HOW-TO: Customize BT4 with modules (BT3 style)

[aldorm]

First of all, congratulations to BT4 development team, BT4 is the best linux distribution for security.

Do you remember how to customize BT3 with LZM modules??

Well, in BT4 we don’t have LZM modules, this version of BackTrack use squashfs and you need to uncompress ALL BT4 into a temporal directory(15 GB free space), then make any change that you like and compress again to gain a BT4 customized. Could be, you remember how easy was with BT3, when you make a LZM module and add this to the LiveCD.

In this HOW-TO I will teach how to get an approximation similar to BT3. At the final of the HOW-TO I put a videotutorial(not yet).

First, the advantages that we get are:

* · Install debian/ubuntu/BT4 package.
* · You don’t need to uncompress all the LiveCD structure, so you don’t need 15 GB of free space.
* · Compress files with an excellent ratio.
* · You can install BT4 into a USB drive, make any modification and finally burn a DVD with your BT4 customized
* · Conserve changes without other partition. You only need one partition, fat32 or ext2 or ext3.
* · You can share your modules (not a complete BT4 with 1.5 GB), and will be 100% functional with other BackTrack 4.
* · Install any program even this is not into repositories.
* · Make a module with your preferences, i.e. get Firefox plugins installed or modified KDE preferences.

The complte HOW-TO is here

[purehate]

I would like to make sure every one is aware that this type of action is completely unsupported by the development team and if you decide to use this method you are doing so at your own risk and entirely on your own. This completely defeats the purpose of the package management system which we work very hard to maintain.

[skinnypuppy]

Pureh@te, perhaps a new sticky is in order or an addition to a sticky in the beginners forum stating that if you are compiling your own tools, attempting to add the latest KDE/Gnome/XFCE etc, compiling a new kernel to replace/run along side of the existing, etc.. will possibly break your system and that you shouldn't be looking for support? I along with several others do compile our own tools and we make posts/comments on the results, and generally we do state that modifying your system in this will way could cause potential problems and that the dev team will not support it.

I for one would never expect to receive nor would I ever ask for, any assistance if my system failed to work as I have it heavily modified with tools compiled from source, etc... and believe it may cut down on some of the "I installed such and such from source and now this tool isn't working or my sound is not working.." and so on.

While it is all open source and obviously you are free to modify or add anything you want, the dev team is offering a product in which most of everything works right out of the box and by adding/modifying your own system is great if you know what you are doing, you shouldn't expect help if something goes wrong down the road.

Just my two cents.

[aldorm]

I would like to make sure every one is aware that this type of action is completely unsupported by the development team and if you decide to use this method you are doing so at your own risk and entirely on your own. This completely defeats the purpose of the package management system which we work very hard to maintain.

Hi pureh@te.
Thanks for your comment. I agree, if you use this method you cannot expect any kind of support, that’s always happens when you are hacking something (hardware, software, or Linux distros). A good example is when we install Linux (any distro) in our computers; companies don’t give any kind of support. So we decide what we are going to do.
I only give other way to customize BT4. I think that BT4 is incredible, has a lot of package/programs and a lot of tools for security, the idea of DEB repositories is excellent; but each person has different needs, ant this can help.
In my case, I teach Pentesting, and I use BackTrack(1,2,3,4), because is an excellent distro. But I add modules because I need some function that BT doesn’t have, and could be, anyone has those needs. Other module that I use is to make change in my preferences, could be inserting plugins to FireFox (there are a lot of useful plugins), modifying KDE preferences and I don’t need install programs each time BT4 is removing. Finally with this method anybody can share modules and burn a dvd exactly as the USB.
Most of these things can be do it with the original method: Leaders in Online Information Security Training » Customising BackTrack Live CD the Easy Way
Yes, that’s true, this is only other approximation, and the final user is going to choose one way.
Again, thanks for the comment pureh@te, and sorry for the bad English.

aldorm