bdisk/docs/manual/faq/ALTERNATIVES.adoc

== I don't like BDisk. Are there any other alternatives?
First, I'm sorry to hear that BDisk doesn't suit your needs. If you want any features you think are missing or encounter any <<FURTHER.adoc#bug_reports_feature_requests, bugs>>, please report them!

But yes; there are plenty of alternatives!

NOTE: Only *currently maintained projects* are listed here.

=== https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/archboot[Archboot^]
Written in Bash
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|======================
|Pros|Cons
|Highly featureful|Arch-only live media
|Includes an assisted Arch install script|Inaccessible to non-Arch users
|Can create tarballs too|Not very customizable by default
|Supports hybrid ISOs|Infrequent stable releases
|Supports PXE-booting infrastructure|Requires a systemd build host
|Supports SecureBoot|Not a secure setup by default
|Supports GRUB2's "ISO-loopback" mode|Builds a much larger image
|Official Arch project|Some graphical bugs
||Much more disk space is necessary for the tool itself
||*Only* runs in RAM, so not ideal for RAM-constrained systems
||Based on/requires an Arch build host
||Requires an x86_64 build host
||Has a large amount of dependencies
||Manual intervention required for build process
||Minimal documentation
||
|======================

=== https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/archiso[Archiso^]
Written in Bash.
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|======================
|Pros|Cons
|Used to build the official Arch ISO|Requires an x86_64 build host
|Supports custom local on-disk repositories|Not very featureful as far as customization goes
|Supports arbitrary file placement in finished image|Requires an Arch build host
|Supports hybrid ISOs|Has odd quirks with package selection
|Supports Secureboot|Manual intervention required for build process
|Official Arch project|Does not start networking by default
|Can run in RAM or from media|Very minimal environment
||Arch-only live meda
||Documentation is lacking
||
|======================

=== Debian's https://wiki.debian.org/Simple-CDD[Simple-CDD^]
Written in Bash (some Python).
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|======================
|Pros|Cons
|Supports custom packages to be installed|Very limited -- no customization beyond package listing
|Lightweight; quick to set up|Takes a long time for preparation; requires a clone of many .deb packages first.
||Doesn't seem to work as according to https://wiki.debian.org/Simple-CDD/Howto[the documentation^]
||Documentation is sparse
||Full featureset unknown due to ISO not building on Debian Jessie (8.0)
||
|======================

=== Fedora's https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Livemedia-creator-_How_to_create_and_use_a_Live_CD[Livemedia-creator^]
Written in Bash.
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|======================
|Pros|Cons
|Somewhat customizable|Requires manual initialization of chroot(s) via https://github.com/rpm-software-management/mock/wiki[mock^]
|Uses kickstart configurations|*Requires* a kickstart configuration to be useful
|Simple/easy to use|Full featureset unknown; documentation is sparse
||Limited configuration/customization
||
|======================

=== https://github.com/rhinstaller/livecd-tools[LiveCD Tools^]
Written in Python 2, some Bash.
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|======================
|Pros|Cons
|Can use kickstarts|*Requires* a kickstart configuration
|Simple/easy to use to use|Limited configuration/customization
|Automatically builds chroots|Full featureset unknown; documentation is sparse
||
|======================