LinuxVillage

Projects and resources (En) => Contributing to FOSS => Create masters => Discussion démarrée par: Taco.22 le 23 janvier 2013 à 10:52:29

Titre: Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 23 janvier 2013 à 10:52:29
Update - additions have been made.  See Changelog (http://linuxvillage.net/index.php/topic,56.msg244.html#msg244)

Village_RC2 is now available for download.

ISO - Village_RC-2_TEST_xz.iso (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18945176/Village_RC-2_TEST_xz.iso)         415mb
md5 - Village_RC-2_TEST_xz.iso.md5 (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18945176/Village_RC-2_TEST_xz.iso.md5)   59kb

The usual info -

It is based on Openbox Wheezy with Testing enabled.  If you want to change to Stable or SID then just edit /etc/apt/sources.list accordingly.  The wallpaper and DM login have been given their own look.  Feel free to workshop those!  It comes with Openbox-menu; lightDM as DM; Thunar as FM; WICD for networking; Gigolo for local networking; Midori as browser; Sakura as default terminal; Geany as editor; XFburn for writing CD/DVDs; Catfish for file search; Geeqie for images; feh for wallpaper; Synaptic as package manager; Tint2 as panel; Xcompmgr for desktop effects; Remastersys for remastering and conky as system monitor.  The desktop keybindings remain the same.  Screenshots are enabled by scrot through the right-click menu or by hitting "PrintScreen".  CUPS printing is available through the browser via its own command under "Applications-System Tools - Print".

Thanks to djohnston Village_RC2 is able to set Language and Locale preferences.  Feh controls the wallpaper as a plugin to Thunar - right-click on a picture and set it as wallpaper.  Launch Gigolo from the tray and it uses Thunar to display network shares - double-click in Gigolo to open in Thunar.

It has been designed as a basic but fully functional base for people to build their own spin.  If you want to overlay LXDE or another desktop manager; change browser, file manager or panel; set up a multimedia or diagnostic spin; port it to another language; add things like ZRAM and sudo;  it is the raw canvas that will allow you to build what you want.  Or you can use it just as it is!
This will allow members of the Village to do their own builds and share them through Village community.  We can all troubleshoot issues and bugs together, and the spins can be promoted through the Village website.  So please make use of this resource - after all, it is yours.  Enjoy.

Screenshots -

Notes on Installation -

A note on the installation procedure with the Remastersys Live Installer and Village_RC2.

When you initially boot the live cd/usb there can be a wait of up to half a minute whilst the system loads.  It looks like nothing is happening but be patient - this depends on the speed of your machine.   The system will bring you directly to the desktop - remember there is no root account - no password is needed to activate the installer.  Because there are no desktop icons on this remaster, you need to activate the right-click menu and go to Applications-System Tools.  Once there click on "Live Installer"

The installer is pretty straightforward.  It will ask you if you want to continue, which keyboard and locale to use, which partition to use, and then it will open gparted.  Go ahead and adjust your partitions accordingly - if no action is needed just quit out of gparted.  You will then be asked which partition root will go, which file system you want, where to put /home, and then password/user details.  Scorpio does not run sudo, so you will have a root account to set up.  Just be aware that if you are used to "keyboarding" your way through a list, hit "tab" not "return"  when filling in the user details - "return" will take you to the end of the list and give you an error message.  You will then be asked where you want the bootloader installed, and to set the time zone.

At this point you will then be given the location of where the install will go, and asked if you want to continue.  If all is well click yes.  The install does not take long on hardware - however be patient if loading into VBox.  When installing grub a terminal will pop up with some scary error messages on it.  Just close your eyes!  A minute or two later when you open them again they will be gone and you will have a dialogue box telling you a that the new system is installed and asking if you want to reboot.  If you click "yes" the system will spit out the cd/usb and reboot.  The whole process from boot to reboot should be no more than ten minutes.

All being well you will have the lightDM login screen appear - just login with your user name and start playing!

Remember, you can use Remastersys to create your own build.  Just go to Application-System Tools-Remastersys Backup and you too can create your own spin as a backup, to give to friends or as your own mini distro.
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 23 janvier 2013 à 12:59:14
Hi,
feh as a plugin seems nice and smart. How do you do the setup to get it this way ?
Citer
Notes on Installation -

A note on the installation procedure with the Remastersys Live Installer and Scorpio_Openbox.

don't you mean "Village" ?

Citer
When you initially boot the live cd/usb there can be a wait of up to half a minute whilst the system loads.

It might be because of the higher compression. My bet would be that in old machines, with Celeron processors, or PIII... any slow proc, it will be much slower. Wasn't there an intermediate compression algorythm ? In pclos Texstar had added 3 methods, from gzip to xz, but I don't remember which one was the intermediate : lzma maybe ? It might be an idea to try making one iso with lzma compression, if it compresses just a little less than xz, to see if it is faster decompressed in a significant way.

