torios team mailing list archive

[Israel <israel@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Nio,
 I was wondering if it would be possible to do something along these lines.
Could we make a 'persistent' option for OBI that adds a partition and
links it to the /home folder somehow?

I meant solving it with Ubiquity as casper makes it possible (easy) to
make a casper-rw portion of the disk.  You think I can simply use the
same methods and apply it to mkusb installer?
Do you think we could write the image to the usb, and then repartition
and add a read-write fat partition?
I think I will also need to add the needed files to let the ubuntu usb
creator to recognize the image and be able to copy it to a USB, for
people that want to do that... it is a few extra files, but nothing major.

I'd still like to investigate whether or not we can use the squashfs to
make the installed system from OBI (or a modified OBI, rather).  I'd
really like the option for installing /home as a separate partition, or
retaining a separate /home partition, as this is something I use
frequently... it might even be wise to (eventually) use this by default
if we can figure it out reasonably easily.

If Ubiquity can install from the disk, I suppose we could in a sense
make a simple GUI that controls the chroot environment.  we could build
a chroot on the computer's harddrive right?

i.e. mount /dev/sda1 (or whatever) as /mnt (or whatever)
and make that (/mnt or whatever) the chroot directory... and simply
install the base system there from a script.

We could include all the /var/apt/cache/* used in the initial chroot
(don't delete them when we build the ISO initially) and copy them over
to the chroot's /var/apt/cache and then allow the user to link a
separate partition /dev/sda5 (or whatever) as /home  this adds about
100-200 or so MB

What do you think about this idea?
I think we could fit a lot more stuff in the image this way, like
virtually every language possible, and some of the extras people might
want (excluding the restricted things like flash) such as pcmanfm so the
user doesn't need to have internet to update their system.  we could
include the regular general audio formats so the user simply needs to
click something to say 'yes I want mp3' etc..

Just kinda throwing ideas at you (as I often do).

let me know what your thoughts are on this.  We could make a very simple
zenity form that asks a few things like username, language, timezone,
etc.. or offers a 'default' for a one button install.  And then has a
progress dialog that shows the progress of the script running, maybe use
the html thing to show the release notes, or include the information
about installing extra codecs, etc...


