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

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saintless
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#2266 Post by saintless »

fredx181 wrote:What you need only in fact is the edited linuxrc so attached here.
Thank you, Fred!

BTW what is yours compress initrd.xz command? Default xz compression is not supported by official Debian kernel.
I use this one which works. It takes long time on my hardware to compress the file.

Code: Select all

find | cpio -H newc -o | xz --check=crc32 --x86 --lzma2 > ../initrd.xz
I think to use the same compression for initrd.img file and it will make it around 2,5Mb smaller. If it works I will add one more initrd.img for live-boot-v3 that uses persistence save file.
The iso size will be 4-5 Mb larger with 3 initrd files but we get all boot methods in one iso: live-boot-3x-persistence, live-boot-2x-persistent and Porteus boot.
This way the user will have a choice to find the best one needed and to remove the other 2 initrd files to save space.

Toni
Last edited by saintless on Wed 09 Apr 2014, 12:50, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: BIOS/ATA limitations workaround found

#2267 Post by saintless »

mcewanw wrote:Though you say your machine won't boot usb with 8MiB offset Toni (and that may well be the case), I would still be grateful if you could try the above method with 8MiB offset just to be sure gparted isn't the culprit really
Hi, William.
I will try this in the next few days and write back.

Toni

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#2268 Post by fredx181 »

Toni wrote:BTW what is yours compress initrd.xz command?
I use this:

Code: Select all

find . -print | cpio -o -H newc 2>/dev/null | xz -f --extreme --check=crc32 > ../initrd.xz
Don't know if it's any better, just found it somewhere and it works.

WOW, Three-in-one!

Fred

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#2269 Post by fredx181 »

Hi All
Because of future setup of DebianDog with changes for porteus-boot here's mod v4 of Terry's magic: debdog-install.

Changes/additions:
- Removed warning in case of FAT fs, not needed anymore with new setup without symlink.
- Added in drive/partition list a column "Label"
- Changed layout a little, mostly larger.
- Added automatic set boot flag on boot partition, using parted.
- Changed menu.lst entry for porteus-boot (without 'from' parameter, NOTE: this will only work on the future DebianDog setup, which will have porteus-boot-setup completely changed)

Attached: debdog-inst-mod4.zip

Fred
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saintless
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#2270 Post by saintless »

fredx181 wrote:here's mod v4 of Terry's magic: debdog-install
Thank you, Fred, Terry!

I will start making the last changes for remaster tomorrow and if there is no objections in the next two days I will try to upload the beta iso version.

Toni

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#2271 Post by sunburnt »

Hi; I`ve been busy for 2 days making mod scripts for DebianDog.
The scripts seriously change how the O.S. works, an experiment I`ve been wanting to do.
No union, no initramfs, uses only portable apps, no direct install of Debian packages.
Now only problem is the Debian Live boot code "can of worms" that I still can`t figure out.
Debian has over 2 dozen boot scripts, 60 scripts in init.d, and dozens of scattered others.
Even initrd.img boot is a rats nest. The guys at the Debian forum don`t know how they work.


I was thinking it would be good if the installer detected each drive/partition boot manger.
But it`s so late in the dev. cycle now that it`s probably a moot subject.

# Is there anything left to do for the beta "roll-out".?
.

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#2272 Post by saintless »

Hi, Terry.
sunburnt wrote:# Is there anything left to do for the beta "roll-out".?
I think not. It is up to me now to include the changes and make new iso.
Now only problem is the Debian Live boot code "can of worms" that I still can`t figure out.
I suspect puppy users will prefer to use porteus boot anyway. It is much closer to puppy boot and save method than the debian one. As Fred wrote Porteus boot has fsck code options for partitions and save file is auto-checked every time.

I really prefer to keep debian initrd.img files unchanged. We may like or not live-boot codes but it is official debian method developed in the years. It will be a mistake to make modifications to the official debian boot code.

