Remastersys for Debian

[konaexpress]

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.

[melodie]

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...

[konaexpress]

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 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.......

[konaexpress]

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?

[djohnston]

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.

[patrick013]

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

[Taco.22]

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.         

[konaexpress]

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?

[Taco.22]

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.

[melodie]

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

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

[konaexpress]

OK, time to end this topic. It is what it is I think.

[djohnston]

I have been slightly bemused by the problems some people seem to be having with Remastersys.

Oh, yeah? Oh, yeah?! 

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.

[Taco.22]

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".

[melodie]

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.

[djohnston]

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.