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burntnoodle

- burntnoodle
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2017 3:27 am

## Refractasnapshot and Mint Installer?

Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:59 am

Before going too deep with questions, I'm wondering if anyone has had any luck using Refractasnapshot and the Linux Mint Debian Installer???
Quickly and basically, this is what I've done...
1. Built a minimal Debian LXDE system that's low on resources from a Debian 9 Stretch netinstall...
2. Added the Mint Debian Installer (as a .deb package) from the Mint Repos.
3. Built the .iso with Refractasnapshot (I'm not at that computer right now, but I think I've tried it with both the last previous version of Refractasnapshot (10.0.0) and the more recent version (10.0.2). My only luck was with the previous version...I think. Sorry, I know that's stupid and not much help.)
4. I burned it to a USB (dd command)...everything looks great, and it runs great from the USB...no problems at all.
5. Then, I click to install it (using the Mint Installer).
6. Installation goes great. At the very end, I get an error saying that the bootloader didn't configure correctly, and I will have to configure the bootloader manually...but I don't have to. It boots perfectly!
7. The only problem is that it doesn't copy over the new username and password. It keeps the same username and password as what I built the system with.
It copies the system on the new install perfectly...it's amazing and runs perfectly after installation! It's just that one thing with not copying over the new username and password. I have to change it manually after installation. That's not a problem for me, but it would be if I want to share it with some friends who'd like to try it.
I've looked in every Mint Installer configuration file that I can find, but I can't find how to change that. Can anyone offer any insight at all?
FOSSuser

- FOSSuser
- Posts: 22
- Joined: Mon Dec 05, 2016 7:19 pm

## Re: Refractasnapshot and Mint Installer?

Tue Mar 07, 2017 10:40 am

Looks to me that everything is doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
You are installing a copy of your Debian 9 Stretch installation, which of course you have set up with your passwords.
If you want to give it to someone else, first change your installation into a generic install, i.e. root password = root, username = user, password = user, then make your snapshot.
fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2066
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Refractasnapshot and Mint Installer?

Tue Mar 07, 2017 11:28 am

If you make changes in the live session, such as changing the desktop background or other desktop settings, or by installing software, are those changes carried over by the mint installer? (I'm guessing not, based on FOSSuser's response.) If not, and if you want them to be carried over, you might have better luck with refractainstaller.
If you want to change the user after install, you could try the change-username script that comes with refractainstaller-base. (Note: I haven't tried it in a long time, and it hasn't been tested with all desktop environments, so I don't know if it needs any changes.) You can run this script without installing refractainstaller-base:
https://github.com/fsmithred/refractain ... e-username
.
deanmean

- deanmean
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Fri Oct 21, 2016 9:48 am

## Re: Refractasnapshot and Mint Installer?

Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:01 pm

I dont know how everything is nowadays but the original mint installer for debian edition was based on my instructions on how to manually install a debian live image. And those instructions which was the basis for refractainstaller so not a big surprise it works...although considering how long ago that was maybe it is a big surprise.
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php? ... 1d#p248732
OMFG that was 2009....dammmmm
You need to look at the mint installer code and see where it is trying to set/change user and password. I suspect it is trying to do it in a mint specific way and failing.
Is there some reason you do not want to use refractainstaller?
burntnoodle

- burntnoodle
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2017 3:27 am

## Re: Refractasnapshot and Mint Installer?

Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:28 pm

Thanks all!
@FOSSuser: I did exactly that on the 2nd and 3rd builds. The installer gives the "new user" the ability to set their username and password to whatever they want; however, the new username and password aren't copied over. I'm suspicious that it possibly has something to do with a conflict regarding root since the installer doesn't offer the user the ability to set a root password. That's just me grasping at straws though.
@fsmithred: no, I haven't tried making changes in the live sessions. I fire up the USB and immediately start the installer. Thanks for the script, I'll try it and see how it goes.
@deanmean: Thanks for the information. My reason for trying the Mint installer is simple...I just wanted to see if it would work. LOL!
I'll investigate further but gladly use the Refracta Installer if I can't figure it out. This is all just a fun experiment and experience for me. Thanks again all.
deanmean

- deanmean
- Posts: 17
- Joined: Fri Oct 21, 2016 9:48 am

## Re: Refractasnapshot and Mint Installer?

Tue Mar 07, 2017 1:38 pm

run the mint installer from a terminal and it MAY throw an error when it tries to change the username/password
it may also spit out why it is throwing an error on the bootloader
that would be my first step if I did want to figure it out
have fun experimenting...that is what created refracta
burntnoodle

- burntnoodle
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2017 3:27 am

## Re: Refractasnapshot and Mint Installer?

Tue Mar 07, 2017 6:24 pm

I'll try that. Thank you.
I don't want to sound overly dramatic, but after learning that you had such a hand in this particular installer, and the incredible work of Mr. fsmithred and his refracta tools, it was an honor to correspond with the both of you. Thank you both for taking the time to respond. And thanks to FOSSuser also.
If I'm able to figure this out, I'll post the solution for others if that's okay?
fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2066
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Refractasnapshot and Mint Installer?

