SFS-Combiner - merge some squashfs addons

Stuff that has yet to be sorted into a category.
Message
Author
User avatar
MU
Posts: 13649
Joined: Wed 24 Aug 2005, 16:52
Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
Contact:

#41 Post by MU »

I installed now this in a fresh Puppy 400beta2:
http://dotpups.de/puppy3/dotpups/Progra ... ic-003.pup
http://dotpups.de/puppy3/dotpups/System ... mbiner.pup

As I had no internet to install the dotpup-handler, I copied the extracted files from Muppy.

SFS-Combiner starts without problem.
Please type in a consolwindow:
echo $LANG
and post the result here.

I just can think of, that you have a language setting, where something goes wrong.

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

User avatar
MU
Posts: 13649
Joined: Wed 24 Aug 2005, 16:52
Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
Contact:

#42 Post by MU »

Here is a dotpet for Dingo with both, SFS-Combiner and Gtkbasic:
http://puppyfiles.ca/dotpupsde/puppy4/d ... sic003.pet
mirror:
http://dotpups.de/puppy4/dotpups/System ... sic003.pet

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

charnisingh
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat 06 Oct 2007, 11:58

SFS-Combiner

#43 Post by charnisingh »

Mark, i downloaded SFS-Combiner for dingo 4 beta 2 and installed and it works to the extent that when clicked on the shortcut it starts but after result
is no good

1. it does not show any pre-mounted drives when clicked on the down pointig arrow for selecting drive for temporary use.

2. after adding sfs files for making a new sfs and clicking on the make bar it simply shuts down without any message or so.

echo $LANG result shows ...en us, so there is no problem of language setting.

thanks and regards.

User avatar
MU
Posts: 13649
Joined: Wed 24 Aug 2005, 16:52
Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
Contact:

#44 Post by MU »

1.) you must have a drive with a LINUX filesystem.
Windows drives do not work.
Do you have one?
I just tried it, and it works fine with my external USB-Harddisk.

If you do not want to create a Linux-partition, try to format a USB-Stick with a Linux filesystem.
Use gparted or the comandline to do that.

This will do it for sda1 (WARNING: all files on that drives are DELETED!)
mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda1

2.) without a valid drive the program exits.

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

charnisingh
Posts: 138
Joined: Sat 06 Oct 2007, 11:58

SFS-Combiner

#45 Post by charnisingh »

Mark,

it is a beauty , luckily i had a spare linux drive of 3GB , when mountd that it showed in the bar and after that everything works very smoothly and i have a new sfs file combining:

1. openoffice 2,20

2. pgs

3. mozilla firefox 3beta +flash +java (all latest)

all total of 210 mb. SFS

thanks for your labour.

User avatar
MU
Posts: 13649
Joined: Wed 24 Aug 2005, 16:52
Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
Contact:

#46 Post by MU »

great, my congratulations :)

Many thanks for not giving up quickly.
Now with your help, we have found an easy to use solution 8)

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

User avatar
sunburnt
Posts: 5090
Joined: Wed 08 Jun 2005, 23:11
Location: Arizona, U.S.A.

#47 Post by sunburnt »

MU; The GUI I made used directories, partitions, or SFS & image files for sources.
It would be easy to add this to your GUI... I'll post a pix of my GUI.

Also, mksquashfs can handle multiple sources, so there's no need to copy
temp. files to a Linux partition or an image file, this is how mine worked.

Let me know what you think.
PS; It's good to hear from you too, I've had personal stuff to do for awhile.
Attachments
mksfs_gui.png
Simple, the [Add source to list] button opened a file browser.
It would check if image or SFS files were mounted & mount them if not.
(16.5 KiB) Downloaded 2315 times

User avatar
MU
Posts: 13649
Joined: Wed 24 Aug 2005, 16:52
Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
Contact:

#48 Post by MU »

looks good, was it working already?
We had to find the code again buried in the forum...

It would be an advantage to use no temp-folders, so even people without Linux-partitions could use it.

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

User avatar
sunburnt
Posts: 5090
Joined: Wed 08 Jun 2005, 23:11
Location: Arizona, U.S.A.

#49 Post by sunburnt »

I can't remember just what it's condition was, it's been a year or so.
I'll take a look at it tomorrow, I seem to recall there was a top dir. problem.

This apps. an important part of a no union & small main SFS file Puppy setup.
Instead of a normal package install, it's installed into a new main SFS file.
So there's no Save file needed unless Linux files are handled on a FAT fs.
As always... Puppy needs more loop devices, 16 would be good, 32 maybe?

User avatar
MU
Posts: 13649
Joined: Wed 24 Aug 2005, 16:52
Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
Contact:

#50 Post by MU »

here is a small tool to add PETs to a SFS:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 076#198076

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

User avatar
sunburnt
Posts: 5090
Joined: Wed 08 Jun 2005, 23:11
Location: Arizona, U.S.A.

#51 Post by sunburnt »

MU; This is the usage from help, just use the sources in a line.

mksquashfs source1 source2 ... dest [options] [-e list of exclude dirs/files]

The sources can be: directories, partitions, & image or SFS files.
The new SFS file should contain the contense of the directories or mounts.

Having the app. check if an item is mounted & use it is good way to go,
as someone may want to put part of the save file in an SFS file.
I started writing Bash libraries to do stuff like this as I'm sick of rewriting.

