Light-Debian-Core-Live-CD-Wheezy + Porteus-Wheezy

[go2null]

I've read somewhere (FoxyRoxy?) that Squeeze supported COW snapshots, but this was dropped in Wheezy.

One of my requirements is to run in RAM and save to disk occasionally - because I am running from a USB stick.
(I run some apps that write all the time and hose the system if not running in RAM.)

How does this Wheezy Live work?

[anikin]

I performed (and survived) a quick and dangerous experiment - upgraded Squeeze LD to Wheezy and rolled back to Squeeze again. The steps are very simple:
1) replace "squeeze" with "wheezy" in /etc/apt/sources.list
2) update repositories: apt-get update
3) minimal system upgrade: apt-get upgrade
4) full system upgrade apt-get dist-upgrade
The result was an obscenely huge Wheezy. I got stuff, I didn't ask for, like the latest Iceweasel. Perhaps, I should have stopped at minimal system upgrade - will check that later on. Although, a question is nagging me - when something is removed from the original ISO during "reverse engineering" - is that removal reflected in sources.list? I will continue experimenting with apt-get and dpkg and do 'selective' upgrades. I'm more interested in upgrading via installing self-compiled stuff from Debian sources.

Regarding the choice of window managers, can we have that as in the original Puppy - JWM & Rox? When/if the projects catches on and more people get involved, it will be easier to have a choice. Until then, things should be kept as simple as possible, me thinks.

[nooby]

Regarding the choice of window managers,
can we have that as in the original Puppy -
JWM & Rox? .

As you may know and I choose my user name
to warn that I am an absolute nobody in Linux.

I agree that JWM sure is a window manager
but Rox looks more like a file manager but
maybe that was implied and I got lost in the grammar

No criticism of you as person
I just wanted to get suggestions on other small
window managers that could replace JWM

I like JWM but some dislike it so XFVE? or LXDE
whatever they are named maybe are popular alternatives
but very big compared to JWM? .

[anikin]

Sure, it's implied as a combo - window & file manager. JWM/Rox is the lightest and smallest of them all. Barry had a good reason for having made his choice - Puppy was meant to run from RAM. It's about functionality, not about what looks nicer.

[saintless]

Sure, it's implied as a combo - window & file manager. JWM/Rox is the lightest and smallest of them all. Barry had a good reason for having made his choice - Puppy was meant to run from RAM. It's about functionality, not about what looks nicer.

Debian Rox dependencies are few time larger in size than the XFE ones. And XFE is much more functional and easier to set up the way you want than Rox. Squeezy version will stay as it is with small improvements and apps without adding too much size.
Running from RAM is important. The size should not get over 200 Mb in my opinion.
I have an experiment with Wheezy IceWM version with both kernels still inside and size less than 115 Mb iso. So it should be possible to create JWM/Rox combination for a little bit bigger size. Removing one of the kernels will spare about 30 Mb compressed data.

Making Puppy like version Jwm/Rox is my and Sunburnt's suggestion for Wheezy. You can't do mutch with it on old computer. Modern applications are two much RAM hungry. This way the size can grow up a little.

About Squeeze to Wheezy upgrade - you can't do small distro only by upgrading small base. After upgrading squeezy you have to clean manual bunch of files. For example only apt-get update adds around 100 Mb. The result needs much cleaning before creating new squash file.
You can minimize the size easy by running apt-get clean to remove the downloaded packages in /var/cache/apt/archives but it will not be enough. Try to upgrade only the base without adding nothing with save file befor the upgrade.
Lets not forget squeeze light debian you upgrade is read-only mounted. This means you will have the new and the old versions of the packages as size. Even if you combine them in one squash file something from thre old system might sdtay inside since the structure is different.
I do not remove packages manual. I use apt-get purge to remove them and this way dpkg database is configured and updated proper. Check out the content of /var/lib/dpkg and you will get the idea how it works.
I remove manual files (not application packages) which are not needed by the system or will be generated again on boot.

Cheers, Toni

[sklimkin]

Hi, Sunburnt,
I will try to translate from Russian to English my talks with the author of the SFS-Linux'es (developer of the team puppirus.org) on live-snapshot, live-boot on the-fly and so on.
He gave three options "safe sex" with the installation of new programs over apt-get and then packaging them into SFS-modules.

Live-snapshot is needed and used for another purpose: he created a file of all changes in the system during the current session and the file (live-sn**.cpio.gz) connected in the following sessions. Thus, the system remains clean, pristine, but due to the connection live-sn**.cpio.gz over the system files, the user had all the previous changes as if they were present in the system initially.