Tue Mar 07, 2017 7:05 pm

Yes, please post your findings. I take it as a given that if someone asks a question, there are 10 people with the same question who have not asked. And there have been several mint users asking about the tools lately, so you'd be helping a bunch of people.
burntnoodle

- burntnoodle
- Posts: 10
- Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2017 3:27 am

## Re: Refractasnapshot and Mint Installer?

Wed Mar 08, 2017 2:24 am

> fsmithred wrote:Yes, please post your findings.

Yes sir; I will if I figure it out.
I just built it again. The Refractasnapshot that I used was definitely 10.0.0. I thought it was, but I wanted to make sure. I also built this one without a root account...thinking that might possibly do something since the Mint Installer doesn't offer a root account. I got the same results. I know that several Debian-based distributions use the Mint Installer; such as, Point Linux, Sparky, and SolydXK. Having tried all of those in the past (but never Mint), I remembered that none of them gave an option for a root account during installation. That's why I thought not having a root account might do "something" to help.
I tried deanmean's advice and ran the installer from the terminal. I saw a few errors, but I'm not sure what to do with it or what I'm really looking at. It also hung up on the part where the bootloader gets configured. From the terminal, I saw that it configured the bootloader 6 times. I didn't even think about it before, but the installer never reached the stage (when it was actually entering the system) where it adds the new user and password...it gives up the ghost at the bootloader section. Hence...no new username and password.
I'm going to continue exploring config files again and try to figure this out, Here is the read-out from the terminal during the installation. If anyone is willing to look it over and possibly offer advice, I would greatly appreciate it indeed. I know the following is a lot of information, so I apologize.