One thing makes me worry is opening new thread for DebianDog.
DebianDog is what it is now thanks to the fact we kept one thread for Porteus Wheezy and Light Wheezy. Separating the threads does not seems good idea to me.

Toni

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#2273 Post by mcewanw »

saintless wrote: One thing makes me worry is opening new thread for DebianDog.
DebianDog is what it is now thanks to the fact we kept one thread for Porteus Wheezy and Light Wheezy. Separating the threads does not seems good idea to me.

Toni
Yes, I understand how you feel. I kind of feel though that you do need a new thread for each new public release, beta included, so that users can have questions answered for that release and provide test/bug reports (such threads can grow quite large and have a tendency to be distribution specific). In that view there does need to be separate threads for the releases themselves I myself feel anyway. However, perhaps it is also good to continue to have a combined thread (albeit a new one) for development issues (and common bugs raised could have detailed discussion there)? I also think it might be good if Fred and youself could arrange to release new versions at the same time, so that everything remains in sync. What do you think?

Of course, if new version of DebianDog (including debian and porteus boot methods) and Porteus-Wheezy could be released in sync I suppose the actual announcement thread could be the same for both, but have a note pointing to separate test/bug report threads along with a single development thread where we continue to collaborate. Or is that too many threads?

Despite a great deal of commonality, Porteus-Wheezy is quite a different beast in some other ways, particularly since it uses openbox and comes with some major apps pre-installed. Having said that, the underlying core is similar, and good to keep it that way for mutual development benefits.

In general, for these distributions, I think a single thread is beneficial for developers, but for people who just want to use the distributions a single thread mixing discussions about the different distributions would be confusing. That's why I feel that each distribution release needs its own "help" thread, but there should be clear links provided, in the first post of the thread, to the 'help' threads for the sibling/closely-related distributions. It's just like with Puppy distributions; Slacko and Precise for example, have much commonality (they basically have same underlying structure but use binaries from these different sources) but each release is given its own thread.

But the call is yours Toni and Fred. Maybe a new single thread for public releases will be fine, with the iso downloads described in the first post. I'm uneasy about separating everything up also.
github mcewanw

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#2274 Post by sklimkin »

Bravo, Terry! + + +

I was pleasantly surprised by such a lively and figurative language.
Words "can of worms" take into service.
It's almost part of the script for a detective film "Free OS GNU/Debian - how to cook this dish."

Sergey.

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#2275 Post by sunburnt »

Sergey; L.O.L. Yes it`s an intentional nightmare that makes me worry about Debian in general.

I`ll be taking a look at Porteus boot code also, to see if it`s easier to understand.


# I`m divided about new forum threads... It is one iso file for both, correct.?
Perhaps a general thread for the DebianDog release, and Fred start a Porteus specific one.
Very specific Porteus posts in the general thread will be directed to Fred`s thread of course.
If it gets split into 2 iso files, then DebianDog and DebianPorteus releases and threads.


Toni; Not to worry, this is a personal project and not for changing DebianDog in any way.

# However... If others have interest... The boot code thing is my only problem.
Years back I modified Tiny Core Linux in this way, it`s very close so it only took a few days.
I could probably get it to boot, but there would be no module loading, no HW probing, etc...
I think it would be easier to delete the union command and add new ones to existing code.
The other way is to add all of "everything needed", but I don`t understand this very well...
# With no union, low ram & cpu usage and faster. Needs an apt-get to portable pkg. utility.
# I can post a complete description of the o.s. It`s quite simple and good for imbedded o.s.
.

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#2276 Post by fredx181 »

Hi Toni, All
One thing makes me worry is opening new thread for DebianDog.
DebianDog is what it is now thanks to the fact we kept one thread for Porteus Wheezy and Light Wheezy. Separating the threads does not seems good idea to me.
Just an idea:
Two versions of DebianDog in one thread, your version with Icewm, Jwm and my openbox/xfce version but then with the exact same setup (choice for live-boot and porteus-boot)
If you all like the idea I need time to create it but meanwhile you can start new thread already.
Or is it better one thread - one version?
I'm not sure if I would like to start a thread of my own for Porteus-Wheezy, at least I'm not ready for it yet.

