Refracta Development, Scripts, etc.
Post a reply
golinux

- golinux
- Posts: 663
- Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2012 1:23 am

## Installer feedback

Sun Jan 12, 2014 10:44 pm

I finally got around to creating a snapshot of my media-functional refracta-wheezy that was installed on a single @40 gb partition. The iso came out to about 1.5gb.
The experiment was to install it with a separate /home partition on a second drive in the same machine. Prepared the /root and /home partitions with gparted and fired up the disk. There was no desktop install icon. Is there supposed to be one? No biggie to go to the menu. I used the latest installer from testing as you suggested. Chose the expert install. IIRC, the separate /home option is only available with the expert install. It took a few tries to tick all the correct boxes. Had to keep starting over because there wasn't a 'go back' option at every step. Maybe a feature to add? Had to stop and think about the /boot option and finally realized that was different from /root so didn't check it. My pre-formatted partitions were kept intact. YEA! Locale options were a little confusing too. But it did install and pretty quickly. Installed grub on sda1 (/root).
It finished, rebooted and I chose the install on sda1. Oops! It really didn't like that at ALL! Pushed the big button because I didn't understand what the console was asking of me and couldn't find a way to do anything useful from there. Where would I find the appropriate error logs? Next restart, booted into the original refracta install. Tweaked fstab, /media mount points and ran update-grub. That seemed to fix things. Next reboot, sda1 booted properly. That's where I am now!
Next project will be to install it on my production machine. That may be a while because I want to complete a seemingly never-ending video project before I change horses. Will probably unplug the other two drives in that machine just to make sure I don't do anything monumentally stupid.
I'm pretty Zen beginner's-mind with Linux. I kind of know what I'm doing (but not always why it works) and seem to be able to eventually sort things out intuitively by trial and error.
You guys have done a great job with these tools. For the most part very smooth. I take full responsibility for any confusion during the process.
One other thing which should maybe go in a separate thread . . . I tried to update yad before doing this and was getting pango dependencies that would break things. So I left yad as it was. Will probably have to sort that out before long.
fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2101
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Installer feedback

Sun Jan 12, 2014 11:45 pm

Installer log is /var/log/refractainstaller_error.log or something like that. (Tab-complete is your friend.) But if you installed a second time, the first log is gone.
There's no desktop icon for the installer. The discussion we had about that was for Makulu. I might add one if people think it's a good idea. In the past, there was more pressure from people to keep the desktop clean.
You can't use the latest versions of yad with wheezy. I don't know which build of refracta you're using, but I added a note to sources.list warning about this.

Code:
  `# Yad - NOTE!!! If you use this, you'll get a version
  # that won't work right in Stable/Wheezy.
  # Instead, get deb packages from
  # http://debs.slavino.sk/pool/main/y/yad/
  # Version 0.20.3-1 is for Stable/Wheezy
  `

0.21.0-1 also works in wheezy, and it's in some of the earlier isos, but it's not the one listed for wheezy and slavino.sk. Maybe some of it doesn't work, but I haven't noticed, and it's what I'm using on my main box for testing stuff. I've reverted to 0.20.3-1 in refracta-7.2.
When you install with the unplugged drives, it would be a good idea to use uuids or labels in fstab, in case drive order changes.
A Back button would be difficult. I think I'd have to put every screen in a separate function and make one of the buttons send you to the previous function. Right now, most of the code is not in functions. I did recently add some additional ways to exit the script. (Maybe that was just the zenity version.)
If you ran update-grub from the old installation, it would have added an entry for the new installation. If you booted from that menu, you may run into trouble if you remove the old installation. Before doing that, boot into the new installation and run 'grub-install /dev/sda' if you want the new installation to be in charge of booting.
golinux

- golinux
- Posts: 663
- Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2012 1:23 am

## Re: Installer feedback

Mon Jan 13, 2014 12:24 am

> fsmithred wrote:Installer log is /var/log/refractainstaller_error.log or something like that. (Tab-complete is your friend.) But if you installed a second time, the first log is gone.

Only one install so found the log file. I told the installer to put grub on sda1 (root). Perhaps it has something to do with this?

Code:
  `tee: write error
  /usr/sbin/grub-setup: warn: Attempting to install GRUB to a partitionless disk or to a partition. This is a BAD idea..
  /usr/sbin/grub-setup: warn: Embedding is not possible. GRUB can only be installed in this setup by using blocklists. However, blocklists are UNRELIABLE and their use is discouraged..
  Generating grub.cfg ...`

> fsmithred wrote:There's no desktop icon for the installer. The discussion we had about that was for Makulu. I might add one if people think it's a good idea. In the past, there was more pressure from people to keep the desktop clean.

Yes, I vaguely remember that thread. I wouldn't mind the icon if it would go away after installation.

> fsmithred wrote:You can't use the latest versions of yad with wheezy. I don't know which build of refracta you're using, but I added a note to sources.list warning about this.
> Code:
>   `# Yad - NOTE!!! If you use this, you'll get a version
>   # that won't work right in Stable/Wheezy.
>   # Instead, get deb packages from
>   # http://debs.slavino.sk/pool/main/y/yad/
>   # Version 0.20.3-1 is for Stable/Wheezy
>   `
> 0.21.0-1 also works in wheezy, and it's in some of the earlier isos, but it's not the one listed for wheezy and slavino.sk. Maybe some of it doesn't work, but I haven't noticed, and it's what I'm using on my main box for testing stuff. I've reverted to 0.20.3-1 in refracta-7.2.

