Debian From Scratch allows building and running complete Debian CD images.
Using the DFS CD, you can expect to get several features such as a bootable CD facilitated with the GNU Grub bootloader. It can effortlessly boot various hard disk partitions even if there is no bootloader for hard disks. There's also full support for all major filesystems, including ext2, ext3, JFS, XFS, FAT, VFAT, NTFS, ReiserFS, CramFS, tmpfs, and much more. The userland supports Reiser4 as well.
On top of that, the system also supports various disk layout schemes such as LVM2, standard partitioning, software RAID, etc., and provides complete recovery tools that are runnable directly from the CD. The recovery tools include text editors like vim, joe, emacs, C, Perl, Python, and OCaml development environments that are adequate enough to build basic .debs and configure and compile a new kernel. There are also partition editors like fdisk, cfdisk, and parted, filesystem utilities for all major filesystems including undeletion tools for ext2.
Users can also get full networking support, including PPP, DHCP, and various Ethernet cards, and network tools like FTP clients, NFS, ssh, smbclient, Web client, netcat, tcpdump, among others. Backup restoration tools like dump/restore, cpio, tar, amanda client, afbackup client, rdiff-backup, and CD/DVD burning tools are also accessible.
The system even includes basic printing tools for local and remote printers, plus Unix2dos for text files and Ghostscript for emergency conversions, and a mail reader, mutt. Multiple versions of Debian can be installed directly from the CD, including sarge, woody (i386), sid (i386), and sid (amd64). Alpha CD users can also install woody, sarge, or sid for Alpha.
Moreover, the AMD64 support in DFS is adequate to fix or install an AMD64 system. Users can boot a 64-bit kernel and still be treated as a first-class citizen in almost all aspects. DFS generation scripts support custom packages, kernels, mirrors, compressed ISO images, and offer a high degree of flexibility. Lastly, i386 or x86_64 (amd64) kernels can be booted directly from the initial boot menu.
Version 0.99.0: N/A