Citer
When installing grub a terminal will pop up with some scary error messages on it.  Just close your eyes!  A minute or two later when you open them again they will be gone and you will have a dialogue box telling you a that the new system is installed and asking if you want to reboot.


I want to see the scary message!² :D

What does it say ?

It all looks very nice. I'll test it as soon as possible (don't know why though, I have a bunch of things ahead).


Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 23 janvier 2013 à 14:49:57
Sorry about the Scorpio bit - copy and paste from that website.  Now corrected.

The thing that swung me in favour of feh was being able to incorporate it as a plugin to Thunar, which removed command line and text editing from setting wallpaper.  Just select and click.  Even easier than using Nitrogen, except Nitrogen's broken at the moment.  A simple line in autostart enables feh to remember the setting on reboot. 

The initial wait whilst isolinux loads the system can take up to half a minute depending on the speed of the machine.  The problem is that there is no indication that anything is happening.  The first couple of times I was sure I had a system hang, but fragadelic assured me that wasn't the case and to be patient.  So on boot, just wait - things will happen.  On a fast machine they will happen quicker.  It's certainly not the slowest loading live cd I've met by any stretch.  In overall terms it's one of the quickest from live boot to new installed system reboot.  In one sense the installer is not polished and shiny like a lot of others - on the hand it gets the job done quickly and with a minimum of fuss.

As to the scary bits - during install terminal is opened at one point and all sorts of error messages scroll through.   To the uninitiated they don't look good!!  So to quote Queen Victoria - "Just close your eyes and think of England!!"
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: djohnston le 24 janvier 2013 à 05:46:45
Excellent! This is a good base. I've found only one slight problem - not with the remaster - but with the file manager, Thunar. This is a long-standing issue with Thunar and gvfs. You may have noticed that the first time you start the file manager after a login, it may take one to two minutes to appear. When the window does finally appear, a second window will open a few seconds later. It is a bug in Thunar when trying to open network shares.

Anyway, the fix is done at system level and is a very simple fix. As root, edit /usr/share/gvfs/mounts/network.mount and change AutoMount from true to false. This disables the network browsing when Thunar starts up, but still lets you mount network storage such as samba shares on demand. It will not disable Gigolo functionality, either. It's a small price to pay for having a file manager behave as expected.

If the fix is not applied, after every login, you will see the erratic file manager (Thunar) behavior. It will only occur once, then Thunar will behave normally. If the fix is applied, it will always behave normally. It just will not automount network shares at login.

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 24 janvier 2013 à 09:22:01
Yeah, I was kind of wondering if that issue would raise its ugly head!!  I haven't experienced it here yet but I will set the parameters as you suggested.  Another few shakes and the bugs should be out!   

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 24 janvier 2013 à 11:59:05
Hello,

I remember about this now : never met the issue myself, because I mostly never used Thunar these paste years but I heard about it. I suggest you add the information in the tips and tricks section. I hope that during this year we will find time and energy to setup a dokuwiki in two languages. We have this one (http://wiki.pclinuxos-fr.org/doku.php) which has been setup long ago now, and we could just reuse what we know and the list of plugins, to make one for LinuxVillage (in two languages of course).




Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 24 janvier 2013 à 14:14:41
Thanks djohnston.  I have reinstalled a fresh version of Village and although I didn't have more than about a few seconds delay after first launching Thunar your tip completely removed it.  I have applied that to my current system and removed any lag.  Gigolo works just fine with Thunar regardless.

We'll see how the rest of it goes.

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: djohnston le 25 janvier 2013 à 00:05:52
You're welcome. Anything to help the Linux Village effort. It takes a village ... Nevermind.

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 25 janvier 2013 à 14:39:11
Mate, you really have to get over that Hillary thing  ;D

Changelog - I have made a number of changes and modifications to Village_RC2.
I'll give it a test run and upload it in the next day or two.  It will still be RC2 and this thread will remain live. 
Titre: Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 25 janvier 2013 à 23:05:58
  • Installed numlockx to allow numlock to turn on at boot.  Due to some laptop thingy I need to know if autostart default needs to be off.

In my T30 it has always been a painful moment when trying to login. I finally discovered how to deactivate numlock, but strangely kept forgetting how do to it each time I met again with this issue. It's a bit of a trick... something such as "shift+Fn+numlock(blue keyboard-key)"...

