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Questions En => Help requests => Discussion démarrée par: konaexpress le 05 mars 2013 à 21:38:30

Titre: Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: konaexpress le 05 mars 2013 à 21:38:30
I have to give the guy who made rmastersys an A for effort but damn does it blow on a Debian distro. Kind of wondering if creating an extra partition and chrooting is the only way to go from here.....

I took a look at Linux from Scratch but holly cow is that doing things the hard way! can you unzip an iso into a partition and mount it so that you can install all the things you need?
Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: patrick013 le 05 mars 2013 à 22:04:24
I have to give the guy who made rmastersys an A for effort but damn does it blow on a Debian distro. Kind of wondering if creating an extra partition and chrooting is the only way to go from here.....

I took a look at Linux from Scratch but holly cow is that doing things the hard way! can you unzip an iso into a partition and mount it so that you can install all the things you need?

I reinstalled Scorpio and chattr'd the config file shut.    No other problems
so far.   

Debian stable has a standard.iso if you didn't like Scorpio.    Has root and user
logins from the console and even has apt-get.   Scorpio is so much easier.
Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: konaexpress le 05 mars 2013 à 22:25:22
hhhmmmmm....I have a copy of Scorpio I could load up I guess. I just formatted a 30 gig drive on an ext HD so that I can try this in VBox. I will make two drives and see if I can figure out how to unzip and ISo on to it.

This should be a pain in the @ss...........
Titre: Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: konaexpress le 05 mars 2013 à 22:30:19
I reinstalled Scorpio and chattr'd the config file shut.    No other problems
so far.   

Debian stable has a standard.iso if you didn't like Scorpio.    Has root and user
logins from the console and even has apt-get.   Scorpio is so much easier.

Just thought about this.....did you mean use Scorpio as a base and then load LXDE on top of it or did you mean use Scorpio as the Host image? Host image as in the one I will work from?
Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: melodie le 05 mars 2013 à 22:55:29
Hi,

konaexpress, what would you like to do and what result would you want to get ? Maybe if you know how to answer this I could suggest a direct solution ?

Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: konaexpress le 06 mars 2013 à 00:10:54
Easier said then done I know but......

I want to install an OS, then install an image on another drive and build it on that drive. Make an iso without using Remastersys.
Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: melodie le 06 mars 2013 à 02:21:47
If that is for Debian I don't know yet which tool would allow you to do it the easiest way.

To unpack an iso is easy. As root:

mount -o loop myiso.iso /a_mount_point
and then you find the squashfs file in the mount directory and you do the same with it, you mount it elsewhere and from there you will do a "cp -Ra" to your new partition (all as root). You will do a "ls" in each place where you mount your files to, so you see what it looks like.

and also see "man cp" to check what the options do.

After, that, it's Debian so I don't know. (Have you taken a look at the Debian docs to find out where to start ? Or considered asking on the relevant Debian chan ? http://wiki.debian.org/IRC/#Debian_IRC_channels (http://wiki.debian.org/IRC/#Debian_IRC_channels) )


Titre: Re : Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: patrick013 le 06 mars 2013 à 04:52:06
Just thought about this.....did you mean use Scorpio as a base and then load LXDE on top of it or did you mean use Scorpio as the Host image? Host image as in the one I will work from?

Well if you use a Debian tool to create an iso or remastersys, Scorpio works OK.
Haven't heard that they had one.     LXDE should work fine on Scorpio but I just use the
OpenBox on it.   
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: konaexpress le 06 mars 2013 à 06:20:30
Well if you use a Debian tool to create an iso or remastersys, Scorpio works OK.
Haven't heard that they had one.     LXDE should work fine on Scorpio but I just use the
OpenBox on it.
I could be wrong but I don't think Debian has a tool, all commando I think. I will hunt around but I downloaded the LFS PDF just in case I have to go commando too.
Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: melodie le 06 mars 2013 à 06:24:19
Hello,

I think Debian does have tools, just not the gui kind of tools, more looking like "warrior tools" knife between the teeth and all. ;-)
Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: melodie le 06 mars 2013 à 06:30:05