The author pointed out that this is not "true-way", and only one of the persistent features.
Proper and safe to have around with the system DIR (named /_sfs - for example) for the required programs packaged in SPS and activate/deactivate these modules as needed.

All this somehow present then in Puppy, and he picked it up in one place and applied to Debian/Ubuntu, though quite elegant.

Quote:
I understand that Deb. can install to non-standard paths, this would be very good to do.

There is no need (and then: where to put the *bin* *lib* *.desktop and other specific files that need to be read at startup of the program ONLY from: /usr/bin /usr/lib /usr/sbin ...).
On the other hand: I took firefox.sfs of Puppy repository and installed in the SFS-linux (Debian & Ubuntu). Pak got into DIR /opt but it worked fine.

Privet, Toni !
http://live.debian.net/manual/stable/ht ... en.html#70
2. About the Debian Live Project

From the first lines are clear changes in the live-boot when switching from debian-6.x (live-boot 2.x) version to version debian-7.x (live-boot 3.x)
But almost no alternatives and have to put up with this.

http://live.debian.net/manual/stable/ht ... rs.en.html
10. Customizing run time behaviours
10.3 Persistence

I will try to overcome these limitations through the "game" with the installation of kernel

Sergey.

P.S.
There is another big problem, which is present in many branches of Linux, including in Puppy: kernel update (and initramfs.img) to ensure that the system has long been the modern.
Most often, this is solved by recompiling the kernel from the main developer. This is done, as a rule, developers particular system (eg team Puppy), the most advanced users do it themselves (with more or less success). It's difficult work, it is not available to most users.

Therefore, the creation of Linux based on Debian, but includes some important features Puppy - it's not a toy, as it might seem at first glance. It is a tool with far-reaching consequences. It is only necessary to teach this tool easy as possible for the user to update, if necessary, the Linux kernel.
For example: change kernel from squeese 6.0 to wheezy 7.2 (hard but as maximum)

[anikin]

Hi saintless et al,
I was unaware of Rox' dependencies size. As for my upgrading experiment - don't take it seriously. It's just part of the learning process, and there's still a lot to learn, I must tell you. Like, this for example: I can't scroll in xterm and can't copy text from it. How do you do that?

Thank you in advance.

[saintless]

Privet, Sergey

Thanks for the links and the pointers. I still have mich to learn about linux.
I undarstand the russian team has already made something similar working like puppy from debian and ubuntu. I just don't get way the russian locale settings of this distro can become a reason nobody in this forum knows about it. And it uses similar to puppy methods on debian based distro.

Anyway it is great you point it here.

Poka, Toni

[saintless]

Hi saintless et al,
I was unaware of Rox' dependencies size. As for my upgrading experiment - don't take it seriously. It's just part of the learning process, and there's still a lot to learn, I must tell you. Like, this for example: I can't scroll in xterm and can't copy text from it. How do you do that?

Thank you in advance.

Hi Anikin,
experimenting is the way to learn more, so, please, share your results.
For example Sergey gave some thoughts about changing the path to the live folder in grub menu list and this may solve the differense in the structure between wheezy and squeeze regarding one cleaning script for both.
We just have to create folder /live and subfolders /live/image /live/cow in wheezy and to siimlink to them the coresponding folders.

BTW I'm almost there to create Wheezy with the same size and functionality as Sqweeze iso (about 70 Mb). Whatever direction we take from here I will upload the result. It might be useful for someone.

Regarding Xterm I think you gona love it in time.
Press Ctrl and right mouse button and see what menu will appear.
Copy - paste: mark the text in Xterm and just pres the scroll mouse button to paste it where you need. And the opposite.
To select all or part of the content in Xterm mark small part and start scroll the mouse button. When you click right mouse button the text is selected to the point where the cursor is.

Cheers, Toni

[stu91]

Currently posting from a custom live wheezy build - i made it much the same way as sklimkin described on page 3 where you start with the min debian base and add to it - i have xorg, blackbox, xfe, wicd-gtk wifi plus some other stuff and .iso is around 170mb i didn't remove or trim anything all locals docs etc are still included, so some room for improvement i think - this was just a test to see how all this debootstrap, chroot and build stuff works so no public upload here.

@saintless - is there some reason you build the other way starting with a debian iso and removing?

Still alot to take in when moving away from puppy to a new system / way of doing things - i think what ever the outcome the ability to reproduce results and recreate builds easily is an important factor.

