Remastering a frugal install

How to do things, solutions, recipes, tutorials
Message
Author
User avatar
nic007
Posts: 3408
Joined: Sun 13 Nov 2011, 12:31
Location: Cradle of Humankind

#21 Post by nic007 »

ton wrote:Mattis and all,
I am using puppy precise.
Since it is frugal install, i believe i need save file which is limited to 2GB.
I can't increase more than that. (havent' tried though) but, people say that it will cause error if it is bigger than 2GB.


Or, do you suggest that if i use full install, there is no such issue? as it is not limited to 2GB? I install it to usb 32gb, yet it uses only 8GB.
Perhaps, i try with full install.
I think this is the limitation of frugal install.
If the error is caused by not enough space, then several re-mastering will solve the problem.

thanks
ton - Did you check on the other thread where I gave my answer (and somebody else also responded with tips)? By the way there is no limitation to the size of the save file UNLESS your partition is formatted to FAT32 (in which case the save file can't be bigger than 4GB) or FAT16 (in which it can't be bigger than 2GB). Your hard drive obviously needs to be big enough to handle the size of your save file. Also - a full install will waste even more space as the base sfs will be decompressed to more than 3 times its size.
Quick solution if you can't manage to do the remaster. If you still have the pet files for the programs, convert it to sfs files with a utility called pets2sfs. Then boot these files at bootup with your base frugal install. You then don't need to install any programs, your base sfs will stay the same and you can use a very small save file for your personal settings.

ton
Posts: 59
Joined: Sat 01 Feb 2014, 15:23

#22 Post by ton »

oo, ok thanks Nic,
this helps a lot.
I will keep mine in frugal.

ton
Posts: 59
Joined: Sat 01 Feb 2014, 15:23

#23 Post by ton »

but, Nic,
the original program is not in pet.
Rather such as library boost, that i need to use with eclipse c++
After i install it takes huge space as big as 500Mb.
So, remaster is the only way. & increase space. i will since i dont use fat 32, i think i use default.

thanks

User avatar
nic007
Posts: 3408
Joined: Sun 13 Nov 2011, 12:31
Location: Cradle of Humankind

#24 Post by nic007 »

ton wrote:but, Nic,
the original program is not in pet.
Rather such as library boost, that i need to use with eclipse c++
After i install it takes huge space as big as 500Mb.
So, remaster is the only way. & increase space. i will since i dont use fat 32, i think i use default.

thanks
ton - so how did you install that program? Anyway, a quick search and I found a pet of boost c++ here: http://dotpups.de/puppy4/dotpups/Libraries/. Maybe of use to you?

ton
Posts: 59
Joined: Sat 01 Feb 2014, 15:23

#25 Post by ton »

I know that one is old, doesnt have the latest function that i need.
I install it manually, as instructed on its website.
It's working but it seems to take huge space.

that's why i remaster it, try to get some free space.

User avatar
nic007
Posts: 3408
Joined: Sun 13 Nov 2011, 12:31
Location: Cradle of Humankind

#26 Post by nic007 »

ton wrote:I know that one is old, doesnt have the latest function that i need.
I install it manually, as instructed on its website.
It's working but it seems to take huge space.

that's why i remaster it, try to get some free space.
Which directory did you install it to. How did it go with the remaster?

slavvo67
Posts: 1610
Joined: Sat 13 Oct 2012, 02:07
Location: The other Mr. 305

#27 Post by slavvo67 »

I'm not quite sure what you're looking to do but if it's just taking a live CD, adding some pets and remastering by creating a new .iso with the changes, then this should be helpful.

If you are remastering a live cd, most puppies have a Remaster Puppy Live CD option (or maybe just remaster puppy on some). Mine happens to be under Menu - Setup.