You could go here,
http://live.debian.net (http://live.debian.net)

or from there, jump directly to here!
http://live.debian.net/cdimage/release/next+nonfree/i386/iso-hybrid (http://live.debian.net/cdimage/release/next+nonfree/i386/iso-hybrid)

and give a try to this one snapshot:
debian-wheezy-live-rc1-i386-lxde-desktop+nonfree.iso (http://live.debian.net/cdimage/release/next+nonfree/i386/iso-hybrid/debian-wheezy-live-rc1-i386-lxde-desktop+nonfree.iso) (1 GB).

It seems you could choose between the hard way or the easy way.
Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: konaexpress le 06 mars 2013 à 06:37:09
I will take a look at them......me like easy!
Titre: Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: konaexpress le 06 mars 2013 à 06:40:36


and give a try to this one snapshot:
debian-wheezy-live-rc1-i386-lxde-desktop+nonfree.iso (http://live.debian.net/cdimage/release/next+nonfree/i386/iso-hybrid/debian-wheezy-live-rc1-i386-lxde-desktop+nonfree.iso) (1 GB).

It seems you could choose between the hard way or the easy way.
1gig iso? Bet there is some stuff in there that we do not need but Im sure it is worth a look.
Titre: Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: konaexpress le 06 mars 2013 à 07:13:49
You could go here,

That is a bunch of info there! That will take some time to sift through............

I am thinking this will be worth it in the long run, don't you guys think?
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: djohnston le 06 mars 2013 à 14:17:45
That is a bunch of info there! That will take some time to sift through............

I am thinking this will be worth it in the long run, don't you guys think?
I think it would be worth it in the long run. As a matter of fact, it's what I'm going to be learning next. Here's (http://debianandi.blogspot.com/2011/09/howto-debian-live-build-your-own-distro.html) a short summary of what's involved. And I do mean short.

Trust me on this. Doing it the Debian way will make remastersys look like a walk in the park. I suspect the problems you're having with using remastersys are as a result of what is in /etc/skel. Are you creating an iso that won't autologin?

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: konaexpress le 06 mars 2013 à 23:34:53
I suspect the problems you're having with using remastersys are as a result of what is in /etc/skel. Are you creating an iso that won't autologin?

No, I gave up on that idea a while back as not do-able with Remastersys. What I want is a nice clean installer that will load the OS on to the computer without the user having to use Gparted or any other app. Point, click and walk away.
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: melodie le 06 mars 2013 à 23:44:41
What I want is a nice clean installer that will load the OS on to the computer without the user having to use Gparted or any other app. Point, click and walk away.

The way you present it does not seem quite available : you need at least an installer, and you need to click a few times and you need to provide some information during the install.

There is a more common way to do it easily, is paying someone to do what you want on your machine. (pass it over, give your command, walk away... )

Apart from that I don't see...
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: konaexpress le 06 mars 2013 à 23:44:47
I think it would be worth it in the long run. As a matter of fact, it's what I'm going to be learning next. Here's (http://debianandi.blogspot.com/2011/09/howto-debian-live-build-your-own-distro.html) a short summary of what's involved. And I do mean short.


That looks a bit confusing to me because it is all command line stuff but what the heck, let's try it.......
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: konaexpress le 07 mars 2013 à 00:05:35
The way you present it does not seem quite available : you need at least an installer, and you need to click a few times and you need to provide some information during the install.

There is a more common way to do it easily, is paying someone to do what you want on your machine. (pass it over, give your command, walk away... )

Apart from that I don't see...

Is this some kind of test?
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: djohnston le 07 mars 2013 à 02:08:03
No, I gave up on that idea a while back as not do-able with Remastersys. What I want is a nice clean installer that will load the OS on to the computer without the user having to use Gparted or any other app. Point, click and walk away.

It is doable. Taco.22 has done it. I have done it, after a few struggles. In my case, it was a trial and error period of discovering what doesn't belong in /etc/skel, and why.