[sklimkin]

Hi, Anikin,

The result was an obscenely huge Wheezy. I got stuff, I didn't ask for, like the latest Iceweasel. Perhaps, I should have stopped at minimal system upgrade - will check that later on. Although, a question is nagging me - when something is removed from the original ISO during "reverse engineering" - is that removal reflected in sources.list? I will continue experimenting with apt-get and dpkg and do 'selective' upgrades. I'm more interested in upgrading via installing self-compiled stuff from Debian sources.

Instead:

Code: Select all

apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade

Try this (after change /etc/apt/sources.list & apt-get update):

Code: Select all

apt-cache search linux-image
apt-get install linux-image-*******   - for selected version
apt-get install localepurge   - only selected licale installed, others purged

it's preferrable form for all next installations:
apt-get install --not-install-recommends <SELECTED-MODULE-OR-PROGRAM>

Code: Select all

apt-get install network-manager
apt-get install xserver-xorg
apt-get install xorg
apt-get install <PREFERRED-DESKTOP-ENVIRONMENT>
ad so on (for example only):
apt-get install wget
apt-get install mc
apt-get install xxkb
apt-get install leafpad
apt-get install gpicview
apt-get install dillo

With --not-install-recommends Iceweasel will definitely not be installed, as well as many other components you did not want.

It's certainly a longer path than apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade.
But greater control and as a result of the smaller size of the resulting distribution.

[sklimkin]

If we remember that the live-Debian is a modular system (because of the use squashfs + live), the discussion about PREFERRED desktops and many programs would be senseless.
In DIR /live/ may be other SYSTEM modules that are loaded with the base module.
For example: openbox.squashfs lxde.squashfs
Will need to add scripts to switch between these desktops.
These modules are already in the repositories Puppy, you just have to choose the most suitable and rename them *.sfs --> *.squashfs or *.pet --> *.squashfs
Of course not all modules will be 100% effective but should be tested.
Can successfully load-&-use up to 7 *.squashfs modules from this DIR.
Programs in the form of *.sfs can be loaded from the neighboring DIR /_sfs - this is what I wrote earlier.

Let Xfe remains basic minimum desktop environment.
And everything else - the choice and preferences of the user.

Hi, stu91
Heaviest weight - it certainly graphical desktop environment with all that it serves (and not visible to the user) .
With the addition of the small size of the facilities of this environment increases geometrically.
Think about how much space and resources requires Gnome desktop .
Should pay for everything, but respecting proportionality. Right?
Pay attention to the following:
the largest size is not /bin /lib but /usr/lib and /usr/share
Finding balance convenience price many developers are busy .
But leaders like Canonical pushing us in the other direction.

[sunburnt]

sklimkin; Very helpful of you, many thanks for your input.
I agree about Ubuntu, they`re innovative, but it`s worry some also. Where`s it going to.?

# Rox installed & working on Saintless`s Wheezy, shows icons and wallpaper.
( It`s scary how well everything works, not use to this in Puppy. )

Stuff in odd places, like sda3 not mounted at /mnt/sda3 ... What, /mnt not good enough now?

# Need to change default editor from sensible-editor to xfwrite


# Q: How to set screen resolution, or what app to install to do this.?

# Q: Where is the Wheezy default apps setup located at.?

# Q: What is the Wheezy file to "late run" apps.? ( need to run: Rox -p ... )


# A: Wheezy JWM menu files (2) located at: /etc/jwm
......... Changed menu items They did stay after reboot.

# A: File to add code to do early boot items. ( mounting, make links, etc.)
......... File is: /etc/init.d/rc.local
.

[Smithy]

# Got rox working on Saintless`s Wheezy, shows icons and wallpaper.
( It`s scary how well everything works, not use to this in Puppy. )

Great one Sunburnt, would that mean Roxterm will work from the wheezy repository?

I always love higlighting bits of code on this site and just pasting it into roxterm, fastest way of testing things. Plus it looks good with the tango background.

Like the pace here, slow and methodical

[sunburnt]

Smithy; Yes, I installed these apps:
apt-get install rox-filer
apt-get install mtpaint
apt-get install iceweasel

# I`m liking this a lot. Some stuff`s odd, & dealing with permissions is trying.

Now if I can just learn the file where Rox is started in the boot sequence,
then I can make it come up automatically at boot.

All the Rox icons work, and I have the Rox menu [Send To...] filled with apps.
The JWM menu has Reboot & Shutdown on it, and IceWeasel, Rox, Xfe, etc.
And I changed the sub menu by eliminating the [Applications] middle part.