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 25 janvier 2013 à 23:47:27
Not having a laptop I'm not familiar with some of their foibles but on researching I find that numlock on can be problematic for many of them.  Thus I have set numlockx to be off by default.  Easily edited in autostart by those who prefer it on - like me!
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 26 janvier 2013 à 01:24:14
Changelog Update

I have uploaded a bug-fix/extras Village_RC2.  Same download location and no version change.  Changes are as follows -

In answer to a couple of queries patrick013 had elsewhere on this forum; yes, Village_RC2 will boot to RAM and also install from there.  I tried out an install to a usb stick and all went well.  The total install only occupied 1466mb and it is fully functional.  On a 4gb drive that's a lot of portability!  The only "foible" with the Remastersys installer is that it insists on a swap partition.  Just make one 3mb in size - yes, that's MB! - and all is well.  This goes for any install by the way.

One other thing.  It is something I hadn't noticed until I installed to the usb device because all my test installs are to a multi partition machine - the grub image.  It is a left-over from a previous build and although I can change it easily enough, maybe we need a generic LinuxVillage image there.  The sort of image that can be on all spins, with minor variations for spin names.
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: patrick013 le 30 janvier 2013 à 01:31:23
Request :

Provide an option to use xfs filesystem for the full install.

I have more trouble with filesystems that have multi block
descriptor locations.    Drives my flash drive crazy, actually
makes the install unuseable.

xfs works fine, ext3 works fine but I need to add extent to the
format options, ext4 only works without flex_bg.

On a regular hard disk I can't see a problem.

Thanks Taco,

Patrick
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 30 janvier 2013 à 02:22:39
Hi Patrick,

Gparted has the option of formatting to xfs when installing.  I'm currently researching how to do get Gparted to do this but in the meantime maybe you could check out this FAQ (http://xfs.org/index.php/XFS_FAQ).

EDIT - looks like we need  xfsprogs and to reconfigure the kernel!  By the way, I've not had an issue installing to a usb stick.  What exactly is your install doing?
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 30 janvier 2013 à 03:12:28
Hi,
Why would you need to modify the kernel ? In Archlinux, with kernel 3.6.11 (3.7-something available but didn't switch yet):
$ zgrep XFS /proc/config.gz
CONFIG_XFS_FS=m
CONFIG_XFS_QUOTA=y
CONFIG_XFS_POSIX_ACL=y
CONFIG_XFS_RT=y
# CONFIG_XFS_DEBUG is not set
# CONFIG_VXFS_FS is not set
$

What does the same command return in your Debian install ?

About the package, here are two debian wheezy xfsprogs packages:
http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/xfsprogs

http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/xfsprogs-udeb

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 30 janvier 2013 à 05:25:18
Citation de: melodie
Why would you need to modify the kernel ?

Don't know.  That was just one of the fruit that fell out of the tree when I gave it a two minute shake this morning.  Still reading up on xfs - never had to deal with it before!


EDIT - OK, I just installed xfsprogs and was then able to format a usb stick as xfs.  I will include xfsprogs in Village_OB.  Any other requests !?
Titre: Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: patrick013 le 30 janvier 2013 à 06:25:55
I've not had an issue installing to a usb stick.  What exactly is your install doing?

I usually use ext4, but flash drives don't have a drive cache.   When I format ext4
without flex_bg the flash drive runs 200% better.    xfs and ext3 do not have the
flex_bg option in ext4 which runs very slow on the flash drive.    Surprised you
haven't been disappointed with flash drive performance, unless ext3 was used,
which is good.

I've decided to use xfs for everything, has the best options by default, etc..
Noticed when I installed LV it wasn't available to  install on, so I made the
request.   

THX

patrick
Titre: Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: djohnston le 30 janvier 2013 à 06:46:59
XFS is a good and pretty much bulletproof filesystem. Right up there with ext4. I've used XFS for a long time without so much as a hiccup. And an fsck is lightning-quick!

Any other requests !?

AmigaFFS? BeFS?   :)
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 30 janvier 2013 à 07:05:40
Hi,

What is this "flex_bg option" about ?
Titre: Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: djohnston le 30 janvier 2013 à 07:31:34
Hi,

What is this "flex_bg option" about ?

The option gives optimized storage of filesystem metadata, like bitmaps and inode tables.

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 30 janvier 2013 à 11:38:18
Hi patrick,

I've only done a couple of test installs to usb stick with ext4 just to try them out.  I was going to suggest you install xfsprogs but of course that is not going to help you!  Sorry, but you need the new improved LinuxVillage with xfs support!  Doh!!

This can be done - there are a couple of other little improvements that needed to be sorted, so I guess a new LinuxVillage is about due.  It should be up in the next 24-48 hours - no new thread - I'll just update the current one.  Stay tuned.
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 30 janvier 2013 à 16:50:20
Hi,

May I suggest you also install other filesystem tools which can be needed later by other new users and which you might not have installed yet ?