On 09/14/2014 09:22 AM, Nio Wiklund wrote:
> Hi Israel,
>
> The iso file's file system ISO9660 is read only. Unetbootin and
> usb-creator-usb pick the files and write them to a read-write file
> system, usually FAT32. This is nothing special with ToriOS, 9w or the
> OBI. You will not solve that feature/problem with uniquity.
>
> -o-
>
> If you want specific partitioning, you can get it with a combination of
> gparted and the OBI. This works already in the current version of ToriOS
> to create dual boot and multi boot systems with one or several drives.
>
> * Advanced OBI level *
>
> 1. gparted
>
> Create a partition table with the partitions you want. It can be either
> old-style MSDOS alias MBR or GUID partition table alias GPT.
>
> Use can (but need not) make it easy for the OBI and assign *labels*
> while in gparted:
>
> 'obi-root' (without quotes) for the partition where you intend to
> install the root partition
>
> 'obi-swap' (without quotes) for the partition you want to use for swap,
> which can be shared with other linux distros, if you do not intend to
> hibernate.
>
> 2. the OBI
>
> Select advanced OBI level and proceed. The OBI will let you select root
> partition and swap partition among the existing ones. The selected
> partitions will be formatted and overwritten, and a bootloader will be
> installed pointing to the currently installed system. Reboot into this
> system and run
>
> sudo update-grub
>
> to get dual or multi booting.
>
> * More advanced partitioning *
>
> But if you want separate partitions for home, boot, usr etc, you must
> use another method for the installation, and here is where there might
> be a need for ubiquity.
>
> * OEM installation *
>
> Even if you use the OBI to install an OEM system from a tarball,
> ubiquity will be used in the final stage to create the final user's
> settings.
>
> -o-
>
> So even I would say that ubiquity should be bundled with ToriOS, maybe
> not in the first version, but in the next version, or in a DVD version
> (oversized for CD disks), while we must keep a very lean CD version.
>
> * UEFI *
>
> I don't think that ToriOS is targeting computers where it must dual boot
> with Windows in UEFI mode. Anyway, it adds a lot of complexity, and I
> suggest that we stay away from it.
>
> Best regards
> Nio
>
> Den 2014-09-14 15:05, Israel skrev:
>> Hi Nio,
>> Ah ha! The disk is read only.
>> That sums it up.
>> I suppose I could make ubiquity based installers for those who want
>> persistence... though I don't think the Live system is the main point of
>> this OS.
>> Though it would be good to offer a way to install with specific
>> partitioning.
>> I will look more into all of this closer to the 2.0 version of Tori OS.
>> For now this issue is something that will be put on the back burner.
>>
>> On 09/14/2014 06:09 AM, Nio Wiklund wrote:
>>> Thanks for this explanation, Phill :-)
>>>
>>> Best regards/Nio
>>>
>>> Den 2014-09-14 12:49, Phill Whiteside skrev:
>>>> The hybrid kernel (the 'live' one) can be used for either system. It is
>>>> the 'standard' kernel with some added extras to make it usable on Live
>>>> CD that ubuntu (and others) use. The additions are classed as 'patches'
>>>> and ubuntu adds them by default.
>>>>
>>>> The original kernel is more a 'server' kernel with no LiveCD capability,
>>>> as such is not needed on a server.
>>>>
>>>> Regards,
>>>>
>>>> Phill.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 14 September 2014 08:41, Nio Wiklund <nio.wiklund@xxxxxxxxx
>>>> <mailto:nio.wiklund@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>     Den 2014-09-14 04:21, Israel skrev:
>>>>     > Hi all,
>>>>     > I have been looking into making a persistent USB image after our
>>>>     meeting
>>>>     > today, and I am not entirely sure I can, though Nio may have better
>>>>     > insight here.
>>>>     >
>>>>     >
>>>>     http://askubuntu.com/questions/78098/how-to-chroot-into-persistent-installation
>>>>     >
>>>>     > I am not entirely sure if this is something we can do for ToriOS 1.0,
>>>>     > but it may be very important to look into.  I am sure the OBI
>>>>     system can
>>>>     > benefit from having persistent data, as this will make it easier
>>>>     to make
>>>>     > a tarball on the live system.  I could be wrong about this but I
>>>>     wanted
>>>>     > to put this info out here in case someone wants to look into
>>>>     this.  I am
>>>>     > not going to mess with this until ToriOS 1.0 is ready.... as it is
>>>>     there
>>>>     > is enough going on :)
>>>>     >
>>>>     > Also, I have been tossing around the idea of adding a Panel along the
>>>>     > bottom with buttons for The manual and the Installer.  I think this
>>>>     > would be a good idea, rather than using a custom menu for the Live OS,
>>>>     > it could be a custom interface... this would make the installer easily
>>>>     > discoverable.
>>>>     >
>>>>     > Any thoughts?
>>>>     >
>>>>     Hi,
>>>>
>>>>     @ Israel and all,
>>>>
>>>>     * Persistance *
>>>>
>>>>     I agree that persistence is not an urgent matter at this moment, it is
>>>>     easy enough to make a portable installed system to a USB drive with the
>>>>     OBI installer. This does not mess with the bootloader of the internal
>>>>     drive (which the standard installers do, unless you change that
>>>>     manually).
>>>>
>>>>     Persistence may be straight-forward to get using Unetbootin or the
>>>>     Startup Disk Creator alias usb-creator-gtk, or to do it manually
>>>>     (creating a casper-rw file or partition. But in this case, it is not
>>>>     possible to use mkusb, because it makes a read-only drive with the
>>>>     ISO9660 file system. You can make a persistent live system if the file
>>>>     system in read-write, typically fat32 or ext2. I can make a quick check,
>>>>     if there is something important missing.
>>>>
>>>>     It also depends on the kernel. That should be no problem in 12.04, but
>>>>     in 14.04 you must select the correct non-pae kernel. I think Phill made
>>>>     one for installed systems and one for live systems, and you need the
>>>>     kernel for live systems also for persistent live systems.
>>>>
>>>>     * Bottom panel *
>>>>
>>>>     I think a significant part of the usage of ToriOS will be with the
>>>>     original netboot resolution, 1000x600, and then an extra solid bottom
>>>>     panel will eat desktop space, which is already scarce. So I suggest that
>>>>     you avoid a bottom panel.I don't particularly like autohiding panels,
>>>>     they tend to appear by mistake and damage the work flow, when you move
>>>>     the cursor to a place near the autohiding panel's edge of the screen.
>>>>     Instead I suggest to put the manual and the installer as desktop icons
>>>>     in the live system, and the manual as a desktop icon also in the
>>>>     installed system.
>>>>
>>>>     -o-
>>>>
>>>>     @ Phill, have you merged those non-pae kernels now, so that one kernel
>>>>     works well for live as well as installed systems?
>>>>
>>>>     Best regards
>>>>     Nio
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -- 
>>>> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/phillw
>>


-- 
Regards