Here`s the Wheezy Rox desktop ( Looks just like my Puppy, but no tray yet ):

[saintless]

Here`s the Wheezy Rox desktop ( Looks just like my Puppy, but no tray yet ):

Hi, Sunburnt, like it a lot
In the previous version of JWM in Squeezy you can start Rox Desktop this way:

Edit /etc/menu-methods/jwm this way:

Code: Select all

<!-- Additional Swallow attribute -->\n\
<Swallow name="start rox pinboard " >\n\
rox -p --pinboard=PIN\n\
</Swallow>\n\

Note this Debian JWM is configured different way to save changes.
If you make the changes in jwmrc they will dissapear after running:

Code: Select all

update-menus

You can check for problems in JWM configuration this way:

Code: Select all

jwm -p

You can try just to add this in jwmrc file
Edit /etc/jwm/jwmrc this way:

Code: Select all

<Swallow name="start rox pinboard " >
rox -p --pinboard=PIN
</Swallow>

Unfortunately Wheezy is different and the configuration files are a little bit changed. Haven't experimented with them yet.

There is a package called menu which adds menu entry in Debian menu after installing programs. It also adds the changes made in JWM configuratin + the changes in /usr/share/menu Take a look at the content there.
Hope it helps a little. I will answer your other questions in the next post.

If you like to experiment without breaking JWM configuration place a copy of jwmrc in /root/.jwmrc (there is dot infront jwmrc) And do the changes there using restart menu button. The problem in this configuration is menu program will not save the changes in /root/.jwmrc but it is good for testing.

[saintless]

#Stuff in odd places, like sda3 not mounted at /mnt/sda3 ... What, /mnt not good enough now?
/media is the default mounting place in debian. No problem to mount what you like in /mnt

# Q: How to set screen resolution, or what app to install to do this.?
Install Xrandr or this way by creating xorg.conf file:
http://foxyroxylinux.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=165


# Q: What is the Wheezy file to "late run" apps.? ( need to run: Rox -p ... )
In the previous post is the answer. You can try also a script in /etc/profile.d but I'm think the command will be executed before entering X and it will not work.


# A: File to add code to do early boot items. ( mounting, make links, etc.)
......... File is: /etc/init.d/rc.local
Thanks for this. I guess this can solve the problem to use save file on the boot partition. I will check out this option.

Cheers, Toni

[saintless]

If we remember that the live-Debian is a modular system (because of the use squashfs + live), the discussion about PREFERRED desktops and many programs would be senseless.
In DIR /live/ may be other SYSTEM modules that are loaded with the base module.
For example: openbox.squashfs lxde.squashfs
Will need to add scripts to switch between these desktops.
These modules are already in the repositories Puppy, you just have to choose the most suitable and rename them *.sfs --> *.squashfs or *.pet --> *.squashfs
Of course not all modules will be 100% effective but should be tested.
Can successfully load-&-use up to 7 *.squashfs modules from this DIR.
Programs in the form of *.sfs can be loaded from the neighboring DIR /_sfs - this is what I wrote earlier.

Privet, Sergey,
Thanks for the pointers and I agree with all, but I see a small problem in adding SFS files this way - it can break the dpkg database and apt-get.
If you load only the base core + different SFS files it is OK. It is much mor better if the files are from Puppy and work on Debian. They will not take effect on dpkg database.
If we load 01-base.sfs and we apt-get a program to create 02-extra.sfs and then 03-extra.sfs they will work fine.

If we load only 01-base.sfs + 02-base.sfs and create from this point 04-extra.sfs it will also work fine.
But if we decide then to load 01+02+03+04-sfs - dpkg database will not have any information about 03-extra.sfs because it was not loaded while creating 04-extra.sfs
I'm sure it is already solved from the russian team and I know JBV solved it for FoxyRoxyLinux, so it will not be a problem to use something similar here.
Poka, Toni

[saintless]

@saintless - is there some reason you build the other way starting with a debian iso and removing?

Hi, Stu91,

thank you for sharing your results. My reason to start with bigger base is to learn better how to remove packages from read-only live system. I doubt I could get much experience in that if I work with minimal setup. I also doubt I will make smaller core from minimal setup, but I will try soon.

Cheers, Toni

[sunburnt]

Saintless; rc.local is not that early in the boot process.

The Save file is mounted earlier than that I`m sure.
In Puppy it`s mounted in the very first script: init
But where it`s mounted in Debian I have no idea.

Some of the How To "run apps at boot" web info talk about run levels.
This is may be the way to mount: live-rw


### Update: Got Saintless`s code to work. Look at new desktop pix above.
Wheezy now boots to the Rox desktop with full icons displayed.

### Can someone tutor me on getting tray apps to work.?
.