Are Alternates to Builtin Remaster equivalent?

[mikeslr]

Hi All,

I recently did a remaster of Tahrpup 6.0.5. Among the objectives was to use 'remove builtins' to strip out some rarely used applications and those applications for which I thought there were better alternatives, and replace of the remaining applications with updated versions when possible. A SaveFile was used to preserve the changes prior to remastering. It grew to about 900 Mbs.

Tahrpup 6.0.5's original puppy_tahr_6.0.5.sfs was 174 Mbs. After remastering using nic007's remaster-suite, the resulting tahr_6.0.5.sfs was 406 Mbs. As a substantial part of the remaster was removal and replacement, I was surprised by that size and so tried the other two components of the suite and received similar results. I then did a remaster using shinobar's remasterx and, again, the resulting tahr_6.0.5.sfs exceeded 400 Mbs.

So, lastly I did a remaster using the builtin Remaster Puppy Live CD. The resulting tahr_6.0.5.sfs was 322 Mb.

By the way, in all cases I only used gz compression. While tighter compression could have been used to obtain a more compact result, the target computer for the remaster was a "resource challenged" one.

[FYI, for one's personal use I recommend nic007's Remaster Suite as the easiest to use and because it clearly works the fastest, especially if the objective is only to replace the Puppy_xxx.sfs. What's a 100 or so Mbs on today's 500 Gb to Multi-terabyte hard drives, or even an 8 Gb USB-Stick? But for publication over what may be slow internet connections, 100 Mbs is a significant difference].

It had been my understanding that during a remaster the application followed the inodes of the SaveFile/Folder. If that is correct than the inodes to updated applications would point to the updated files and the original files would be ignored and not copied. Similarly, the inodes of a "removed" application would end with a "white-out" such that the removed application would not be included. But I wonder if the alternatives to Remaster Puppy Live-CD are doing that?

Or is my understanding completely wrong? And, in any event, what can explain the approximately 25% difference in the resulting size of the remastered Puppy_xxx.sfs?

[nic007]

Hi, Mikeslr. The builtin script for Tahr uses xz compression as default that is why your result is smaller. The full options version of my suite gives you even more compression options. If you use the maximum setting for xz compression, the output size should be even smaller than the default builtin script (although the compression process will obviously take longer).

[oui]

RSH also has a good package to remaster. the compression in not really the hit, but the wide particularities taken in consideration to manage your remaster files!

[musher0]

Hello mikeslr.

jrb has a very good system, called "0_pupbuild_tools_2". You put your
unsquashed Puppy in directory a1, you put the files your wish to remove from it
in directory a2. Then you use one of jrb's scripts to "substract" (my understanding)
the common files from directory a1. (Similar to operation "A exclusion B" in
Boolean logic.)

You find the list of apps to remove, with their components and dependencies, in
the Puppy's .packages directory. You copy them to directory a2 and then run jrb's
script. It does a very clean job.

Used in combination with nic007's remaster utility called "QuickBaseRemaster-
Rev3_Options", IMO this is the best and least confusing way to remaster. I find
the ex-factory "remove-builtin" tool too clumsy and slow.

IHTH.

[mikeslr]

Thanks nic007 for the information about the compression used in tahrpup. I assumed it was gz. Well, you know what they say about ass u me. And, if I haven't thank you for it, already, thanks for the remaster-suite.

Thanks oui for bringing RHS's remaster version to my attention. I'll look into it. But for now one of nic007's modules does just what I want: only 'remaster' the Puppy_version.sfs. I change kernels, and can use dir2iso to handle the rest.

And particularly, thanks musher0 for bringing jrb's tool to my attention. For other interested in it, just download it by entering http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 4d42ea331d

[ITSMERSH]

RSH also has a good package to remaster.

I made this from the remaster script of Lucid Puppy when creating LazY Puppy. Needed a quick way to do remasters for DE & EN without to modify stuff manually in /etc and /root.

Still using it (updated) when remastering my Tahr based Art Studio (last remaster was just one hour ago) - added hdsentinel plus updated some audio conversion programs.

It has option to choose to make .iso or not.

There's also four different options to customize during remaster etc.pp.

Plus some more...

Just to post a link, since oui has mentioned it...

LazY Puppy LazY Remaster Suite

[nic007]

Thanks nic007 for the information about the compression used in tahrpup. I assumed it was gz. Well, you know what they say about ass u me. And, if I haven't thank you for it, already, thanks for the remaster-suite.

Thanks oui for bringing RHS's remaster version to my attention. I'll look into it. But for now one of nic007's modules does just what I want: only 'remaster' the Puppy_version.sfs. I change kernels, and can use dir2iso to handle the rest.

And particularly, thanks musher0 for bringing jrb's tool to my attention. For other interested in it, just download it by entering http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 4d42ea331d

Just for further clarification on the compression - In the final release of my remaster suite I decided to make gz the compression setting
for the remaster tools (except for the the full options tool where you can select from various compression settings yourself) because:
1. older pre-series 3 kernel puppys like Wary does not support xz compression.
2. gz compression is much faster.
So broader usage of the tools (for more puppy versions) and speed played a role in my decision.

BTW - You have my permission to change the compression method in the auto script. Right-click the script in /usr/sbin and view as text. Go to the line: COMP="-comp gzip" and change gzip to xz

[mikeslr]

Just for further clarification on the compression - In the final release of my remaster suite I decided to make gz the compression setting
for the remaster tools (except for the the full options tool where you can select from various compression settings yourself) because:
1. older pre-series 3 kernel puppys like Wary does not support xz compression.
2. gz compression is much faster.
So broader usage of the tools (for more puppy versions) and speed played a role in my decision.

BTW - You have my permission to change the compression method in the auto script. Right-click the script in /usr/sbin and view as text. Go to the line: COMP="-comp gzip" and change gzip to xz

Your reasoning was 'spot-on'. And thanks for pointing out the easy modification when used with newer Puppies. I wouldn't have thought of that.

[nic007]

You can also use COMP=" " OR delete the complete line and the following line in the script.
In this case the default compressor for the mksquashfs version of your distribution will be used. For Tahr605 this will be gzip though.