Toni, can you wait a day for beta release, I've found a bug with copy progress-bar, which is in remasterdog, remastercow and debdog-install.
Anyone experienced that the progress-bar just flashes only (but meanwhile copying continues)?
For me it happens only sometimes, can't figure out yet why.

Terry, porteus-boot method has just one config file (linuxrc), just that makes it more simple than live-boot.

Fred

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#2277 Post by mcewanw »

fredx181 wrote:Hi Toni, All
One thing makes me worry is opening new thread for DebianDog.
DebianDog is what it is now thanks to the fact we kept one thread for Porteus Wheezy and Light Wheezy. Separating the threads does not seems good idea to me.
Just an idea:
Two versions of DebianDog in one thread, your version with Icewm, Jwm and my openbox/xfce version but then with the exact same setup (choice for live-boot and porteus-boot)
If you all like the idea I need time to create it but meanwhile you can start new thread already.
Yes, that sounds better, for now at least; Puppy itself uses up a whole forum (!) so I guess we have to keep an eye on how busy that one thread gets.

And also yes, now that you mention it I have seen progress bar vanish and copying continuing on occasion.
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#2278 Post by sunburnt »

It`s Fred`s call on a thread of his own, I see no problem in a new single beta thread.

Thanks Fred; I`ll look at it...


# Idea; Compressed live-rw files. DebianDog already has Btrfs and Fuse ( 6 Fuse apps. ).
Btrfs is the best choice, but it may not be stable enough yet to be reliable. Easy to setup.
Fuse is user-space, but probably faster than no compression. Also easy to setup.
extcomp is a kernel-space kernel patch, old but certainly usable. Hardest to setup.
# I`ve tested squash files and found they read over twice as fast as std. files.
For small flash media < 2GB this would be a great size and speed improvement.
And even on larger media, the r/w times would be much faster. Reason enough to use it.
.

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#2279 Post by saintless »

fredx181 wrote:Just an idea:
Two versions of DebianDog in one thread, your version with Icewm, Jwm and my openbox/xfce version but then with the exact same setup (choice for live-boot and porteus-boot)
I like the idea very much, Fred, but DebianDog has 3 boot methods now. If you don't mind to do the same for Porteus-Wheezy it will be great. Even if you include only 2 boot options I think it will be OK.
Note also all modules I make for separate kernels will work on Porteus-Wheezy and you do not need to have separate kernel-3.12 version. It will be enough to download the separate kernel module, purge the previous kernel and remaster Porteus-Wheezy. Same goes for Porteus 3.9.11 kernel module.
Toni, can you wait a day for beta release, I've found a bug with copy progress-bar, which is in remasterdog, remastercow and debdog-install.
Anyone experienced that the progress-bar just flashes only (but meanwhile copying continues)?
I will wait with the thread as much as you need. I still have work on separate kernel modules structure anyway.
I do not have this problem with the progress bar or at least didn't notice yet.

This does not mean we need to wait with DebianDog-Porteus-beta.iso Fred needs it to check the current boot methods and the changes in debdog-install for the menu.lst

DebianDog-Porteus-beta.iso - 112Mb - Three boot methods.
http://smokey01.com/saintless/DebianDog ... s-beta.iso
Read the Examples-boot-codes.txt and md5sum on the site.
Removing 2 initrd files from the iso after the user decide which boot method to use will make the system less than 100 Mb.

Toni
Last edited by saintless on Fri 11 Apr 2014, 06:59, edited 1 time in total.

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#2280 Post by saintless »

sunburnt wrote:# Idea; Compressed live-rw files.
Hi, Terry.
Any extra option or program from you makes DebianDog better.
I never used compressed save file my self but it will be nice to have it as option.