Let's see to seek for a list...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem#Types_of_file_systems

in which you can select more if needed (ie: btrfs, udf, ntfs, jfs... )

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 30 janvier 2013 à 16:56:53
Without getting too carried away, what would recommend as a base list?
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 30 janvier 2013 à 17:09:34
Which ones are available now ?

fat32 and fat16 are needed, ntfs (ntfsprogs), xfs, jfs, cifs... btrfs, ext3 ext4 of course...

who knows more which can be needed ?

Titre: Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: patrick013 le 31 janvier 2013 à 03:09:38
Hi patrick,

I've only done a couple of test installs to usb stick with ext4 just to try them out.  I was going to suggest you install xfsprogs but of course that is not going to help you!  Sorry, but you need the new improved LinuxVillage with xfs support!  Doh!!

This can be done - there are a couple of other little improvements that needed to be sorted, so I guess a new LinuxVillage is about due.  It should be up in the next 24-48 hours - no new thread - I'll just update the current one.  Stay tuned.

No problem at all.

First choices, especially for flash drives,

1) xfs
2) ext3 plus extent
3) ext4 minus flex_bg

Not saying flash drives are perfect, nor are HD's with some new installs I've tried.
Just better with the above IMHO.

I had a bigger message composed with some details from some of my filesystem
research but the system logged me out before I could hit the post button.

Can we set that to a higher time limit ?     We're not hiding anything needing a small
time limit.

thanks  Taco,

patrick

Titre: Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 31 janvier 2013 à 03:38:07
Which ones are available now ?

fat32 and fat16 are needed, ntfs (ntfsprogs), xfs, jfs, cifs... btrfs, ext3 ext4 of course...

who knows more which can be needed ?
Would I just check out Gparted and see which ones aren't covered?
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 31 janvier 2013 à 04:20:11
Would I just check out Gparted and see which ones aren't covered?

Yes why not ?

Patrick, I am not aware about time limit, and I am not sure why you were logged out. I'll have to get more clues about it.

PS: I will search but I don't know where yet.




Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: patrick013 le 31 janvier 2013 à 04:31:24

Patrick, I am not aware about time limit, and I am not sure why you were logged out. I'll have to get more clues about it.


Well it happened to me twice tonight, after a short period.

Also, if we should talk about filesystems in general, want to start a separate topic ?
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 31 janvier 2013 à 04:44:27
Well it happened to me twice tonight, after a short period.

Also, if we should talk about filesystems in general, want to start a separate topic ?

1) Are you sure you didn't just have the connection to Internet suspended during a few seconds or such, while you where typing, and you didn't see it ?

2) You are totally free to start a separate topic if you want to continue this discussion specifically about filesystems.

/Edit: Patrick, look at this thread (http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?P=cd4bafcce66185cb0db3305aa8c0c7fa&topic=273803.msg1793861#msg1793861) at the SMF forums and see if anything there is of some help to you?
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: patrick013 le 31 janvier 2013 à 05:35:48
1) Are you sure you didn't just have the connection to Internet suspended during a few seconds or such, while you where typing, and you didn't see it ?

Yes, I'm sure.    I've got 5 tabs opened and LV knocks me out every few minutes
or so if I do n't post or move around or whatever.

Just needs a higher time limit I'd say.

thanks for the response.

patrick
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: djohnston le 31 janvier 2013 à 06:22:49
patrick013,

When you are at the forum login screen, there are two places where you can click the login (Identifiez-vous) button. Should look like the screenshot below:

(http://s19.postimage.org/51ncl4p0f/login_screen.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/51ncl4p0f/)

Below the password field in the center of the screen is the field for the number of minutes to stay logged in. Mine shows 60. What does yours show? Below the number of minutes is a checkmark box. Checking that should keep you logged in indefinitely (Toujours connecté).

You can also login in the upper left corner of the screen. In the dropdown menu to the right of the password field, selecting Toujours should also keep you logged in indefinitely.
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: OnlyHuman le 31 janvier 2013 à 22:43:44
Hi I downloaded an gave the RC2 iso a very quick spin in vbox on my i7, unfortunately when I plugged my usb pendrive in and enabled in vbox the mouse froze and everything else, only option was to press off button or pull plug out, just thought mention it, maybe I am alone with this problem an just my pc, but as I use vbox alot its important to me that iso's work well in vbox. Good luck with  improving the iso, it looked quite nice.
Best wishes,
OnlyHuman
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 01 février 2013 à 00:25:55
Hi OnlyHuman,

Could you please give VillageLinux a try in the same way.  One of things djohnston did with it was to add the virtualbox-guest-dkms package and all dependencies in order to get a fully working implementation for a VBox guest.  The next version of Scorpio will come out on that base shortly.
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 01 février 2013 à 09:03:12
LinuxVillage now has Gparted recognising the following file systems - btrfs; ext2, 3, 4; fat16, 32; hfs, hfs+; jfs; linux-swap; nilfs2; ntfs; reiser4; reiserfs; xfs.  Should cover most things!!  Upload will take place soon.
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 01 février 2013 à 15:09:26
I went poking around in the bowels of /var and discovered it contains 274mb of stuff!!  Of that I then found that /var/lib was 202mb, and that /var/lib/apt was 142mb of that.  There are a number of text files in /var/lib/apt/lists that constitute that.  I found /var/lib/dpkg/info held 18mb of files; /var/lib/dkms/virtualbox-guest held 15mb.

