Refracta Development, Scripts, etc.
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nadir

- nadir
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## Re: Refracta wiki project

Wed Feb 13, 2013 8:32 am

meandean: i only spoke about live-helper as a tool to create a snapshot with bootstrap copy, not about the other things it does.
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> Sounds a bit too sensational. Deans fiddling around with live images and custom builds led to the start of refracta, snapshot, and installer, but it was always more of a whim and changed as my whims did (which is many as nadir can testify) until fsr came along. With fsr came a game plan, good code, listening to others, others getting involved, etc... In other words it was my play toy until fsr made it a respectable project that had some focus, direction, openness, and so forth.

Sorry, but no.
long version:
I fully agree that it became more organized with fsmithred.
But meandean/dean/refracta/inkedsould/souledalink/gnudue/whatnot is way too modest here.
Above i said: words don't suffice. To that i still stand. Anyone can go through how-to-section, forums debian net and see himself. If (!) meandean wouldn't have removed forums and mailing lists and such all the time, we would have a better understanding of that history ....
To me the actual layout never mattered much (be it gnome, be it icewm, be it e17, be it whatever).
It was low on resources with some good tools. Close enough to Debian to not make things worse (like many Debian based distros are, where you first have to remove all the amazing ideas to make it usable again).
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As far it is me i would leave any comparison between meandean as "the man" and fsmithred as "the man" out. It doesn't make much sense. meandean did it for a while. fsmithred does it for a while now.
The way the OP is right now looks like a good way to me.
Last edited by nadir on Wed Feb 13, 2013 8:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
nadir

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## Re: Refracta wiki project

Wed Feb 13, 2013 8:36 am

I miss the chaos.
Well: not always, but now and then.
Ain't there a good quote from Mr. Nietzsche, the German professor?
"only if you got chaos inside, you can make the stars dance"
Like that?
golinux

- golinux
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## Re: Refracta wiki project

Wed Feb 13, 2013 3:10 pm

> fsmithred wrote:Refracta uses debian repositories for all except for a few things. (yad, deadbeef and a few bash scripts.)
> You can update the installer and snapshot easily from gitub. From within a running instance of refracta -
> Open a terminal and issue the following commands:
> Code:
>   `cd ../github/refracta
>   git pull origin master
>   dpkg -i whatever.deb (Don't do *.deb or you'll be trying to install multiple versions of the same package.)`

Last night I installed snapshot/installer 9.0.5-2 on my main 'working' squeeze - I hope that's the right one. It installed to/usr/bin, appeared in the gnome main menu and launches to the gui. But will it work? I'm going to try it later today once I decide what I need to exclude to get it down to a workable size. As to updating . . . of course the path above wouldn't work for an update if it's not on refracta. I was checking this out because I want to add a section to the wiki blurb about how to update Refracta. I think I'll just say to check the release notes for instructions on updating snapshot/installer and apps not in the debian repo. Should there be a mention of installing snapshot/installer on OS other than refracta? Thoughts?
fsmithred

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## Re: Refracta wiki project

Wed Feb 13, 2013 3:27 pm

The version you installed should be fine. I'm pretty sure that even the latest version still works on squeeze. Anything after 9.0.2 should work on wheezy, but if you're on wheezy or sid, just get the newest one.
The tools have been minimally tested on other debian-based distros, and they generally work. Sometimes minor tweaks are needed. I've put a lot of effort into the last few versions to make the tools more usable on other distros, so I don't have a problem with your mentioning it. Of course, there's no guarantee that they'll work, because things change so fast. It has worked on LMDE, Solus, Saline, Ubuntu-12.04 (but not 12.10) and I forget what else. Antix has a customized version of refractasnapshot. Users should read the config files to customize the scripts for their needs.
meandean

- meandean
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## Re: Refracta wiki project

Wed Feb 13, 2013 6:29 pm

[quote="nadir"]meandean: i only spoke about live-helper as a tool to create a snapshot with bootstrap copy, not about the other things it does.
and I agree live-helper is (or was) a pain in the *** if using it with anything but pure debian stable. Of course some of that has gotten easier nowadays as well. But I have no doubt that someone that knows live-helper inside and out could make it seem like the easiest tool on earth no matter what they were trying to do.

> I fully agree that it became more organized with fsmithred.

and just a little boring although thats probably a good thing...just not always my cup of tea

> Above i said: words don't suffice. To that i still stand.

my biggest fanboi

> If (!) meandean wouldn't have removed forums and mailing lists and such all the time, we would have a better understanding of that history ....