First, of course, install the pets / packages that you want in your final remaster. Maybe make sure they all work the way you intended before remastering. Then Choose the Remaster Puppy Live CD and follow the instructions. Read the questions when they come up carefully on the remaster menu. 1. Make sure you have your live CD in the drive because it needs to read files from it. 2. After numerous questions (where I hit no to most of them), it asks if you want to create a new cd now. I always choose no and choose yes on the next question (make an .iso file). Then I just burn the new .iso to a CD using one of the utilities on my puppy (like Pburn).

I hope that helps.

Best,

Slavvo

ton
Posts: 59
Joined: Sat 01 Feb 2014, 15:23

#28 Post by ton »

hi Nic,
Boost requires to be installed in /usr.
So, that's why it occupies some space in your personal data save file.
After remastering, i see taht my personal space data becomes full again.
some of the software has to be installed in specific place such as java otherwise it won't work.

Slav,
The main purpose is not the CD actually rather personal data save file to be free. And, according to the instruction, i have to recopy files from /root. But, it fails as you see from my post above.

User avatar
nic007
Posts: 3408
Joined: Sun 13 Nov 2011, 12:31
Location: Cradle of Humankind

#29 Post by nic007 »

ton wrote:hi Nic,
Boost requires to be installed in /usr.
So, that's why it occupies some space in your personal data save file.
After remastering, i see taht my personal space data becomes full again.
some of the software has to be installed in specific place such as java otherwise it won't work.

Slav,
The main purpose is not the CD actually rather personal data save file to be free. And, according to the instruction, i have to recopy files from /root. But, it fails as you see from my post above.
If you did the remaster correctly, the contents of your old save file should now be merged into the new, remastered sfs and you can get rid of the old save file completely. So what happens if you boot the new remastered sfs without any save file? BTW, you will have to delete the old sfs and old save or rename them to ensure that the wrong files are not booted at bootup (you can do this by putting a digit at the beginning of the file name).
Also - the idea is to install all your programs first and then do the remaster because obviously if you are going to install again, you are going to need a big save file again. So in your case either do that OR use SFS add-on files for the programs you want to use because then you do not have to install them and they sit in your /mnt/home directory ready to be used.

scsijon
Posts: 1596
Joined: Thu 24 May 2007, 03:59
Location: the australian mallee
Contact:

#30 Post by scsijon »

nic007 wrote:
ton wrote:hi Nic,
Boost requires to be installed in /usr.
So, that's why it occupies some space in your personal data save file.
After remastering, i see taht my personal space data becomes full again.
some of the software has to be installed in specific place such as java otherwise it won't work.

Slav,
The main purpose is not the CD actually rather personal data save file to be free. And, according to the instruction, i have to recopy files from /root. But, it fails as you see from my post above.
If you did the remaster correctly, the contents of your old save file should now be merged into the new, remastered sfs and you can get rid of the old save file completely. So what happens if you boot the new remastered sfs without any save file? BTW, you will have to delete the old sfs and old save or rename them to ensure that the wrong files are not booted at bootup (you can do this by putting a digit at the beginning of the file name).
Also - the idea is to install all your programs first and then do the remaster because obviously if you are going to install again, you are going to need a big save file again. So in your case either do that OR use SFS add-on files for the programs you want to use because then you do not have to install them and they sit in your /mnt/home directory ready to be used.
folks, have you any extra sfs's mounted or loaded? If so, unload them, then reboot and try again, I did find some sfs's don't 'play' well when remastering for some reason.

BTW, a test I did some few years ago when remaster was new showed it needed about 5 times the space of the expected remastered cd contents uncompressed to always work and not the compressed space.

regards

User avatar
rufwoof
Posts: 3690
Joined: Mon 24 Feb 2014, 17:47

#31 Post by rufwoof »

Originally I remastered to a general (non machine specific) version. Later I opted to just simply remaster to my own PC specific as I find that works ok with most other systems anyway, but you have to manually reconfigure for language/locale etc.

From that I've created my own remaster process - that's a two click 30 second process.

I merge puppy sfs into initrd so that only vmlinuz and that initrd are required to boot up puppy and the remaster process is set to replace the existing initrd (where grub4dos looks on the hard disk) - ready for the next reboot.

