Salix Live 13.0 beta 2

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JRD
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Salix Live 13.0 beta 2

Post by JRD »

The Salix Live team (Akuna, JRD, Shador) is pleased to announce the second beta version.

Features included:
  • booting from CD or USB (using the following script for unix-like, unetbootin will not work with grub2 iso)
  • splashy like in the current ISO
  • automatic login (user: "one")
  • password for root: live
  • grub2 boot menu
  • some boot options accessible directly from boot menu (language, keybaord layout, numlock, touchpad)
  • you can select the mode (core, basic, or full) you want to boot, the runlevel, to copy all to RAM...
  • ssh-keys already generated for root
  • default sound to 71%
  • all ISO packages
  • gparted
  • ndiswrapper
  • rdesktop
  • graphical installer to install Salix on your computer
  • translations (grub2, installer) but not complete yet.
  • you can create xfs file for save changes
  • fix some previous bugs (keybaord layout, USB, …)
Here are the ISO and md5 files:
http://enialis.net/~jrd/salix/salixlive ... -beta2.iso
http://enialis.net/~jrd/salix/salixlive ... a2.iso.md5

Enjoy ^_^

P.S. For Windows users who want to put the ISO on USB, I'm currently making a batch script for them.
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Shador
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Location: Bavaria

Re: Salix Live beta 2

Post by Shador »

As I already told JRD on IRC, I really like his and Akunas work. I discovered some bugs though ;):
  • the grub2 menu would not pass the "core"/"basic"/"full" option to the kernel cmdline, I already fixed this
  • I tried to specify "core" manually on the kernel cmdline (by editing Start Salix Live with e) but the system would still boot unchanged. I also tried noload=basic,full which did quite what it should, but it complained that it can't start gdm ;)
    So either I got a wrong option or the options parsing isn't working properly. Couldn't find it anywhere. :)
  • Trying to hunt the previous problem down, it turned out that loop devices don't work.
    Error Msg: "mount: could not find any free loop device"
    So I check for kernel support and /proc/config.gz said yes to it, because I got that error once when I missed loopback support.
  • salix-live-installer
    • wow, great job so far. I know it still needs quite some work (seen your changelog ;)), but it really impressed me though.
    • My first attempt failed somehow during the fstab step. I don't have any details though, sorry.
    • Trying this and that, I noticed that you don't check for success of umount or mkfs. (For some reason mkfs complained here that it could not format the partition, because it was used by the system, it wasn't in mount though ... weird) Anyway it's probably a good idea to check wether those 2 are successful. Because like that the installation just continued and os.mkdir complained that <some path>/home already exists, which wasn't unexpected because it was one of several installation attempts.
    • Such errors created a traceback, but the installation would either just go on or stall. Can you try to handle them in a way, which prevents stall? Maybe any error (i.e. traceback) should quit the program, if left unhandled.
    • Here are some of the tracebacks:
      • Code: Select all

        Traceback (most recent call last):
          File "/usr/sbin/salix-live-installer", line 1277, in on_keyboard_tab_clicked
            self.KeyboardList.set_cursor(UsedKeybRow)
        NameError: global name 'UsedKeybRow' is not defined
      • Code: Select all

        Traceback (most recent call last):
          File "/usr/sbin/salix-live-installer", line 1297, in on_locale_tab_clicked
            self.LocaleList.set_cursor(UsedLocaleRow)
        NameError: global name 'UsedLocaleRow' is not defined
      • Code: Select all

        Traceback (most recent call last):
          File "/usr/sbin/salix-live-installer", line 1186, in salix_install_process
          File "/usr/sbin/salix-live-installer", line 1212, in chroot_settings
          File "/usr/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 444, in call
          File "/usr/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 595, in __init__
          File "/usr/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 1088, in _execute_child
          File "/usr/lib/python2.6/pickle.py", line 1374, in loads
          File "/usr/lib/python2.6/pickle.py", line 858, in load
          File "/usr/lib/python2.6/pickle.py", line 971, in load_string
        LookupError: unknown encoding: string-escape
        This one stalled my most promising attempt. I got until keyboard, locale & login. :)
      • For the mkfs error which I already described earlier, there was also a traceback but I don't have it anymore. ;)
    • The installer was also unable to install any of the files from the modules because of the loop problem:

      Code: Select all

      mount: could not find any free loop device
      cp: cannot stat `/mnt/hda1/temp_mount/*': No such file or directory
      umount: /mnt/hda1/temp_mount: not mounted
      A short check wether mount was succesfull is probably a good idea too. ;)

:shock: This got longer than I thought. Thought I tried to keep it short.
If you didn't quite get an issue, feel free to ask, I'll try to give you any additional information you need. :D (my best smile :P )
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Akuna
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Re: Salix Live 13.0 beta 2

Post by Akuna »

Indeed there are no error checking in the installer yet.
Thanks for your thorough report.
Question for JRD: did you coordinate the LiveCD keyboard setup with Salix standard system yet?
Anyways, I should be able to resume working on the Live Installer & LiloSetup sometimes next week and I may ask you to perform a couple more tests then.