As far as the single point and click, I don't see how that's feasible, either. Would you expect a machine to know which timezone you're in and what language you speak? Other than those and a few other choices, the only scenario I can see where the install would run on autopilot is where you have a blank drive and let the installer decide how to carve up the available space. Even the Windows installer is not single point and click. It will not automatically partition the drive for you, even though it's only going to use one partition. And Microsoft partitioning software really sucks.
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: patrick013 le 07 mars 2013 à 02:36:13
It is doable. Taco.22 has done it. I have done it, after a few struggles. In my case, it was a trial and error period of discovering what doesn't belong in /etc/skel, and why.

I agree.   When I chattr the remastersys config file, and use remastersys to
update /etc/skel, I got a good iso.   Reinstalled from the iso in no time, very
fast.

Not that remastersys is 100% but it is working 100% for me with the iso I did.

I tried to switch a Debian from one flash drive to another tonight and failed.
Tried Redo, Clonezilla, even dd,   just didn't like XFS file system I guess.   But
when Clonezilla redid the MBR at 446 bytes instead of my attempts at a 440 byte
MBR,   I put the filesystem itself back with fsarchiver and bingo,   booted right up.
Using it right now.

So my future attempts at saving Debian MBR's with dd will be at 446 bytes.

So for now I'm using remastersys, dd'ing MBR's at 446 bytes, and not using
XFS filesystem as I had planned to do.   Even partimage wouldn't image a
Debian with XFS, but it's supposed to.

Some shoptalk   FYI,

Patrick
Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: Taco.22 le 07 mars 2013 à 03:18:40
Citation de: Konaexpress
What I want is a nice clean installer that will load the OS on to the computer without the user having to use Gparted or any other app. Point, click and walk away.
It sounds like what you want is an installer that automatically sets the partitions.  I seem to recall that PCLOS offers that as an option.  However regardless of the approach to how installation is achieved, software is required to set the partitions and their file types.  It's not a desirable feature to remove the freedom of doing that from the user - otherwise you will wind up with an OS that has an installer that "knows" better than you and won't listen to your needs.  At least Remastersys makes use of Gparted - there are any number of distros out there that tell you to format your drive before launching the installer because the installer can't do it, directly or indirectly.

I have been slightly bemused by the problems some people seem to be having with Remastersys.  I guess I take a conservative approach and don't fiddle about too much with file system types and the installer itself.  It is after all only a vehicle to get a bootable working OS onto a machine.  I've also been playing with OB for quite some time now so I can build /etc/skel off the top of my head.  But even so, I am still using Remaster 3.0.0 and have done at least forty remasters over the last few months - four of which are currently available through this forum and another one stuck in the test rig because I have run out of Dropbox space!  I have tried out many different ideas and software and the only failure I've had was when I butchered /var/log in an effort to cut fat on one occasion - won't do that again!  I also change the test systems incrementally - I don't do too many changes at once.  Also if you have a system that works keep it and use it as your base.  I guess the other thing is that I do all my building on bare metal.  I don't like doing Linux in Virtualbox - it's too inconsistent and slow.  If I run out of space on the test rig I build systems on a USB stick - same principle.  Now this is all relative to Debian.  How it all works out with Ubuntu is another thing.  Ubuntu moves around too much and gives Remastersys real headaches in trying to keep up with things.  There's a lot to be said for the stability of Debian.         

Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: konaexpress le 07 mars 2013 à 05:51:50
Holly  Cow.................



Let me put it another way, I like the Debian installer and the way it will load the image for you or give you an advanced option to partition the drive if you want. What I don't want is for a new user to be forced to partition their own drive as many have no idea how to.

Case in point....I really like Scorpio but hate having to make the partitions. I just want to point it at the drive and say go. I know that you have to set passwords and give it a name  and all that stuff. I just thought that this was a given and did not need to be said.....I stand corrected.

Does this make more sense?
Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: Taco.22 le 07 mars 2013 à 09:33:15
Don't panic Kona - you are making sense !!

