[howto] tweaking a livecd in order to blacklist offending kernel modules

[eldragon]

ive got one of the laptops affected by the following bug: http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9905

with more info here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/187671


there has been a patch released to fix the issue, but the likeliness of it being included in the intrepid release is small, so ive decided to jump ahead and make a livecd that will boot in these laptops.

the procedure consist on the following:

• download a livecd
• extract it with archive manager
• use squashfs to uncompress the livecd filesystem
• edit /etc/modprobe/blacklist to blacklist the offending modules
• repack the livecd filesystem
• create a bootable iso
• burn

first things first: you need to have squashfs-tools and genisoinage, so

$ sudo apt-get install squashfs-tools genisoimage

now we begin: download the livecd you wish to be able to boot.

then extract the contents of the livecd to a folder in your desktop called isofs using the archive manager.

next, open a terminal by pressing [alt]-[f2] and typing

gnome-terminal

and execute:

$ cd ~/Desktop
$ sudo unsquashfs ~/Desktop/isofs/casper/filesystem.squashfs

which will uncompress the livecd filesystem so that we can modify it.

now we edit the blacklist file with

$ sudo gedit ~/Desktop/squashfs-root/etc/modprobe.d/blacklist

and add to the end of the file the following lines:

blacklist sdhci
blacklist sdhci-pci

next step involves rebuilding the squashfs

$ sudo rm ~/Desktop/isofs/casper/filesystem.squashfs
$ sudo mksquashfs ~/Desktop/squashfs-root ~/Desktop/isofs/casper/filesystem.squashfs

and we make sure we can read the file when creating the iso:

$ sudo chmod a+r ~/Desktop/isofs/casper/filesystem.squashfs

next step involves creating the bootable cdrom image:

$ cd ~/Desktop/isofs
$ mkisofs -o ~/Desktop/livecd_nosdhci.iso -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -J ~/Desktop/isofs/

finally, burn the image livecd_nosdhci.iso with brasero, and test it