:)
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laprjns
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Re: Salix Live 13.0 beta 2

Post by laprjns »

I tried installing to a USB using JRD's script. It appears that the files get copied but the installation of grub fails.

Code: Select all

root[Desktop]# ./install-on-USB ../Download/salixlive-13.0-beta2.iso /media/disk/
.
.
.
`/tmp/tmp.ps9ZcH/salixlive/tools/lzm2dir' -> `/media/disk/salixlive/tools/lzm2dir'
`/tmp/tmp.ps9ZcH/salixlive/tools/mksquashfs' -> `/media/disk/salixlive/tools/mksquashfs'
`/tmp/tmp.ps9ZcH/salixlive/tools/tgz2lzm' -> `/media/disk/salixlive/tools/tgz2lzm'
`/tmp/tmp.ps9ZcH/salixlive/tools/txz2lzm' -> `/media/disk/salixlive/tools/txz2lzm'
`/tmp/tmp.ps9ZcH/salixlive/tools/unsquashfs' -> `/media/disk/salixlive/tools/unsquashfs'
`/tmp/tmp.ps9ZcH/salixlive/tools/WIN/config' -> `/media/disk/salixlive/tools/WIN/config'
`/tmp/tmp.ps9ZcH/salixlive/tools/WIN/cygwin1.dll' -> `/media/disk/salixlive/tools/WIN/cygwin1.dll'
`/tmp/tmp.ps9ZcH/salixlive/tools/WIN/mkisofs.exe' -> `/media/disk/salixlive/tools/WIN/mkisofs.exe'
install_device not specified.
Usage: grub-install [OPTION] install_device
Install GRUB on your drive.

  -h, --help              print this message and exit
  -v, --version           print the version information and exit
  --modules=MODULES       pre-load specified modules MODULES
  --root-directory=DIR    install GRUB images under the directory DIR
                          instead of the root directory
  --grub-setup=FILE       use FILE as grub-setup
  --grub-mkimage=FILE     use FILE as grub-mkimage
  --grub-mkdevicemap=FILE use FILE as grub-mkdevicemap
  --grub-probe=FILE       use FILE as grub-probe
  --no-floppy             do not probe any floppy drive
  --recheck               probe a device map even if it already exists
  --force                 install even if problems are detected
  --disk-module=MODULE    disk module to use

INSTALL_DEVICE can be a GRUB device name or a system device filename.

grub-install copies GRUB images into the DIR/boot directory specified by
--root-directory, and uses grub-setup to install grub into the boot
sector.

Report bugs to <bug-grub@gnu.org>.
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laprjns
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Re: Salix Live 13.0 beta 2

Post by laprjns »

I also burnt a cd and booted it up on my daughter's computer. It booted up without problems, and everything seem to work, but i really didn't tried too many things since I really wanted to take the installer on a spin.
First thing is that I suggest that you put a launcher icon for the installer on the desktop. That where I was expecting to find it, like other Live CD that i have tried. The gui looks great and is pretty straight forward. I did find a couple of issues though. The first is that if I selected either keyboard or locale after selecting any of the other three items (Partition, Users, Packages), the dialog area seems to get over written without clearing the prior selection. Here a screen shot:
Image
Similar thing happen when selecting locale after having selected one of the bottom three items.
The second problem is that although the installer detected my Xp partition and provide a choice of mount point, it didn't appear that it was going to mount it on the mount point I selected, See screen shot :
Image
I couldn't confirm if this was a just a typo since i ran into the same problem as Shador with the installation freezing at 90%. I also get the same trace:

Code: Select all

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/sbin/salix-live-installer", line 1186, in salix_install_process
  File "/usr/sbin/salix-live-installer", line 1212, in chroot_settings
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 444, in call
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 595, in __init__
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 1088, in _execute_child
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/pickle.py", line 1374, in loads
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/pickle.py", line 858, in load
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/pickle.py", line 971, in load_string
LookupError: unknown encoding: string-escape

Also, prior to running the installer, I created a 512M swap partition, but the installer never indicated that it had detected it nor did it ask for one. Not sure if this is a problem or not.
Rich
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JRD
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Re: Salix Live 13.0 beta 2

Post by JRD »

Thanks for your reports.