I looked at /var/cache - it was 69mb with /var/cache/apt at 39mb and /var/cache/flashplugin-nonfree at 13mb. 

How much of this can I clean out without borking the system.  Seems to be a lot of stuff just sitting around!
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: djohnston le 01 février 2013 à 19:06:26
I'm pretty sure, but not 100%, that /var/cache files can be deleted. Lemme do some research on that. Before you delete any file, you can see what application uses it with:

lsof name_of_file_to_be_deleted

I've been wondering where the disk space is going!

EDIT: It just occured to me you might want to do the apt cleanup routine.

apt-get clean
apt-get autoclean


See if that frees any space in /var/cache. You can also get rid of "old" files. I found over a dozen.

updatedb
locate .old


Then rm them one at a time.


Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: djohnston le 01 février 2013 à 19:26:26
Well, the "clean" routine did nothing.

[root@DebWeb ~]# du -hs /var
225M   /var
[root@DebWeb ~]# apt-get clean
[root@DebWeb ~]# apt-get autoclean
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
[root@DebWeb ~]# du -hs /var
225M   /var
[root@DebWeb ~]#

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: djohnston le 01 février 2013 à 19:32:43
Too many /var subdirectories to document. Look at the Linux Documentation Project page for /var (http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/var.html) for the full descriptions.

Use lsof name_of_file_to_be_deleted for any you're unsure of.

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: OnlyHuman le 01 février 2013 à 19:58:39
Hi, I installed the RC2 iso this time, ( can't say I like the installer much, but suppose you get used to it) after the install and reboot at grub I have an error 15.
I will try again when a new iso comes out.
Best wishes,
OnlyHuman
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 01 février 2013 à 20:57:08
Hello,

About cleaning please try Bleachbit root (even if you want to remove it after along with it's depends). Later I'll do a few shots for you related to the parts in Synaptic to show you what I said about a few days ago : the cleaning of leftover files.

About /var : you can't do much in there because lots of essential parts for the system live there. What I hope to do is perhaps, help you to clean more in a clean way. :)

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: djohnston le 01 février 2013 à 23:23:27
There are some you can clean out. From the Linux Documentation Project page for /var (http://www.tldp.org/LDP/Linux-Filesystem-Hierarchy/html/var.html):

/var/cache

    Is intended for cached data from applications. Such data is locally generated as a result of time-consuming I/O or calculation. This data can generally be regenerated or be restored. Unlike /var/spool, files here can be deleted without data loss. This data remains valid between invocations of the application and rebooting of the system. The existence of a separate directory for cached data allows system administrators to set different disk and backup policies from other directories in /var.

/var/log

    Log files from the system and various programs/services, especially login (/var/log/wtmp, which logs all logins and logouts into the system) and syslog (/var/log/messages, where all kernel and system program message are usually stored). Files in /var/log can often grow indefinitely, and may require cleaning at regular intervals. Something that is now normally managed via log rotation utilities such as 'logrotate'. This utility also allows for the automatic rotation compression, removal and mailing of log files. Logrotate can be set to handle a log file daily, weekly, monthly or when the log file gets to a certain size. Normally, logrotate runs as a daily cron job. This is a good place to start troubleshooting general technical problems.

(See the documentation for some specific files in /var/log directory.)

/var/mail

    Contains user mailbox files. The mail files take the form /var/mail/'username' (Note that /var/mail may be a symbolic link to another directory). User mailbox files in this location are stored in the standard UNIX mailbox format. The reason for the location of this directory was to bring the FHS inline with nearly every UNIX implementation (it was previously located in /var/spool/mail). This change is important for inter-operability since a single /var/mail is often shared between multiple hosts and multiple UNIX implementations (despite NFS locking issues).

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 02 février 2013 à 01:09:01
I've done lots of apt-get clean, autoremove and Bleachbit.  These files seem to be optional from the removal point of view.  Took an experimental dive into the /var folder.

Well there is a guaranteed 40+mb in /var/cache/apt, and that are two apt-get files.  The rest of /var/cache was removed and no ill effects so far.  Obviously there are files that build up over time - just don't need the clutter on a live install build.

Did the same for /var/lib - removed contents of apt, dpkg and aptitude.  On reboot I did "apt-get update" and /var/lib/apt was back to 75mb. 

