Stuff that has not yet gone into the official build.
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dzz

- dzz
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## Wheezy live build

Wed Mar 14, 2012 12:21 pm

I made a current-wheezy live-iso based on refracta (package list, custom theme, refracta scripts... ) to see what has changed and what could still be done in under 700MB. It is posted here:
http://exe-linux.fastfishwebsolutions.c ... ta/wheezy/
It is a "clean build" using debbootstrap with everything else done manually in chroot, snapshot was not used (yet) on this one. It is 686MB
The original Refracta package list was adapted with some gnome stuff removed, a suitable kernel included and lib* removed in the hope that most of the needed ones would be installed as deps anyway. Then installed to the chroot like this:

Code:
  `for i in $(cat package_list); do apt-get install --no-install-recommends $i; done`

Then copied in the custom stuff to /usr/local/bin, /home/user, /usr/share before processing the chroot for a live-iso.
There were surprisingly few real difficulties. One was /home, some config file formats for xfce have changed. I got a new, working .config from the first boot then rebuilt the iso using that. Iceweasel configs didn't transfer well. I wanted to use lightdm, might be just me being in a rush but that didn't work properly, ended up with gdm3 instead (I don't like it)
Some other stuff is probably missing or doesn't work. I couldn't find a deb for deadbeef. I don't know how to do the refracta grub-splash. Locales might not be sorted properly. It is completely untested beyond that it boots and runs.
This is an experimental personal build only, not for "normal use". If anyone else wants to take a look and it helps towards a future refracta/wheezy version, particularly it's package list (is in the cd root), good. Or if anyone wants to check what is missing/broken and fix it with snapshot. I'm out of time to do much more with it just now.
fsmithred

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## Re: Wheezy live build

Thu Mar 15, 2012 5:13 pm

Nice work. I had a quick look at it, and it looks just like refracta. I'll do some more with it in a few days. I want to finish adding packages to my build and see how big the snapshot comes out.
dzz

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## Re: Wheezy live build

Fri Mar 16, 2012 2:01 pm

Installer works, snapshot works, snapshot iso boots and runs.
Running snapshot, there was a problem with lack of space incorrectly reported in /tmp, Use of a different snapshot-temp dir (on the same partition) was error-free. Not debugged that yet.
I did a new build but not posted it yet. Locales got annoying so added refracta-configs script (works) and put only the splash in /boot/grub, That works too, splash displays after install, seems nothing else needs to go in there.
Re installer: An option to put grub in pbr would be useful so mbr doesn't get taken over by experimental stuff, then chainloading is possible. It seems to work like that these days (in squeeze also) as long as --force option is used with grub-install. I been doing that manually before. Maybe I could make a patch. Would be also useful to "use an existing swap partition"
fsmithred

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## Re: Wheezy live build

Sun Mar 18, 2012 2:28 am

If you're running live, /tmp is on a tmpfs, which will be too small to create a snapshot. But that should also give you a warning about /tmp being on a different partition. That comes up on the screen with the summary of what's about to happen.
Option for grub in the partition should be easy to add. Other changes in next version of refractasnapshot will be:
/etc/blkid.tab in the exclusions
ability to edit the boot menu (or anything else) before the filesystem gets squashed. That way, if someone wants to use the script on another distro, they can have that distro name show up in the boot menu instead of Refracta.
Adding 'swapon' to the boot line will allow the system to use an existing swap partition. We can talk about ways to do that. I thought about creating variables that would get plugged into the boot menu, but that could get complicated. In my current working copy, there's an entry in the config file to open live.cfg in nano, so you can make changes manually.
dzz

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## Re: Wheezy live build

Sun Mar 18, 2012 1:22 pm

> /tmp is on a tmpfs, which will be too small to create a snapshot. But that should also give you a warning about /tmp being on a different partition. That comes up on the screen with the summary of what's about to happen

From memory, just how it went (but this is a HD install) The finished iso was only 15MB
Some links I found:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tmpfs
http://us.generation-nt.com/answer/prob ... 85641.html
http://us.generation-nt.com/answer/prob ... 98262.html
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/201 ... 00363.html
http://osdir.com/ml/debian-user-debian/ ... 00271.html
http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation ... /tmpfs.txt
Looks like tmpfs is now wheezy default. This would (in many cases at least) break snapshot with it's current default config. Maybe snapshot's "work_dir" is better as default in /home/snapshot? (user can change manually in refractasnapshot.conf for now)
Snip from /etc/default/rcS :

Code:
  `# mount /run/lock as a tmpfs (separately from /run)
  RAMLOCK=yes
  # mount /run/shm as a tmpfs (separately from /run)
  RAMSHM=yes
  # mount /tmp as a tmpfs
  RAMTMP=yes`

Remember refracta-installer-and-snapshot-used-on-other-distros-t111.html ?
fsmithred

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## Re: Wheezy live build

Mon Mar 19, 2012 1:51 pm

> dzz wrote:Remember refracta-installer-and-snapshot-used-on-other-distros-t111.html ?

Nope. I'd forgotten about that, just like I forgot that I moved $work_dir to /home/work when I made the wheezy snapshot. And now I remember that the warning about /tmp being on a separate partition shows up even when $work_dir is somewhere other than in /tmp. One more thing to fix in the next version. Default location will be /home/work or /home/snapshot/work.
Whether we should do anything about the tmpfs or not, I don't know. I'll leave it alone unless someone comes up with a good reason to change it.
dzz

- dzz
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## Re: Wheezy live build

Mon Jul 02, 2012 10:05 pm

In wheezy mksquashfs can be used with xz compression. Decompressor is in the kernel.

Code:
  `mksquashfs source dest -comp xz`

I tried that today on a wheezy chroot and made a bootable iso that (previously difficult) fits a cd. It is slow to compress but decompression seems similar to usual. Here are the size differences noted.
Chroot size: 1.9GB
Default squashed: 787.5MB
-comp xz squashed: 683.1MB
BTW at this moment live-boot-initramfs-tools is broken in wheezy, sid version works.
This might work on squeeze also using a newer kernel, squashfs-tools and xz-utils from backports
fsmithred

- fsmithred
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## Re: Wheezy live build

Tue Jul 03, 2012 11:51 am

Good stuff! Thanks. I'll play with the compression stuff and probably work it into the next version of snapshot.
BTW, I've got lightdm working fine on my wheezy install. Autologin works (with a hack) but I've got it shut off. One thing I don't like about lightdm is that it requires desktop-base, but since I figured out how to add things to etc alternatives, it's not so bad (i.e. no forced spacefun.)
dzz

- dzz
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## Re: Wheezy live build

Tue Jul 03, 2012 1:42 pm

Error with my figures there, the chroot (now changed beyond recognition anyway!) was much larger than 1.9GB. It's a first experiment, the compression differences still apply..
Re lightdm: desktop-base gets in as a "recommends" of it's dep, lightdm-gtk-greeter

Code:
  `apt-cache show lightdm
  apt-cache show lightdm-gtk-greeter`

Keeping wheezy live-image size down is difficult with the new gtk3 stuff, often worming it's way in as "recommends" of something else
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