core installed on an ext2 or ext3 partition (this tutorial was made with Fedora Core 3 32 bits and Fedora Core 4 64 bits, but it will probably work with other versions)
Fedora Core's rescue CD or the DVD (maybe the CD1 could do it although)
Explore2fs
The root password ;)
A floppy disk and a floppy disk drive
An empty CD-RW/CD-R or DVD+/-RW/R... well, you get it

If you are creating a boot CD for Fedora Core 4 64 bits (I don't know about Fedora Core 4 32 bits), you also need this mkbootdisk (leeched from Fedora Core 3).

Instructions

Under Windows

Make sure you have all material.

Then, if you're creating the boot CD for Fedora Core 3 (FC3) 32 bits, you can skip this step. I don't know about other versions, but I know you'll need this for FC4 64 bits :
copy mkbootdisk to a floppy disk (place it right in the top level of the floppy, not in a folder).

Reboot on FC's DVD

At the Linux prompt, type linux rescue.
Choose the language and the keyboard.
It asks for something about the network... I answered yes but I think you can choose whichever you want.
Then it asks if you want it to mount the system on /mnt/sysimage → choose Continue (do not choose read only).

Now we have the command line :)

Type chroot /mnt/sysimage (I thinks it loads the system or something).
Connect as a root by typing su (or su -, I don't know what difference it makes), then enter the root password (note : the characters you type don't appear on the screen, this is normal, they are taken into consideration, don't worry).
Find out the kernel version by typing uname -r.
Create the CD image by typing /sbin/mkbootdisk --verbose --iso --device /root/boot.iso 2.6.9-1.667 (replace 2.6.9-1.667 by your kernel version) : this instruction creates a boot CD image named boot.iso in the /root folder (--verbose means it tells you what it's doing, and I don't know what the use of --device is).

If the step above fails (eg if you have FC4 64 bits), you'll need to use the mkbootdisk of the floppy disk. Here is how :

insert the floppy disk (hehe :))
type mkdir /floppy
type mount -t vfat /dev/fd0 /floppy
finally, type /floppy/mkbootdisk --verbose --iso --device /root/boot.iso 2.6.9-1.667 (replace 2.6.9-1.667 by your kernel version)

Eject the CD/DVD (and the floppy disk) and reboot (CTRL+ALT+DEL)

Back under Windows

Run Explore2fs and use it to get the boot CD image, which is on your linux partition, in the /root folder.
Burn the CD (I strongly advise you to use a rewritable media, for you'll need to create a new boot CD every time you'll update your kernel - note that you can boot a new kernel with a CD with an older version, but then the running kernel will be the old one).

CONGRATULATIONS, you've just won a beautiful FC boot CD !

Credits

We used the following resources to write this tut :