Code:
  `live-user@debian:~$ sudo live-installer
  convert-im6.q16: unable to open image `/usr/share/pixmaps/faces/t9penguino_trans.png': No such file or directory @ error/blob.c/OpenBlob/2701.
  convert-im6.q16: unable to open file `/usr/share/pixmaps/faces/t9penguino_trans.png' @ error/png.c/ReadPNGImage/3922.
  convert-im6.q16: no images defined `/tmp/live-installer-face.png' @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/3258.
  No translation found, switching back to English
  Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/live-installer/frontend/gtk_interface.py", line 1480, in assign_language
  self.translation = gettext.translation('live-installer', "/usr/share/linuxmint/locale", languages=['en'])
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/gettext.py", line 545, in translation
  raise IOError(ENOENT, 'No translation file found for domain', domain)
  IOError: [Errno 2] No translation file found for domain: 'live-installer'
  Color: #550000
  Image: /usr/share/live-installer/timezone/timezone_-10.0.png
  Coords: 207.0 166.0
  Closest timezone America/New_York
  Color: #ff2a2a
  Image: /usr/share/live-installer/timezone/timezone_-5.0.png
  Color: #ff2a2a
  Image: /usr/share/live-installer/timezone/timezone_-5.0.png
  ## INSTALLATION
  Template path: /usr/share/live-installer/slideshow/template.html
  Content path does not exist: /usr/share/live-installer/slideshow/office.html
  --> Installation started
  umount: /target/dev/shm: mountpoint not found
  umount: /target/dev/pts: mountpoint not found
  umount: /target/dev/: mountpoint not found
  umount: /target/sys/: mountpoint not found
  umount: /target/proc/: mountpoint not found
  EXECUTING: 'mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda4'
  --> Mounting partitions
  ------ Mounting /lib/live/mount/medium/live/filesystem.squashfs on /source/
  EXECUTING: 'mount -o loop -t squashfs /lib/live/mount/medium/live/filesystem.squashfs /source/'
  ------ Mounting partition /dev/sda4 on /target/
  EXECUTING: 'mount -t ext4 /dev/sda4 /target'
  --> Indexing files
  --> Copying files
  --> Restoring meta-info
  --> Chrooting
  --> Removing live packages
  File "/usr/lib/live-installer/installer.py", line 247, in init_install
  with open("/lib/live/mount/medium/live/filesystem.packages-remove", "r") as fd:
  --> Writing hostname
  --> Setting the locale
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "locale-gen"
  Generating locales (this might take a while)...
  en_US.UTF-8... done
  en_US.UTF-8... done
  Generation complete.
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "update-locale LANG='en_US.UTF-8'"
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "update-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8"
  --> Setting the timezone
  --> Localizing packages
  --> Setting the keyboard
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "rm /etc/default/console-setup"
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "mv /etc/default/console-setup.new /etc/default/console-setup"
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "rm /etc/default/keyboard"
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "mv /etc/default/keyboard.new /etc/default/keyboard"
  --> Configuring Grub
  --> Running grub-install
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "grub-install --force /dev/sda4"
  Unrecognized option `--force'
  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
  --root-directory=DIR install GRUB images under the directory DIR
  instead of the root directory
  --grub-shell=FILE use FILE as the grub shell
  --no-floppy do not probe any floppy drive
  --force-lba force GRUB to use LBA mode even for a buggy
  BIOS
  --recheck probe a device map even if it already exists
  INSTALL_DEVICE can be a GRUB device name or a system device filename.
  grub-install copies GRUB images into the DIR/boot directory specfied by
  --root-directory, and uses the grub shell to install grub into the boot
  sector.
  Report bugs to <bug-grub@gnu.org>.
  --> Running grub-mkconfig
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg"
  Generating grub configuration file ...
  Found background image: /usr/share/images/desktop-base/desktop-grub.png
  Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.9.0-1-686-pae
  Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.9.0-1-686-pae
  Found Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) on /dev/sda1
  Found Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) on /dev/sda3
  done
  --> Checking Grub configuration
  --> Running grub-mkconfig
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg"
  Generating grub configuration file ...
  Found background image: /usr/share/images/desktop-base/desktop-grub.png
  Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.9.0-1-686-pae
  Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.9.0-1-686-pae
  Found Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) on /dev/sda1
  Found Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) on /dev/sda3
  done
  --> Checking Grub configuration
  --> Running grub-mkconfig
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg"
  Generating grub configuration file ...
  Found background image: /usr/share/images/desktop-base/desktop-grub.png
  Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.9.0-1-686-pae
  Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.9.0-1-686-pae
  Found Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) on /dev/sda1
  Found Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) on /dev/sda3
  done
  --> Checking Grub configuration
  --> Running grub-mkconfig
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg"
  Generating grub configuration file ...
  Found background image: /usr/share/images/desktop-base/desktop-grub.png
  Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.9.0-1-686-pae
  Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.9.0-1-686-pae
  Found Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) on /dev/sda1
  Found Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) on /dev/sda3
  done
  --> Checking Grub configuration
  --> Running grub-mkconfig
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg"
  Generating grub configuration file ...
  Found background image: /usr/share/images/desktop-base/desktop-grub.png
  Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.9.0-1-686-pae
  Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.9.0-1-686-pae
  Found Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) on /dev/sda1
  Found Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) on /dev/sda3
  done
  --> Checking Grub configuration
  --> Running grub-mkconfig
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg"
  Generating grub configuration file ...
  Found background image: /usr/share/images/desktop-base/desktop-grub.png
  Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-4.9.0-1-686-pae
  Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-4.9.0-1-686-pae
  Found Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) on /dev/sda1
  Found Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch) on /dev/sda3
  done
  --> Configuring Initramfs
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "/usr/sbin/update-initramfs -t -u -k all"
  I: update-initramfs is disabled (live system is running without media mounted on /lib/live/mount/medium).
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "/usr/bin/sha1sum /boot/initrd.img-4.9.0-1-686-pae > /var/lib/initramfs-tools/4.9.0-1-686-pae"
  --> Cleaning APT
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "sed -i 's/^deb cdrom/#deb cdrom/' /etc/apt/sources.list"
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "apt-get -y --force-yes autoremove"
  Reading package lists... Done
  Building dependency tree
  Reading state information... Done
  The following packages will be REMOVED:
  grub-pc-bin sparky-remsu streamer xawtv-plugins
  0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 4 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
  After this operation, 3,698 kB disk space will be freed.
  (Reading database ... 71554 files and directories currently installed.)
  Removing grub-pc-bin (2.02~beta3-5) ...
  Removing sparky-remsu (0.1.5) ...
  Removing streamer (3.103-4+b2) ...
  Removing xawtv-plugins (3.103-4+b2) ...
  Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.6.1-2) ...
  W: --force-yes is deprecated, use one of the options starting with --allow instead.
  --> Unmounting partitions
  EXECUTING: 'umount /target'
  EXECUTING: 'umount /source'
  --> All done
  ## INSTALLATION COMPLETE
  live-user@debian:~$
  `

fsmithred

- fsmithred
- Posts: 2066
- Joined: Wed Mar 09, 2011 9:13 pm

## Re: Refractasnapshot and Mint Installer?

Wed Mar 08, 2017 3:31 am

Here's where the bootloader did not get installed:

Code:
  `--> Configuring Grub
  --> Running grub-install
  chroot /target/ /bin/sh -c "grub-install --force /dev/sda4"
  Unrecognized option `--force'`

which is weird, because 'man grub-install' in jessie shows --force as an option. No idea why it tries to make the menu so many times. Maybe a file is missing from /boot?
And then...

Code:
  `Removing grub-pc-bin (2.02~beta3-5)`

Lack of a bootloader would not result in grub-pc or grub-pc-bin getting removed. Something weird is going on.
And there's also this error message from apt-get:

Code:
  `W: --force-yes is deprecated, use one of the options starting with --allow instead.`

It looks like the command may have changed since the installer was written. I hate when that happens. Seems to have worked.
Is the mint installer a shell script? If so, you could try removing the '--force' from the grub-install command. Maybe the '/bin/sh -c' needs to go, too. We removed that from refractainstaller, but I don't remember the reason.
Uh, is this a uefi system?
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