About the "noload" trick, some changes have to be made if not running basic which contains gdm.
About the "loopback" problem, I must investigate. It's probably quite nothing (like not enough loop devices created).
@Akuna : no I didn't coordinate the keyboard setup yet. => next version.
@laprjns : my script is not perfect. It should work if you remove the trailing slash :

Code: Select all

./install-on-USB ../Download/salixlive-13.0-beta2.iso /media/disk
About mounted partitions, I already seen that "mount" and "/etc/mtab" is not complete. It may be related to the Linux Live Scripts. mountpoints should be indicated in /etc/mtab probably.
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Shador
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Location: Bavaria

Re: Salix Live 13.0 beta 2

Post by Shador »

laprjns wrote: Similar thing happen when selecting locale after having selected one of the bottom three items.
The second problem is that although the installer detected my Xp partition and provide a choice of mount point, it didn't appear that it was going to mount it on the mount point I selected, See screen shot :
Image
Had this problem, too. Happens when you don't unselect (i.e. confirm) what you've entered into the mountpoint field. (It should look like the one to its left.)
laprjns wrote:The first is that if I selected either keyboard or locale after selecting any of the other three items (Partition, Users, Packages), the dialog area seems to get over written without clearing the prior selection. Here a screen shot:
I got this screen once too, but thought it was just me trying to tick a tab-selected checkbox with enter instead of space. :lol:
JRD wrote:@laprjns : my script is not perfect. It should work if you remove the trailing slash :
Code:
./install-on-USB ../Download/salixlive-13.0-beta2.iso /media/disk
What about adding a check whether grub-install comes from a grub2 install. I don't want users to start complaining that their Slackware grub (legacy) fails. :mrgreen:
(Limiting it to grub2 1.97 and greater should be fine, 1.96 is so unstable I wouldn't bother with it. It's probably incompatible too.)
JRD wrote:P.S. For Windows users who want to put the ISO on USB, I'm currently making a batch script for them.
I'm interested how you plan to install grub2 from Windows? :?:
laprjns wrote:Also, prior to running the installer, I created a 512M swap partition, but the installer never indicated that it had detected it nor did it ask for one. Not sure if this is a problem or not.
I think I saw it somewhere during the fstab step in the code. :)
What about adding it to the really install dialog:

Code: Select all

Deteced (and used) swap partitions:
 * /dev/blub xyM
...
I should really learn this python stuff, though I understand the programs, I don't quite get how it works. :mrgreen:


EDIT:
Oh and nearly forgot:
@JRD: I think the ext4 as ext3 issue comes from blkid. Because Salix's does it right (try it yourself su -c 'blkid' on a computer with ext4 partition), there must be another one on the initrd. Probably in the usr.lzm package of the initrd.
EDIT2:
@JRD: Forget about it. Seems like blkid isn't the problem. But I found this interesting (on the ext4 wiki):
It is possible to mount both ext3 (and ext2, in kernels 2.6.28 and later) filesystems directly using the ext4 filesystem driver. This will allow you to use many of the in-core performance enhancements such as delayed allocation (delalloc) and multi-block allocation (mballoc), and large inodes if your ext3 filesystem have been formatted with large inodes as is the default with newer versions of e2fsprogs. Simply mounting an ext3 (or ext2) filesystem with a modern (2.6.27+) version of ext4 will not change the on-disk structures, and it is possible to revert to the ext3 (or ext2) driver should there be any problem with ext4. If you plan to use the ext4 driver to boot from an ext2/3 partition, and you compile your kernel without the ext2/3 drivers, you may need to add rootfstype=ext4 to the kernel command line.
http://ext4.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/E ... em_to_ext4

Sounds like we could open extX disregarding the version with ext4 (and gain performance additionally). :D

EDIT3:
I got blkid to detect ext4 properly, at least in chroot on ZW. Replacing /lib/libblkid.so.1.0 in the initrd with the one installed in ZW or Salix lead to the following output:

Code: Select all

/dev/sda10: LABEL="ZENBETA" UUID="7b46d26e-44b8-4e13-b8ab-6842d93aab68" TYPE="ext4"
instead of