Now that would of been boring. Yea, but now we can make up anything we want and swear it is true.

> To me the actual layout never mattered much (be it gnome, be it icewm, be it e17, be it whatever).

But now you use that lame *** xfce

> It was low on resources with some good tools.

Well low on resources anyway. The only tool I need is the terminal...although a browser, editor, and music player is good to have by default also.

> Close enough to Debian to not make things worse (like many Debian based distros are, where you first have to remove all the amazing ideas to make it usable again).

Amen! I think that is the best goal a debian based distro can have.
golinux

- golinux
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## Re: Refracta wiki project

Wed Feb 13, 2013 8:21 pm

> meandean wrote:

> > nadir wrote:Close enough to Debian to not make things worse (like many Debian based distros are, where you first have to remove all the amazing ideas to make it usable again).

> Amen! I think that is the best goal a debian based distro can have.

That's exactly why I was interested in Refracta. Even at that there are some things that need to be uninstalled but not much. Saves me the trouble of building things up from a base install.
nadir

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## Re: Refracta wiki project

Wed Feb 13, 2013 10:05 pm

"fanboy"
Yes, sure. Nothing wrong with that. For me.
"But now you use that lame *** xfce "
Another yes. I am not that keen on fiddling with the thing which offers me windows very much.
I can configure xfce4 in less than 5 minutes and at the same time it is very lightweight.
I have to use something more lightweight on my raspberry pi, and there i use fluxbox (e17 was too heavy, and all the other window-managers take too long to configure, for my taste).
"make up anything we want"
Oh? You say it all was planned from the very beginning ?
My new ISP offers me something like online space. I didn't check yet, but if it is usable i will put the refracta archive there (as far i know never no one downloaded anything, they are fully out of date now, but anyway). My own up and down times are better too, so perhaps it is pointless (only as another backup of the archive).
golinux

- golinux
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## Re: Refracta wiki project

Wed Feb 13, 2013 10:52 pm

Sections on 'Updating Refracta' and 'Refractasnapshot' have been added to the OP. Note that the etc/ location had to be altered to get around the forum bug. Is there anything else that needs to be included other than the refractainstaller blurb?
fsmithred

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## Re: Refracta wiki project

Thu Feb 14, 2013 1:33 am

> size must *be* compatible with media limitations

Here's a list of some of the tools. From the release notes, but reformatted to take up less space (and alphabetized.) It probably doesn't belong on the page you're writing, but there might be a place for it.

Code:
  `cryptsetup curl htop ddrescue dosfstools ethtool fdupes fuse-utils
  grub-doctor hardinfo hddtemp hdparm hwinfo iftop irssi lm-sensors
  lshw lvm2 ntfs-3g ntfsprogs openssh-server p7zip-full partimage
  pppconfig pppoeconf ps_mem.py read-edid rsync sdparm smartmontools
  squashfs-tools sshfs sysv-rc-conf testdisk unzip w3m whois zenmap zsync`

golinux

- golinux
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## Re: Refracta wiki project

Thu Feb 14, 2013 1:45 am

> fsmithred wrote:

> > size must *be* compatible with media limitations

I move stuff around a lot when I write. Easy to leave stuff out or the wrong stuff in.

> fsmithred wrote:Here's a list of some of the tools. From the release notes, but reformatted to take up less space (and alphabetized.) It probably doesn't belong on the page you're writing, but there might be a place for it.
> Code:
>   `cryptsetup curl htop ddrescue dosfstools ethtool fdupes fuse-utils
>   grub-doctor hardinfo hddtemp hdparm hwinfo iftop irssi lm-sensors
>   lshw lvm2 ntfs-3g ntfsprogs openssh-server p7zip-full partimage
>   pppconfig pppoeconf ps_mem.py read-edid rsync sdparm smartmontools
>   squashfs-tools sshfs sysv-rc-conf testdisk unzip w3m whois zenmap zsync`

I think that should go up as an html page under documentation on the http://www.ibiblio.org/refracta/ site so we can link to it from wikipedia. A package list should also be included there on its own html page. IIRC there are other suggestions for pages that need to be created in the wiki blurb. Links are good especially for search engines' positioning etc.
Can I please get some notes on the installer including history so I can get that section together? Can you think of anything else that needs to be included in the blurb?
Any of you feeling inspired to take on getting this into Wikipedia? Once the text is 'finalized' it should just be a matter of copy/pasting in compliance with their formatting whatever that is. I would be happy to do it but I don't want to set up an account there.
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