I've found that using no compression of puppy sfs to be the best overall choice for me. I've 1.5GB of ram and a 400MB non compressed puppy sfs is fine with that. I do however compress initrd using a fast LZO level 1 compression, which shrinks the initrd size down to around 200MB.

When booted /initrd/pup_ro2 is close to 400MB, I also load up a office sfs that compressed comes in at around 500MB, leaving around 600MB of free for work/play. I've removed my swap partition so as to have no disk bound working (all memory bound). That office sfs includes libre office, audacity, flash, xvidcap, blender 3D animation, python and openshot video editor - which more or less caters for my needs. The only other program I use is Firefox, which I run as a portable app - disk based (so updates, bookmarks etc are all persistent).

When remastering is a two click operation and takes 30 seconds on a old PC, quicker on later PC's, its hardly worth bothering with savefiles (I personally ram boot with no save file (PUPMODE 5) all of the time).

Another change included in that is my baee puppy has a copy of all of the CD files (excluding puppy sfs), so there's no need to 'insert CD or mount a local ISO' during remastering, its all to hand already for the program/script. As those files are relatively small it would be nice IMO if more Puppy's used that approach.

User avatar
johnywhy
Posts: 879
Joined: Sat 20 Aug 2011, 14:52

#32 Post by johnywhy »

hi

after remastering xprecise according to steps in OP, i drag-copied all the files in the new iso into my existing xprecise frugal dir, overwriting the existing files. i did not re-run grub.

is that the wrong way to do it?

now i'm able to boot xprecise no problem.

but the network and frisbee icons are now missing from system tray.

how to get them back?

also, upon boot, i see the notifications telling me puppy is requesting an ip address from my wifi, so my prior frisbee settings seem to be working-- but just for a few seconds. then i see "wlan down", and there's no connection.

then, if i run frisbee from whisker menu, it opens fine, and automatically connects to my wifi.

but the network and frisbee icons are still missing from system tray. how to get them back? and how to fix the failed connection attempt on boot?

also, the clock seems to not want to keep correct time anymore.


thx!
[b]Now[/b]: X-Tahr 2.0! StretchDog! DevuanDog!
[b]Tops[/b]: TarhNOP Vlina-R2 Racy
[b]Used[/b]: Puppeee Precise Lucid Wary Tahrpup Quirky Slacko MacPup Saluki Puppy Studio LxPupTarh Lina-Lite Lina
[i]i ♥ Puppy[/i]

riedzig
Posts: 40
Joined: Thu 01 Oct 2015, 06:14

Why make/not make a separate .zdrv.sfs?

#33 Post by riedzig »

Hi,
While remastering I never know the advantages of this option in terms of size, boot speed etc. of the new remastered Puppy. Since there's no recommendation and I find no mention in this topic I would be happy to get any hint from you.

gcmartin

#34 Post by gcmartin »

Remaster intent is to allow your presently running PUP with all of what you've saved and installed currently in your Puppy filesystem on your desktop to be saved as a single ISO with no save-sessions. It creates a new pristine ISO matching what you are currently running.

Expect no difference in what or how your present desktop is working.

Hope that helps

stemsee

#35 Post by stemsee »

There are several remastering methods and solutions. They do not necessarily result in an iso, more usually in a main sfs module which may or may not go into an initrd file.

I have written several remaster scripts: SFS-Direct-Remaster which remasters a running system immediately to a replacement main sfs module. SFS-Unattended-Remaster, which was further developed by others to remaster many linux distros. However my last effort was Simple-Remaster, which can also go all the way to iso, can in/ex-clude zdrv/other modules|wine prefix, can work on device or in ram, run from prompt with or without X, does not need an original iso, all questions occur at start and auto-runs to completion; now includes a handy drag'n'drop desktop widget for adding files or dirs to exclude from the remaster just by dragging them to the widget etc. The system is cleaned of 99% of sensitive data.

riedzig
Posts: 40
Joined: Thu 01 Oct 2015, 06:14

#36 Post by riedzig »

Maybe I put my question vaguely. I'm a bit familiar with remastering using the builtin tool, but when I get to the option "do you want to make a separate zdrv.sfs (yes-no)" I don't know what is better for me to make a slim, fast booting, to one PC customized new Puppy. If there's no difference at all, then I don't see the point of giving this option.