Toni

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#2281 Post by fredx181 »

Hi Toni, All
fredx181 wrote:
Just an idea:
Two versions of DebianDog in one thread, your version with Icewm, Jwm and my openbox/xfce version but then with the exact same setup (choice for live-boot and porteus-boot)

I like the idea very much, Fred, but DebianDog has 3 boot methods now. If you don't mind to do the same for Porteus-Wheezy it will be great. Even if you include only 2 boot options I think it will be OK.
Ok, I'll work on new openbox+xfce version with 3 boot methods.
I understand that adding backports kernel is separate module and will not add more space to the iso and there doesn't need to be changed anything for it in the system setup, right?
Fred needs it to check the current boot methods and the changes in debdog-install for the menu.lst
I looked at it in live.cfg and the menu.lst entries in debdog-install, tested some, should all be ok!

As I said I needed to change progress-bar code in some scripts, attached; new-scripts.zip.
In debdog-install I also added warning/question in case "directory to install to" (live) already exists.

Because it's hard to find any working progress-bar script for Xdialog on the net, I'd like to share code of progess-bar for copying contents of source directory to destination directory:

Code: Select all

#!/bin/bash

SRC="${1%/}"
DEST="${2%/}"

running(){ ps $1 | grep $1 >/dev/null; }

TOTAL=$(du -cbs --apparent-size "$SRC"/* | grep total | awk '{print $1}')
cp -a "$SRC"/* "$DEST" &
CPPID=$!
trap "kill $CPPID" 2 15
(
   while running $CPPID; do
    
      COPY=$(du -cbs --apparent-size "$DEST"/* 2> /dev/null | grep total | awk '{print $1}')
      PERC=$((COPY*100/TOTAL))
      echo $PERC
      sleep 1
   done   
   echo 100   
) | Xdialog --title "Copy directory" --gauge " Copying files to "$DEST"... " 7 70 0
 
Say you name it "progress", usage is:

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progress <source-directory> <destination-directory>
Fred
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new code for progress bar added
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#2282 Post by saintless »

fredx181 wrote:Ok, I'll work on new openbox+xfce version with 3 boot methods.
I understand that adding backports kernel is separate module and will not add more space to the iso and there doesn't need to be changed anything for it in the system setup, right?
Hi, Fred.

Booting Porteus-Wheezy with initrd.img and initrd1.img does not need any changes in the module.
I think the only problems with Porteus Wheezy debian boot using initrd.img and initrd1.img are loadmodule, mk-save and remastercow. They should be different for debian boot. I'm not sure how will be best to fix this problem.

RemasterCow will not work anyway for DebianDog also with live-boot-3x because there is no Copy On Write option there.

Separate kernel modules also will not change anything in the system. We will use them only for remaster if we need different kernel. All included in separate kernel module is /lib/modules and dpkg database update information and script.
The idea is to boot with separate kernel module, run the script to update dpkg, purge the previous kernel and remaster the system with new kernel. It will make it a little bit bigger with kernel 3.12.0 because /lib/modules is bigger.

Toni

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#2283 Post by mcewanw »

saintless wrote: This does not mean we need to wait with DebianDog-Porteus-beta.iso Fred needs it to check the current boot methods and the changes in debdog-install for the menu.lst

DebianDog-Porteus-beta.iso - 112Mb - Three boot methods.
http://smokey01.com/saintless/DebianDog ... s-beta.iso
Hi Fred, or Toni, I'm having problems trying to boot the beta iso with:

Code: Select all

title PorteusDog (sdb2) 
root (hd1,1)
kernel (hd1,1)/live/vmlinuz1 noauto from=/ changes=EXIT:/live/
initrd (hd1,1)/live/initrd1.xz
where /dev/sdb2 (hd1,1) is an ext4 formatted partition.

As you can see, I'm trying to boot from /dev/sdb2 (which is where my debiandog install always is). At boot time, I'm receiving the message that a Win FAT partition or non-posix partition is being detected, so though the system boots it refuses to a create or use a changes folder. However, the /dev/sdb2 partition is, as I say, actually ext4 so should booting fine as before. EDIT: Note that I do have a Win FAT32 first partition on the usb stick (/dev/sdb1) but that didn't create any problem prior to Fred's recent changes to initrd1.xz since I'm booting from /dev/sdb2 not /dev/sdb1.

