Software remastering is the process of customizing a software or operating system distribution for personal or "off-label" usage. It is particularly associated with some Linux distributions, since most Linux distributions started as a remastered version of another distribution, notably Slackware from SLS Linux; Yellow Dog Linux, Mandriva, and TurboLinux from Red Hat Linux and Linux Mint from Ubuntu, which itself is a remaster of Debian. Microsoft Windows has also been modified and remastered, and various utility applications exist that combine Windows updates and device drivers with the original Windows CD/DVD installation media, a process known as slipstreaming. Many video games have also been modified (or modded) and upgraded, with additional content, levels, or game features. Notably Counter-Strike, has been created in this manner and went on to be marketed as a commercial product.
The term remastering is taken from the audio production process, and was popularized by Klaus Knopper, creator of the Knoppix live distro, which has traditionally encouraged its users to hack the distribution in this manner to suit their needs; appropriately, Knoppix itself is a remaster of Debian.
Famous quotes containing the words driver and/or packs:
“God help the horse, and the driver too!
And the people and beasts who have never a friend!
For the driver easily might have been you,
And the horse be me by a different end!
And nobody knows how their days will cease!
And the poor, when they’re old, have little of peace!”
—James Kenneth Stephens (1882–1950)
“Teenage boys, goaded by their surging hormones ... run in packs like the primal horde. They have only a brief season of exhilarating liberty between control by their mothers and control by their wives.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)