I started from refracta-beta-2 and updated to wheezy stable. yad 0.17.1.1-1 is installed here so older than yours. I'll try to find a way to update to your version.

> fsmithred wrote:When you install with the unplugged drives, it would be a good idea to use uuids or labels in fstab, in case drive order changes.

I use labels except for swap which is uuid.

> fsmithred wrote:A Back button would be difficult. I think I'd have to put every screen in a separate function and make one of the buttons send you to the previous function. Right now, most of the code is not in functions. I did recently add some additional ways to exit the script. (Maybe that was just the zenity version.)

Just a thought. Easier for the user. More complicated for you. I get it. It's OK the way it is.

> fsmithred wrote:If you ran update-grub from the old installation, it would have added an entry for the new installation. If you booted from that menu, you may run into trouble if you remove the old installation. Before doing that, boot into the new installation and run 'grub-install /dev/sda' if you want the new installation to be in charge of booting.

I told the installer to install grub to sda1 so why isn't/wasn't it there? I assume 'update-grub' needs to be run after 'grub-install /dev/sda'? Or maybe grub is already there? What would happen if I just ran 'update-grub'?
Here's something else . . . an error I got when I tried to open synaptic for the first time. It caused synaptic to crash:

> E: The value 'stable' is invalid for APT::Default-Release as such a release is not available in the sources
> E: _cache->open() failed, please report.

My sources.list was fine. So I just ran 'apt-get update' from terminal and that fixed things. Is there something in your script that caused that error? Maybe you can find a way to avoid it?
dzz

- dzz
- Posts: 647
- Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2011 11:53 am
- Location: Devon, England

## Re: Installer feedback

Mon Jan 13, 2014 1:02 am

That warning from grub-install is normal when installing grub-pc to a partition (rather than mbr). You should only do that if you already use and want to keep another bootloader controlled by another OS in mbr (e.g. grub-legacy, lilo, extlinux). You can then simply chainload the new install's grub from it with less error-prone manual configs.
golinux

- golinux
- Posts: 663
- Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2012 1:23 am

## Re: Installer feedback

Mon Jan 13, 2014 1:21 am

So where did I go wrong in the installation process choices? More confusion . . . Does the mbr need to be on a separate partition or can the mbr be included in the /root partition? Gap in basic understanding . . .
fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2101
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Installer feedback

Mon Jan 13, 2014 1:53 am

The mbr is the master boot record. It's the first 440 bytes of the disk, and it's not in a partition. It's right before the partition table. A bootloader must be there on the first disk. If the new install is going to be the main one, the usual procedure is to install grub to the mbr instead of to a partition - to /dev/sda instead of /dev/sda1.
dzz

- dzz
- Posts: 647
- Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2011 11:53 am
- Location: Devon, England

## Re: Installer feedback

Mon Jan 13, 2014 2:05 am

Grub to partition is an available option in grub-pc but is only for special needs cases like me who like custom bootloader configs. It won't actually do any harm if you don't use it.
If you got another main OS with grub-pc.. when you install your snapshot or other new system you don't have to install grub at all. Just run update-grub in your main system, then the new system is available in the menu, next reboot.
golinux

- golinux
- Posts: 663
- Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2012 1:23 am

## Re: Installer feedback

Mon Jan 13, 2014 2:13 am

@fsmithred . . . There's no space before /dev/sda1. So do I have to repartition/reinstall to clean this up? Or can I shrink it and create the bootloader on /dev/sda? Or will your command automagically fix things.
@dzzz . . . On this testing machine, it doesn't make a lot of difference but when I migrate to the production machine, I want refracta to be in charge of grub not the old squeeze install which may get nuked at some point. What's the best way to do that?
fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2101
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Installer feedback

Mon Jan 13, 2014 2:47 am

There's no space for a partition before the first partition. Or to be more correct, you can't have a partition before the partition table that defines it. The first 512 bytes are reserved for boot sector and partition table. You don't need to change your partitions. Just run the commands. And select MBR when you install the other machine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record
Read the first two paragraphs, and look at the diagram for the modern standard mbr.
golinux

- golinux
- Posts: 663
- Joined: Thu Nov 08, 2012 1:23 am

## Re: Installer feedback

Mon Jan 13, 2014 5:00 am

Roger that! Ran the command, updated, rebooted and all appears to be OK. Wiki article was helpful thanks. Now if I could just get that video project completed . . .
Also found the newer version of yad at that link. Thanks. I didn't have that comment in my sources because I started with a beta from over a year ago.
And just remembered one more thing . . . There was an error at the end of the boot sequence. I just checked the log and here it is:

> Sun Jan 12 22:37:51 2014: [....] ntop: logging directory /var/log/ntop does not exist ...^[[?25l^[[?1c^[7^[[1G[^[[31mFAIL^[[39;49m^[8^[[?25h^[[?0c ^[[31mfailed!^[[39;49m

Do I need to create that directory?
Post a reply
Jump to:

Powered by phpBB © phpBB Group.

phpBB Mobile / SEO by Artodia.