The end result is that the system generates these files and there is nothing you can do about it.  However they can be removed for the purposes of remastering to make the build smaller, and they will regenerate on install the moment you invoke apt-get.  Well, at least it gets the build size down.

@OnlyHuman - error 15 sounds like a grub issue.  You're using VBox?  Make sure that grub is configured on install and put to the right partition.  I haven't tried an install on to VBox yet - I have found it much easier to use multiple partitions on a separate test rig - haven't encountered an error there yet.   
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: patrick013 le 02 février 2013 à 03:23:49
Somewhere there's a config file stating the max size for files in /var

Wish I could remember where.   I deleted 4GB of debug logs and
changed the thing to 2GB max.    But where ?     Can't emember.

Just FYI
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 02 février 2013 à 05:24:31
Hi,
You start with saying /var contains 225 MB (about that much) and end removing /var/cache files which are about 40 MB: ok it does not harm the system, but by doing that the remastered product can't be used for demonstrating the content of the repositories : try to start Synaptic in a spin made this way you will probably find it empty and will have to reload Synaptic to get it filled again. The files under /var/lib might be of the same kind.

Patrick : probably in some file under /etc ? Could it be in sysctl.conf perhaps ?

Titre: Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 02 février 2013 à 13:09:02
You start with saying /var contains 225 MB (about that much) and end removing /var/cache files which are about 40 MB: ok it does not harm the system, but by doing that the remastered product can't be used for demonstrating the content of the repositories : try to start Synaptic in a spin made this way you will probably find it empty and will have to reload Synaptic to get it filled again. The files under /var/lib might be of the same kind.

What I have found is that on a new install apt-get can't do anything unless you first do "apt-get update".  So whether the files are there in /var/cache or not doesn't seem to mean anything.  Besides, it's not a 40mb saving - it's almost 200mb on the live cd.  The same with /var/lib - again a saving of over 100mb on the live cd.  So all up there could be about 300mb of space saved on a live cd , of which about 120mb is put back on doing "apt-get update" after installing the system.
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 02 février 2013 à 13:44:35
Okok, but when you start Synaptic in the Live CD, do you see the applications in the categories ? In pclinuxos I was never cleaning the related parts because then I could not use the Live CD to demonstrate the power of the Linux distributions through the sight of the  available applications. The effect I was expecting to produce was broken.

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 02 février 2013 à 13:56:35
I haven't tried Synaptic in the live cd - I'm in the process of remastering a test on this.  Literally - it's at 18%!!  I have cleared a large part of /var/cache and /var/lib, saving 240mb and winding up with a size according to "df -m" of 1444mb.  I'll let you know how it pans out.
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 02 février 2013 à 14:05:30
On my side I am going to make the screenshots I told you about earlier, using Synaptic to detect more packages and files to be removed.

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 02 février 2013 à 14:21:24
The remaster failed - booted to a user login which is not something I have seen in a while.  Too tired to try again tonight - I'll try again tomorrow.
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 02 février 2013 à 16:12:12
Ok.

To clean from within Synaptic, first in the left column, at the bottom part, select "Status", once done, in the left column upper part, if there is such an entry select "Installed (auto removable)" - this entry appears only if some packages can be safely removed -

If there are several in the main part of the window at the right side, select the first, press Shift, select the last, they are now all selected (or select one and use "Ctrl+a") : then right-click on them and use the "Mark for complete removal" option, then hit the "Apply" button located under the menus.

Here is what it looks like at this stage:
(http://meets.free.fr/images/Synaptic-cleaning-1.png)

Next, you will want to remove the configuration files left behind. In the left column, still with the same "Status" entry, upper part of the left column, hit "Not installed (residual config)".

Select any entry you will find there, with the right-click menu on the selection(s) hit "Mark for complete removal", hit "Apply".

Next, it will be about orphans!

First, install the deborphans package.
Two, at the top menu go to Settings > Filters

Once there look at the following screenshots:
(http://meets.free.fr/images/Synaptic-filters-1.png)

(http://meets.free.fr/images/Synaptic-filters-2.png)

(http://meets.free.fr/images/Synaptic-filters-3.png)

(http://meets.free.fr/images/Synaptic-filters-4.png)


Once this configured,
(http://meets.free.fr/images/Synaptic-orphans.png)

and you can find out more orphans after you remove the first ones:

(http://meets.free.fr/images/Synaptic-orphans-2.png)

You can continue until no more orphans are left.


Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 03 février 2013 à 00:41:34
I have to get the  remaster to work before I can check anything out with Synaptic.  This is all very experimental - falls into the category of "What happens if I do this...oops!"  The remaster probably failed due to what I removed from /var - if it doesn't want to come good I'll just do a clean reinstall, update from the changelog and then see if I can break it again.
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 03 février 2013 à 00:51:24
Hi,

What I posted above is all very secure, and can allow you to recover much space. I think when you will have gone through and seen the result, we will have to add details in it to make a "tips and tricks" tutorial.