The problem is that the installer then needs to do a lot of work and make a lot of guesses about the partitions.  It needs to know how big the hard drive is, and what ways you want to partition the system.  Do you want a separate / and /home?  Do you want a separate /var, like some do?  Do you want a separate /opt for all the non-standard software you might want to install?  Do you want / and /home on one partition but a separate data partition?  Do you want your installer to read your mind?!?  Granted, most users would be happy with one partition and put everything on it - it's actually the best way to set up for remastering.  But what about swap?  Some need it, some don't.  Some installers have to supply a swap partition because they have to give the option.  Remastersys is a case in point.  You can't have NO swap, but you can have a very small one - 2-3 mb - yep, megabytes!  It ticks the box and then allows the system to do its thing.

So the installer needs to use something like Gparted, but in such a way that the installer is asking you how you want it to set things up.  You still have to be there and answer the questions.  I don't know what the installer is on PCLOS but it asked if you wanted it to do the partitioning, or if you wanted to do some manual stuff.  If you just went default it used whatever software it used to do a predetermined proportional partition of your drive.  There would be something in the script that fired up the likes of Gparted, determined the size of the hard drive and RAM, allocated space for / and swap, and then left the rest for /home.  Can't remember how it would determine file system.  It's still one of the easiest and fastest installers out there in the Linux world, but it's still not a click-and-walkaway setup.  And nothing can be.  If it was possible MS would have done it by now - it gives total control !!

However there is something in your wish - for an installer to offer a default set up, or to allow you to set the parameters.  I might float that past the Remastersys forum.
Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: melodie le 07 mars 2013 à 13:13:29
Hi,

About installers:

I don't know the most recent Debian installers, so I would have to grab an all made distro such as the one I pointed to for konaexpress recently, give it a try, and see what it offers;

I do know the two types of installers provided for Ubuntu : the one in alternate, which comes directly from the non graphic former debian installers. It needs practice and knowledge, and is very handy on low resource machines where it can save my day; It provides several methods, including LVM and RAID, expert mode, and I think I remember an automatic mode too.

I never use automatic modes else than in Virtualbox, because it makes the swap partition too big, often at the end of the hard drive, and then installs all in one single partition.

I know the graphical one, Ubiquity as well. Ubiquity offers all the choices : install automatically, install besides an existing operating system, and "something else", which is the advanced mode (it used to be called "expert mode" long ago). In the Ubuntu boxes we have Gparted in the live, and it is also in the post install script to be removed at the end of the install : once the distro is installed on hard drive it is not there anymore. The use of Gparted is up to you. You can use it before starting the install if you wish, or you can use only the one available in the Ubiquity installer. Or let the installer do it for you.

So there is an automatic mode to install.

PCLinuxOS : also has an automatic install option. The partition tool there is a mandriva tool,  drak-something, and does not default format the partitions based on "mio" as parted does, but on cylinder, therefore it creates a distortion between partition tables if we use once one, and once the other. It has lead my installs to be borked twice in several year's time until I find out why it is not good to use one then the other.

Tools to remaster : Remastersys for Debian seems to work well. For Ubuntu, Ubuntu Builder is what I have found to work best up to now. And next I will try some scripts made by someone else, which allows to start from a debootstrap (a ubuntu from scratch-like). But not quite now, because I just uploaded 3 new versions of ubuntu openbox. :)

Taco.22 : you can remove some of your isos from Dropbox if you want to rely on this webspace:
http://tyruiop.eu/~melodie/Downloads/ISOS/Debian (http://tyruiop.eu/~melodie/Downloads/ISOS/Debian)

just let me know if some ISO is or are missing and I will "ssh" there to "wget" them.

Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: konaexpress le 07 mars 2013 à 17:43:14
OK, time to end this topic. It is what it is I think.
Titre: Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: djohnston le 07 mars 2013 à 23:42:41
I have been slightly bemused by the problems some people seem to be having with Remastersys.

Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah?!  ;D

My problem has always been trying to carry user customizations over to /etc/skel. For example, my RazorQt customizations would not carry over to the remaster. I looked at ~/.config/razor/desktop.conf, one of the files not copied by default in the remastersys option, and noticed this line in the file:

directory=/home/darrel/Desktop

That wouldn't do. So, I changed the line to /$HOME/Desktop and tried again. Worked like a champ.
Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: Taco.22 le 08 mars 2013 à 03:41:00
That's curious.  I know that Remastersys is not perfect at carrying over the user configs to /etc/skel - you always need to manually follow through, especially if you are including app configs that Remastersys wouldn't know about.  But the line in ~/.config/razor/desktop.conf is a bit of a worry.  That means you need to vet every config file that Qt writes.

Just out of curiosity, do you need / in front of $HOME?  I have found I don't have to in terminal if it is the first item - eg "cd $HOME".
Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: melodie le 08 mars 2013 à 08:26:24
Hi,

Just for information, the /etc/skel directory is not the only way to bring customizations to the live and new users. The developers use scripts for this purpose. For the time being I wouldn't be quite able to tell you how, for I just had a short first sight on it when someone provided a script for the desktop files I put on the desktop of the live obubuntu, and I am not yet able to carry them after install...

Maybe if you do some research around it you will find out faster than I do, and in Debian it is likely that the method is different from the one used in Ubuntu, which makes use of casper scripts, located in /usr/share/initramfs.



Titre: Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: djohnston le 08 mars 2013 à 20:31:11
Just out of curiosity, do you need / in front of $HOME?  I have found I don't have to in terminal if it is the first item - eg "cd $HOME".
Haven't tried it. RazorQt's still not quite mature (http://www.remastersys.com/forums/index.php?topic=2235.msg17474#msg17474).

Titre: Re : Re : Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: patrick013 le 08 mars 2013 à 22:19:47
Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah?!  ;D

My problem has always been trying to carry user customizations over to /etc/skel. For example, my RazorQt customizations would not carry over to the remaster. I looked at ~/.config/razor/desktop.conf, one of the files not copied by default in the remastersys option, and noticed this line in the file:

directory=/home/darrel/Desktop

That wouldn't do. So, I changed the line to /$HOME/Desktop and tried again. Worked like a champ.

When I remastered Scorpio today for a backup, and reinstalled to
test and confirm again I knew how to do this I had to extract to /home/guest
all of my /home/guest stuff previously archived in a zip file.    Then 100%
operation was achieved after that.

I wish there was a directory I could change also so remastersys would go
ahead 100% and I wouldn't have to do that, or just manually copy
everything to /etc/skel and change owner to root there and then make the ISO.

I don't know, someday this thing is just going to gell I think.


Patrick
Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: melodie le 08 mars 2013 à 23:31:35
http://www.wordreference.com/enfr/to+gell (http://www.wordreference.com/enfr/to+gell)

Citer
No translation found for 'to gell'.
Did you mean?
toggle
tell
toll
towel
   ogle
telly
till
troll
   gel
tog
doge

???


Else, I wonder : how much MB do you put in your archive ? I /etc/skel you should have very little, just .bashrc, .profile, some .config subdirectories and files, but not all of them, at least not the ones which will be redone same when started.

And the total amount should not exceed a limit size. Did you check this part ?

Titre: Re : Remastersys for Debian
Posté par: patrick013 le 09 mars 2013 à 01:48:03
Hi Mel,

I guess I'm too English at times, Ha !

But whatever we are.

Gell =  come together, blend, progress to success, etc..

I wish this team would gell = I wish this team would succeed.

That type of thing.

MB's ?     I don't want alot of MB's either, programs that aren't needed,
lib's that aren't used, I think it's at least a bad work habit.

I just installed Clementine on Scorpio, about 60 MB's, appears to be OK.
Going to run it for an hour or so to be sure.

My /home/guest zip file compressed to about 30 MB's, and filled up
the config's fully after my recent iso install.   That does seem a bit
large, just for some config directories,   Hmmm.     Mostly in .mozilla

I think I like these Debian repo's, one of my three fav's looks like.

Well, time will tell, the team will gell and win, so to speak.

thanks for the response,

patrick