Refracta Development, Scripts, etc.
Post a reply
greenjeans

- greenjeans
- Posts: 68
- Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:57 pm
- Location: inna woods
- Website

## Re: refractasnapshot 10.0.0 (almost)

Sun Oct 09, 2016 9:04 pm

> fsmithred wrote:
> At this point, the code is such a scrambled mess from added features,

I disagree, I think it's very simple, yet powerful and very extensible. It's much like linux in general, it will do absolutely anything you want it to, you just have to ask it to correctly.
It's tough to keep the code itself agnostic to various distributions I imagine, and also to allow as much user leeway as possible, I appreciate very much the efforts you make to do so. But i'm thinking that soon I will post up on my website the custom configs and excludes I use, why I do them that way, and any mate-specific things i've done.
That may be a way forward to not having to accommodate so much (in the future) in the default scripts and config/exclude files. As the user base grows for Refracta tools, perhaps others will do the same for their choice of distro/desktop environment, and maybe some small add-on packages can be made that will optimize the settings for such things. The .conf files already have sections you have made that offer the user the option to point to different excludes files.
dzz

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

## Re: refractasnapshot 10.0.0 (almost)

Tue Oct 11, 2016 10:52 am

"Unknown Linux Distribution" in a grub menu appears to be caused by script /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/90linux-distro (package os-prober) which does not look for etc/devuan_version. Maybe also etc/default/grub should be edited.
The fix is to add (the appropriate place should be obvious) something like

Code:
  `elif [ -e "$dir[slash]etc/devuan_version" ]; then
  short="Devuan"
  long="$(printf "Devuan GNU/Linux (%s)\n" "$(cat "$dir[slash]etc/devuan_version")")"`

Ideally, recompile os-prober from source, or do it with a dpkg-divert. Depending how you installed or converted the relevant devuan system, etc/debian_version may also exist. Delete it.
You could edit there to reference any other distribution from a "version" file.
BTW thanks for the new versions.. sorry I been off the case lately, real life scenarios sometimes take priority.
greenjeans

- greenjeans
- Posts: 68
- Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:57 pm
- Location: inna woods
- Website

## Re: refractasnapshot 10.0.0 (almost)

Tue Oct 11, 2016 8:49 pm

First run with new snapshot beta05 appeared to work but the resulting livecd would not boot. I ran the commands posted in this thread prior to the run. The livecd ran through it's usual boot sequences but booted me into a completely black screen, with no cursor and no input possible from keyboard or any key sequence, had to do a hard shutdown with power key.
Ran a second try and doublechecked all settings, but same result.
Rather than uninstall the new beta05 and re-install beta03, I tried first replacing two files with the versions from beta03 :
/usr/lib/refractasnapshot/iso/isolinux/live.cfg
/usr/lib/refractasnapshot/grub.cfg.template
And that worked, ran a quick snapshot run and it booted right up.
I don't know what precisely caused the issue, but seems something in one of those two files, there seems to be a fair amount of difference between the older and newer files.
Is there anything new in the snapshot beta05 other than this stuff that would conflict with me using the older beta 03 version of those two files with the new beta05? Just asking because I need to do a couple of runs later tonight, I can re-install the whole beta03 if I need to, but if not necessary i'll just run it like this.
If you need me to do some specific testing of small changes or do some sort of debug run just let me know what and how.
greenjeans

- greenjeans
- Posts: 68
- Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:57 pm
- Location: inna woods
- Website

## Re: refractasnapshot 10.0.0 (almost)

Tue Oct 11, 2016 9:02 pm

Sweet, thanks for that! I'll give that a go on my next run.
etc/debian_version doesn't exist on my installs, but does have a etc/devuan_version instead, so that seems okay.
Re: editing etc/default/grub, I see the line that refers to debian:

Code:
  `GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian``

Should that simply be changed to Devuan?

> dzz wrote:"Unknown Linux Distribution" in a grub menu appears to be caused by script /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/90linux-distro (package os-prober) which does not look for etc/devuan_version. Maybe also etc/default/grub should be edited.
> The fix is to add (the appropriate place should be obvious) something like
> Code:
>   `elif [ -e "$dir[slash]etc/devuan_version" ]; then
>   short="Devuan"
>   long="$(printf "Devuan GNU/Linux (%s)\n" "$(cat "$dir[slash]etc/devuan_version")")"`
> Ideally, recompile os-prober from source, or do it with a dpkg-divert. Depending how you installed or converted the relevant devuan system, etc/debian_version may also exist. Delete it.
> You could edit there to reference any other distribution from a "version" file.
> BTW thanks for the new versions.. sorry I been off the case lately, real life scenarios sometimes take priority.

fsmithred

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

## Re: refractasnapshot 10.0.0 (almost)

Tue Oct 11, 2016 10:05 pm

@greenjeans: Those two files are the boot menus. If you boot with isolinux (from bios) the TAB button will let you see and edit the boot command. If you boot with grub (from uefi) the e key will let you see and edit the boot command. This is part of the screw-up I mentioned before, but I forgot about the netconfig_opt and username_opt. Thanks for reporting. The entries should look like this:

Code:
  `label live
  menu label ${DISTRO} (default)
  kernel /live/vmlinuz
  append initrd=/live/initrd.img boot=live ${netconfig_opt} ${username_opt}`

@dzz:
Welcome home! Glad to have you back. We're almost famous now that we're listed on Distrowatch.
greenjeans

- greenjeans
- Posts: 68
- Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:57 pm
- Location: inna woods
- Website

## Re: refractasnapshot 10.0.0 (almost)

Wed Oct 12, 2016 9:11 pm

That worked perfectly!! Only needed the lines in the 90linux-distro script to make it happen, I didn't edit etc/default/grub (it may still be a good idea to do so, but I don't know enough about it to know for sure).
Ran update-grub after editing the script and now have perfect grub entries, did an install after running a snapshot with the newly edited files too and it worked perfectly too.
Should I report that somewhere upstream?