I suggest you get back to your RC2 version and work on it with this ?


Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: patrick013 le 03 février 2013 à 00:53:34
Odd, if the source OS is working OK .
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 03 février 2013 à 14:30:30
In the end I have decided to leave /var alone.  No great benefit comes out of trying to reduce its size - the broken remaster was 387mb compressed, but 40mb is promptly reinstalled on "apt-get update" after install.  In the end there is only about a saving of about 25mb on the ISO.  As for using Synaptic and deborphan to try and save some space, again, hardly worth the effort.  Remember, this is a clean build, so theoretically no crud and cruft should have accumulated.  There is always the previous build to fall back on if the system totally borks - like in this case.  I obviously removed something from /var/cache that upset Remastersys - there was an error message at the start of the process which I missed first time around.  Typically when I use Bleachbit after having done "apt-get clean" and "apt-get autoremove" I only find a mb or less to remove.

By the way, an updated VillageLinux_RC2 is being  uploaded - it has the extra file support for Gparted.  Should be all up in the next hour or two. 
Titre: Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 03 février 2013 à 14:42:52
By the way, an updated VillageLinux_RC2 is being  uploaded - it has the extra file support for Gparted.  Should be all up in the next hour or two.

Hi,
I'll be looking forward to it, and mirror it at once. Would you send me a mail to notify me when ready for download ?

Thanks.

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 03 février 2013 à 16:58:19
Changelog Update - 3rd Feb 2013

I have uploaded a bug-fix/extras Village_RC2.  Same download location and no version change.  Changes are as follows -

Just out of curiosity, this remaster is of  LinuxVillageRC_2 fully installed to usb stick, updated, added to, remastered, then dd'ed to another stick to test boot.  The ISO was then uploaded.  I'm starting to like using usb sticks for building and testing spins - adds a whole new and portable dimension.
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 03 février 2013 à 22:22:33
Hi,

I have downloaded and now I try it in Virtualbox. I choose to boot to the first entry but it does not move an eyelash yet. Very strange... Is the link from your first post the right one ?

/Edit : configured pae in vbox now it boots... of course !

/Edit 2 : at install time after I am prompted to choose a keybaord layout the installer still provides the qwerty layout, so when I want to type "m" I gt ";" instead !  :-\

Could you tell me if there is a mean to get Remastersys installer switch to other languages ? Could we have a pot file, or such thing allowing the members to work on translations for further/future contribution to the Remastersys project ?



Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 04 février 2013 à 00:10:34
The second option in the Live Installer is to set language and keyboard.  It is quite comprehensive, and I had no problems just now installing a French version with appropriate keyboard layout.
Titre: Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 04 février 2013 à 08:48:58
The second option in the Live Installer is to set language and keyboard.  It is quite comprehensive, and I had no problems just now installing a French version with appropriate keyboard layout.

Hi,

Once installed : yes, there is the right keyboard and so on. What I was pointing is that once this setup is done, the installer itself still has qwerty, which is a lack of comfort to do the rest : after so many years I am used to searching the "m" under the "," keyboard key, or the 1 where I have my & key. But most people don't know how to do that. Therefore if you could ask the dev at the Remastersys forum if he could add a "change language and keyboard" feature in the installer itself that would be nice. (Other installers do have it : once the setup is done, the installer is automatically setup to the chosen language/country/timezone/and keyboard).

While I am here : I finished installing it to vbox last night, all went fine, very nice look, I'll have to go deeper, but I first found the entry for the installer is still in the menus after install ; and I started Synaptic to seek for "Not installed (residual config)" // as I explained here:
Next, you will want to remove the configuration files left behind. In the left column, still with the same "Status" entry, upper part of the left column, hit "Not installed (residual config)".

Select any entry you will find there, with the right-click menu on the selection(s) hit "Mark for complete removal", hit "Apply".
(...)

and I found a long list of residual config files to be removed. Then it was time for sleep...

I suggest again you go through the tutorial I did for the cleanings in three steps in Synaptic, and well maybe you will let me know how that goes ?

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 05 février 2013 à 00:05:32
I have been in touch with fragadelic and an installer in multiple languages is in the pipeline - he's just not sure when.  I think he is still the sole developer, so it is a hell of a job he's doing.

The installer and the other Remastersys menu entries remain after install because the gui software has been installed.  Otherwise they are command line only.  If the installer was command line but an icon was available on the live cd then that would solve that issue.  Just got to work out how - need a script that removes things on boot of a new system.