Sailor Enceladus
Posts: 1543
Joined: Mon 22 Feb 2016, 19:43

#37 Post by Sailor Enceladus »

riedzig wrote:Maybe I put my question vaguely. I'm a bit familiar with remastering using the builtin tool, but when I get to the option "do you want to make a separate zdrv.sfs (yes-no)" I don't know what is better for me to make a slim, fast booting, to one PC customized new Puppy. If there's no difference at all, then I don't see the point of giving this option.
zdrv makes it easy to update or switch kernels later. I see you didn't have success with zdrv_cutter :lol:

hamoudoudou

Tested wih a Puppy 64 bit . It works.

#38 Post by hamoudoudou »

Tested wih a Puppy 64 bit . It works. jump in the future.
They are 35 topics explaining how to do, but none with a 64 bits. I did it for you. .
Catdude explanations are clear enough with screenshots.. for most of us. But deep in the forum. Sure the beginners dont' yet know how to use the search tools.

User avatar
johnywhy
Posts: 879
Joined: Sat 20 Aug 2011, 14:52

#39 Post by johnywhy »

rufwoof wrote:. From that I've created my own remaster process - that's a two click 30 second process .
Woah!

Can you please share the steps?

Thx!
[b]Now[/b]: X-Tahr 2.0! StretchDog! DevuanDog!
[b]Tops[/b]: TarhNOP Vlina-R2 Racy
[b]Used[/b]: Puppeee Precise Lucid Wary Tahrpup Quirky Slacko MacPup Saluki Puppy Studio LxPupTarh Lina-Lite Lina
[i]i ♥ Puppy[/i]

belham2
Posts: 1715
Joined: Mon 15 Aug 2016, 22:47

#40 Post by belham2 »

johnywhy wrote:
rufwoof wrote:. From that I've created my own remaster process - that's a two click 30 second process .
Woah!

Can you please share the steps?

Thx!

Hi Johnny,

All that is being done is what Fatdog & the Fatdog team have been doing for the past 7-8 years, and a few others tinkered with back in 2010/2011. In Fatdog's case, they long ago decided to merge the puppy.sfs (or Fatdog.sfs) into initrd so that only vmlinuz and that initrd are required to boot up. Sound familiar?

Look at Fatdog, play with it, then you'll understand what to do in any other pup if you want. Just be aware there are some downsides, a big one being the hardware you run on. Depending on your hardware---specifically your BIOS and motherboard---you may be staring at 4-10 minute bootup times when merging the puppy.sfs into the initrd. As James (Fatdog Developer) talks about, it's all about how your BIOS handles the data flow. Knowing many others (like myself) still have hardware that is perfectly good but struggles with huge initrds, James & the team decided to offer clear documentation for a small initrd Fatdog option (in essence, ripping the puppy.sfs out).

Thus, do some simple "reverse engineering", read the Fatdog documentation on Ibiblio, and you'll understand. Also, look at many of the simple remaster scripts written by others in the "remastering" threads. You'll be off & running in no time. IMHO, currently the best remastering scripts written in all of the puppy/ddog universe are the ones written by Fred of DebianDog fame here on Murga. They are the standard puppy should shoot for when they ever get around to re-doing Shinobars's/Barry's original remaster script(s)---script(s) that are still offered in Pups today and, in my humble opinion, need some re-working as they have not kept up with changes and/or needs of puppy users.

Good luck! :wink:


P.S. Murga poster nic007 has some good stuff in terms of simple, clear remaster scripts. Search for his posts, and you'll come across them. Good stuff.

Post Reply