> dzz wrote:"Unknown Linux Distribution" in a grub menu appears to be caused by script /usr/lib/os-probes/mounted/90linux-distro (package os-prober) which does not look for etc/devuan_version. Maybe also etc/default/grub should be edited.
> The fix is to add (the appropriate place should be obvious) something like
> Code:
>   `elif [ -e "$dir[slash]etc/devuan_version" ]; then
>   short="Devuan"
>   long="$(printf "Devuan GNU/Linux (%s)\n" "$(cat "$dir[slash]etc/devuan_version")")"`
> Ideally, recompile os-prober from source, or do it with a dpkg-divert. Depending how you installed or converted the relevant devuan system, etc/debian_version may also exist. Delete it.
> You could edit there to reference any other distribution from a "version" file.
> BTW thanks for the new versions.. sorry I been off the case lately, real life scenarios sometimes take priority.

greenjeans

- greenjeans
- Posts: 68
- Joined: Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:57 pm
- Location: inna woods
- Website

## Re: refractasnapshot 10.0.0 (almost)

Wed Oct 12, 2016 10:10 pm

Cool, so i'm guessing the username_opt is what prevented it from booting? Looked to me like it was doing the same thing it did when I had the wrong username in slim.conf and had it set to autologin, trying to log me into an account that didn't exist.
One other issue while i'm here:
The previous snapshot/install runs have all been with a stock devuan system with no modification whatsoever to user settings with regard to panel settings, wallpaper, menus, etc.
In the new one i'm doing i'm altering a lot of the default settings, one panel at the bottom, new wallpaper and more. So my first good snapshot run retained all those settings and configs to the livecd, i'm basically not excluding much of anything in the excludes files. But when I installed it, and booted up, it had reverted to the default devuan settings for the panel and wallpaper and such.
The culprit seems to be ~/.config/dconf/user , as it must be generating a new one upon install/change of username and using the defaults, and in truth it needs to I think, or some links might be wrong, not sure as it's a binary file I can't look at. Really don't like dconf, it reeks of windows registry stuff.
So, anybody familiar with this and know a trick? Or do I have to go into /usr/share/glib-2.0 and add override files for every setting I want to stick?
I know another script I used that gen'ed new users off of etc/skel made the altered settings stick, even through the username change. Not sure how, seems like you would still need to generate a new ~/.config/dconf/user to have any links in there point to the correct new username home file.
*EDIT* Now that I think about it, that was in gnome 2, it used gconf and there was no dconf at that time, if I recall correctly all the panel settings and wallpaper etc. was just stored in ~/.config somewhere, so it retained settings through your etc/skel .config files and you just had to be sure and make your etc/skel agnostic to any changes in username.
Is dconf/gsettings stuff mate and gnome specific only or do you have some of this hoo-ha in Xfce?

> fsmithred wrote:@greenjeans: Those two files are the boot menus. If you boot with isolinux (from bios) the TAB button will let you see and edit the boot command. If you boot with grub (from uefi) the e key will let you see and edit the boot command. This is part of the screw-up I mentioned before, but I forgot about the netconfig_opt and username_opt. Thanks for reporting. The entries should look like this:
> Code:
>   `label live
>   menu label ${DISTRO} (default)
>   kernel /live/vmlinuz
>   append initrd=/live/initrd.img boot=live ${netconfig_opt} ${username_opt}`
> @dzz:
> Welcome home! Glad to have you back. We're almost famous now that we're listed on Distrowatch.

fsmithred

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

## Re: refractasnapshot 10.0.0 (almost)

Thu Oct 13, 2016 1:09 pm

Yes, the missing $username_opt was likely the problem.
I have a ~/.config/dconf/user, but I haven't had a problem when changing the username on install and never messed with that file. Never tried it with mate. I'm not sure what to do about this. Check the debug log to see that all the username changes worked right. Maybe try an install without changing the username, and then boot into the installation, and as root (in a console, not a terminal) run change-username. (Warning: I haven't updated that script in a couple years, so it might not do everything it needs to do.) That script was the precursor to including all the username change stuff in the main installer scripts. Also, try grepping for the old username in the config files, something like this:

Code:
  `grep -r "/home/user" .config/
  grep -r "/home/user" .local/`

and check any other folders that seem like they might contain references to your home.
BTW - refractasnapshot 10.0.0 is up.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/refracta/files/tools/
miroR

- miroR
- Posts: 6
- Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 7:23 pm

## Re: refractasnapshot 10.0.0 (almost)

Mon Oct 17, 2016 8:19 pm

I couldn't fine md5 of the Refracta (almost) 10.
Is this (fresh just now) download of mine correct?
8312a1fedae5d8dc723b8cff892f1d29 refracta8_xfce_amd64-20161013_1314.iso
Regards!
fsmithred

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

## Re: refractasnapshot 10.0.0 (almost)

Mon Oct 17, 2016 9:08 pm

Yes that's the right md5sum for the latest amd64 iso, which is refracta-8. There's a .md5 file and a .asc file in the same folder with the iso.
The 10.0.0 number is the version of refractasnapshot. I guess I can remove the "almost" from the title. It's here.
Post a reply
Jump to:

Powered by phpBB © phpBB Group.

phpBB Mobile / SEO by Artodia.