When I checked Synaptic on a clean install for "Not installed (residual config)" I found nothing!
Titre: Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 05 février 2013 à 02:11:38
I have been in touch with fragadelic and an installer in multiple languages is in the pipeline - he's just not sure when.  I think he is still the sole developer, so it is a hell of a job he's doing.

Ok. Doesn't he ask contributions for the translations ?

Citer
The installer and the other Remastersys menu entries remain after install because the gui software has been installed.  Otherwise they are command line only.  If the installer was command line but an icon was available on the live cd then that would solve that issue.  Just got to work out how - need a script that removes things on boot of a new system.

Something like that... sure.

Citer
When I checked Synaptic on a clean install for "Not installed (residual config)" I found nothing!

Are we talking about the same version ? This is the one I installed: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18945176/Village_RC-2_TEST_xz.iso.md5

I can show you what I found after install, I have it in vbox and could easily do a screenshot.




Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 05 février 2013 à 03:23:51
This screenshot (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18945176/synaptic.png) is from the RC_2 that I did the last remaster from.  It shows Synaptic after updating with  the "Not installed (residual config)" displayed.  There is nothing showing when you scroll down. 

I then installed deborphan and it came up with four items -

A couple were dummy/transitional, and the others just not needed.  I then installed gtkorphan which not only has a gui but allows you to remove packages.  It showed the same packages as deborphan but also showed "linux-image-686' - a dummy package.  I then checked and removed those packages - came to less than 2mb.

I then set up up deborphan through Synaptic, reloaded and checked for orphans - none showed.  Post your screenshot so I can have a look at it.
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 05 février 2013 à 03:42:00
Hello Taco,

You will be surprised, but my screenshot would look the same as your's:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/18945176/synaptic.png

All the entries which you see on the right side ARE in fact residual configurations. Select them all, right-click, hit "mark for complete removal"...

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 05 février 2013 à 06:18:21
Well that was interesting.  I blame Synaptic!!  When I looked at the residual configurations I was looking for checked  objects, like you would if you looked at Installed or Not installed, or All.  However, I checked all and removed - saved about 8mb.

The obvious question here is - where did all this crud come from?  I'm pretty sure I haven't installed imagemagick or fbpanel ar any time, but little bits were there, not to mention all sorts of other stuff.  All a bit mysterious.


EDIT - in terminal the command line way to achieve what Synaptic did is -
apt-get autoremove --purge -y $(dpkg -l | grep '^rc' | awk '{print $2}')Not so nice to type!!
Titre: Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 05 février 2013 à 11:27:36
EDIT - in terminal the command line way to achieve what Synaptic did is -
apt-get autoremove --purge -y $(dpkg -l | grep '^rc' | awk '{print $2}')Not so nice to type!!

I am not sure I could remember this type of... command line (baroque artwork ?). Where did you find that command line and what does everything mean starting from the '$' up to the ')'?

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: Taco.22 le 05 février 2013 à 13:31:03
apt-get autoremove --purge -y $(dpkg -l | grep '^rc' | awk '{print $2}')Whoa - complicated but it kind of makes sense.  I'm new to this so it's still all a steep learning curve.

apt-get autoremove --purge -yThat all makes sense.  Apt-get will remove and purge files, with -y or yes as default.

dpkg -l | grep '^rc' That tells dpkg to make a list, with the parameter of  files that are rc or run command of applications that have been removed.

awk '{print $2}'That seems to give a field of name only.  If you did -
dpkg -l | awk '{print $3}'everything is listed as its version number.  A different $number represents a different field.  It could be its type, or where it came from, or what platform it belongs to. 

Put it all together and you are asking apt-get to remove and purge the config files of applications that dpkg has listed by name and as removed.

See, simple!!!
Titre: Re : Re : Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: djohnston le 05 février 2013 à 13:32:33
what does everything mean starting from the '$' up to the ')'?

dpkg -l outputs a list of all installed packages. dpkg -l | grep '^rc' selects installed packages marked with the "rc" (residual config) tag. awk '{print $2}' means print the second field of the displayed record. So, dpkg -l | grep '^rc' | awk '{print $2}' would output the second field of every dpkg record containing the "rc" tag. Here's an example of what the output would look like if just selecting packages with the "rc" tag:

rc  brasero-common                           3.4.1-3                            all          Common files for the Brasero CD burning application and library
Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: melodie le 06 février 2013 à 00:45:55
I'll have to try these portions of command line in Debian once I'll have booted to it next time. Thanks for your explanations.

Taco.22 : about the "y" : yes, I knew, this is why I didn't ask about this part. If we don't put the --yes (or -y) option the package manager stops to ask confirmation.

Titre: Re : Village_RC2 : Openbox community spin
Posté par: djohnston le 06 février 2013 à 11:47:59
That's weird. Taco.22's response (Reply #65) shows up as being one minute before mine. Did I just miss it entirely, or is it a time zone difference, or ... ?