For the moment, as a temporary workaround, I've replaces the new initrd1.xz with the old initrd1.xz from the earlier DebianDog-PorteusDog-test iso and recreated folder /live/debian/. I also therefore moved /live/base, modules, optional, rootcopy and wheezy-i486.sgn into /live/debian to get things going again. That works, as before, albeit with this menu.list stanza instead:

EDIT:

Code: Select all

title Debian-PorteusDog Wheezy on sdb2 (hd1,1)
root (hd1,1)
kernel /live/vmlinuz1 noauto from=/ changes=EXIT:/live/debian/
initrd /live/initrd1.xz
Could one of you kindly retest the changes=EXIT:/live/ method to see if there is an error (bear in mind I'm trying to install to /dev/sdb2 partition, which works fine with previous initrd1.xz).

William
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#2284 Post by saintless »

Hi, William.

I can't reproduce the problem you have. How do you get (hd1,1) to work in the boot code? Do you have second flash drive plugged in?

Here is what I tested with 512 Mb usb stick:
I use Gparted to create (sdb1 150Mb Fat32) and (sdb2 350Mb ext4).
Then I use debdog-install to install from folder on sdb2, but i get grldr and menu.lst on sdb1 Fat32 partition. I can't get them auto-created on sdb2.
Then using the auto-generated UUID code or edited with (hd0,1) code I have no problems to save changes on sdb2 on exit in /live

Code: Select all

title Test changes
 uuid a07b5c49-19c5-447e-b81a-4123bf5617b4
 kernel /live/vmlinuz1 noauto from=/ changes=EXIT:/live/
 initrd /live/initrd1.xz

 title Test-2 changes
 root (hd0,1)
 kernel (hd0,1)/live/vmlinuz1 noauto from=/ changes=EXIT:/live/
 initrd (hd0,1)/live/initrd1.xz
Edit: Just tested to move manual grldr and menu.lst from sdb1 Fat to sdb2 ext4 and the flash drive still booting fine and saving changes on exit in sdb2 /live/changes folder but I use again (hd0,1) instead (hd1,1). I can't find a way to use (hd1,1) to reproduce the same situation as William:

Code: Select all

 title Test-2 changes
 root (hd0,1)
 kernel (hd0,1)/live/vmlinuz1 noauto from=/ changes=EXIT:/live/
 initrd (hd0,1)/live/initrd1.xz
Maybe I do something wrong but can't make (hd1,1) to work. I have hard drive sda1. Maybe I need to have second flash drive plugged in if this changes anything.

I haven't tested this yet but are you sure you can boot with the previous initrd1.xz which needs /live/debian/base folder with from=/ ?
It should be from=/live/
If it works with from=/ only it means we do not need from= for original porteus boot with previous initrd1.gz file which seems strange.

Toni

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#2285 Post by fredx181 »

Hi William, Toni
As Toni said it should be:

Code: Select all

root (hd0,1)
Because grub4dos see your usb-stick as first drive.
I suspect you have a live folder somewhere else from where it boots from (sda2 maybe, because (hd1,1) should be that, I think).
To find out what grub see as first and second drive press the key "c" as soon as you get to the grub screen and you'll get to a command line.
Then type:

Code: Select all

root (hd0,
And press Tab.
Then it should show the "possible partitions" on your usb-stick.
Or type:

Code: Select all

root (hd1,
And press Tab.
And it should show the partitions on your hard-drive.

Toni, thanks for your info!
First try using initrd1.img with Porteus-Wheezy boots without problems :)
It's easier than I thought to make DebianDog-Porteus with openbox-xfce, thanks to the work we've already done.
I'd like you to participate, and tell me if you don't agree with something.
For example I'd like to replace every name "Porteus-Wheezy" with "DebianDog"
But I'll send a test iso soon so you can look at it.

Fred

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