Code: Select all

/dev/sda10: LABEL="ZENBETA" UUID="7b46d26e-44b8-4e13-b8ab-6842d93aab68" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
Last edited by Shador on 30. Nov 2009, 07:40, edited 1 time in total.
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Akuna
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Re: Salix Live 13.0 beta 2

Post by Akuna »

laprjns wrote: The first is that if I selected either keyboard or locale after selecting any of the other three items (Partition, Users, Packages), the dialog area seems to get over written without clearing the prior selection. Here a screen shot:
Image
Oops... :)
Thanks for catching this...
Similar thing happen when selecting locale after having selected one of the bottom three items.
OK
The second problem is that although the installer detected my Xp partition and provide a choice of mount point, it didn't appear that it was going to mount it on the mount point I selected, See screen shot :
Image
Actually it does this when we do not press Enter at the selection. In other words selecting is not enough, you still have to confirm your choice by pressing Enter. But that is obviously not a desired behavior... Selecting should be enough. I'll try to change this.
I couldn't confirm if this was a just a typo since i ran into the same problem as Shador with the installation freezing at 90%. I also get the same trace:

Code: Select all

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/sbin/salix-live-installer", line 1186, in salix_install_process
  File "/usr/sbin/salix-live-installer", line 1212, in chroot_settings
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 444, in call
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 595, in __init__
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/subprocess.py", line 1088, in _execute_child
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/pickle.py", line 1374, in loads
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/pickle.py", line 858, in load
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/pickle.py", line 971, in load_string
LookupError: unknown encoding: string-escape

Also, prior to running the installer, I created a 512M swap partition, but the installer never indicated that it had detected it nor did it ask for one. Not sure if this is a problem or not.
Rich
Yes swap is (supposed to be) detected automatically, but I should either add a confirmation that it is found or a warning that it is missing.

Thank you too for this very helpful report.

I hope to have another test version ready sometimes next week.
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Akuna
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Re: Salix Live 13.0 beta 2

Post by Akuna »

Shador wrote:I should really learn this python stuff, though I understand the programs, I don't quite get how it works. :mrgreen:
Python/Glade3 is really easy indeed... Please do learn it... Being a few persons to work on the code would greatly enhance its quality plus we would all learn from each other. :)
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JRD
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Re: Salix Live 13.0 beta 2

Post by JRD »

Shador wrote: What about adding a check whether grub-install comes from a grub2 install. I don't want users to start complaining that their Slackware grub (legacy) fails. :mrgreen:
(Limiting it to grub2 1.97 and greater should be fine, 1.96 is so unstable I wouldn't bother with it. It's probably incompatible too.)
Good idea !
Shador wrote:
JRD wrote:P.S. For Windows users who want to put the ISO on USB, I'm currently making a batch script for them.
I'm interested how you plan to install grub2 from Windows? :?:
I realized there is no grub-install for windows. The sources are of course avaiable and I may try to compile it under cygwin.
I think it's important to be able to put in on USB from Windows for people who wants to test it and do not have or want to burn a CD.
Shador wrote: Oh and nearly forgot:
@JRD: I think the ext4 as ext3 issue comes from blkid. Because Salix's does it right (try it yourself su -c 'blkid' on a computer with ext4 partition), there must be another one on the initrd. Probably in the usr.lzm package of the initrd.
It's in busybox. I use the last one and built it for the initrd. The busybox included in the Linux Live Scripts is too old and have problems. But apparently the last one from busybox is still not enough.
Shador wrote: @JRD: Forget about it. Seems like blkid isn't the problem. But I found this interesting (on the ext4 wiki):
Sounds like we could open extX disregarding the version with ext4 (and gain performance additionally). :D
I already tested that on my computer. With default settings, the ext4 driver use some extentions and you cannot mount you ext2 partitions back with ext2. But maybe the ext4 driver has changed a bit on this lately. I still don't think it's a good idea.
Shador wrote: I got blkid to detect ext4 properly, at least in chroot on ZW. Replacing /lib/libblkid.so.1.0 in the initrd with the one installed in ZW or Salix lead to the following output:

Code: Select all

/dev/sda10: LABEL="ZENBETA" UUID="7b46d26e-44b8-4e13-b8ab-6842d93aab68" TYPE="ext4"
instead of

Code: Select all

/dev/sda10: LABEL="ZENBETA" UUID="7b46d26e-44b8-4e13-b8ab-6842d93aab68" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
This seems to be a better solution for me. I will add the correct libblkid in the initrd for the next version... Thank you.
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