Or better... Just mount the SFS file or partition again at your mount point,
it won't hurt anything, it's accessible from both mount points.
I commonly forget this little trick, doing double mounting.
You can also mount over another mount point, it just covers it up.
Dougal suggested this (I think) for doing a full install to an image file.

Could you integrate the .pet to SFS into the app.?
Maybe add .deb, .tar.gz & .tgz to it also?
.deb may need small changes to the dir. structure to be compatable.
If the packages can be extracted directly to mksquashfs it'd be fantastic!
Though I don't know if that'd be possable... I'm sure you would know.
This'd over come the same problem, the need for a temp. ext2.

Your app. could use most of the common package types for sources!

User avatar
sunburnt
Posts: 5090
Joined: Wed 08 Jun 2005, 23:11
Location: Arizona, U.S.A.

#52 Post by sunburnt »

Mark; A few Qs about your SFS app. if I may...
1) Does it make a manifest file of all the /paths/files contained in the new SFS file?
2) Does it have a GUI for creation of menu files for the apps. in the new SFS file?
I ask because I've been using Puppy-400-NOP, & I noticed the goffice-400.sfs
addon file for it didn't have them. But they're made to be a pair so it's handled somehow.

I'm working on a no union setup & I'm trying to resolve issues, the SFS files are one.
Another is the PATH thing we talked about, to add to the paths makes them too long.
I'd like to be able to addon lots of SFS files (10 or 20), so adding to the paths is out.
Sadly there's over a dozen places to look for files... ( There's gotta be a better way )
My current idea is for 2 dirs., 1 in PATH & 1 in LD_LIBRARY_PATH with links in them
to all the files inside the SFS files. This is a really sucky way to do it.
The only other way I see is to make the SFS files differently by combining dirs. & paths.
Needless to say I'm open to better ideas for doing this, please add your thoughts...

User avatar
MU
Posts: 13649
Joined: Wed 24 Aug 2005, 16:52
Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
Contact:

#53 Post by MU »

1) Does it make a manifest file of all the /paths/files contained in the new SFS file?
2) Does it have a GUI for creation of menu files for the apps. in the new SFS file?
1) no

2) no, but if applications include .desktop files, they are added to the menu automatically.
You just had to run "fixmenus" in Puppy.
In Muppy, the new .desktop files are detected automatically.

To create .desktop-files for an installed pup/pet without one, you can use:
http://dotpups.de/dotpups/System_Utilit ... -packages/

Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

User avatar
sunburnt
Posts: 5090
Joined: Wed 08 Jun 2005, 23:11
Location: Arizona, U.S.A.

#54 Post by sunburnt »

Thanks Mark, I'll write the code line to create a manifest file, "find ....".
I'll have a look at the app.: XDG-menus-for-alien-packages to see if it'll do the job.
I've got the code written to scan drives for SFS addon dirs., just XDG & paths are left.

Any thoughts on a better solution for paths into the SFS files?
If there's a better solution I'd like to work on it rather than wasting time on a dead end.

User avatar
dinky
Posts: 699
Joined: Sat 19 Jan 2008, 23:39

#55 Post by dinky »

Hi MU, great program! Thanks so much for creating it. Couple questions:

1. Does the pup_save file load into ram? I.e., if I have 512 Mb of ram, and a pupsave_file of 1Gb, will this effect my speed? So if I merge .sfs files with the pup_save, will I run into problems in a frugal install?
2. Do .sfs files effect speed at all? If they don't get copied to the ram on bootup, do massive sizes of them effect the speed at which puppy runs, assuming it's being booted into ram?
3. I love .sfs Is it possible to create a database, much like ttuuxxx's lib's page where they are all in the one place? This would make it much easier for newcomers to puppy.

Thanks mate.

User avatar
MU
Posts: 13649
Joined: Wed 24 Aug 2005, 16:52
Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
Contact:

#56 Post by MU »

1. Does the pup_save file load into ram?
no.
2. Do .sfs files effect speed at all? If they don't get copied to the ram on bootup, do massive sizes of them effect the speed at which puppy runs, assuming it's being booted into ram?
In general no.
In practice:
yes.
SFS files are managed by a Kernelmodule, the unionfs-driver.
It must check, if files changed.
This has some effect.
Rebuilding menus can take longer, if you use KDE.sfs, that has dozends of menu-entries.

If you use a sfs without menus (like devx.sfs), you of course will not notice a delay.
3. I love .sfs Is it possible to create a database, much like ttuuxxx's lib's page where they are all in the one place? This would make it much easier for newcomers to puppy.
Until now, they are "cluttered around".
For Muppy, we list tested sfs-files on the Muppy-website.
A collection of various contributions is here:
http://puppyisos.org/files/sfs/
Password see:
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=28930

The Wiki should list several, too.
Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

User avatar
dinky
Posts: 699
Joined: Sat 19 Jan 2008, 23:39

#57 Post by dinky »

Thanks for that. Have been fun with your pet2sfs converter, and the sfs combiner. There seems alot less need for an sfs file database now. Incidentally, when setting sfs files at bootup, can there be a problem with file clashes? I.e., if one sfs file has the same file as another, and they are not combined but mounted as one of the three you can boot up from, can there be issues? Also, if two sfs files with the same file on them are combined, does this duplicate the file? I'm guessing not, but thought it a good idea to check.

Anyway, thanks again matey.

~dinky

User avatar
MU
Posts: 13649
Joined: Wed 24 Aug 2005, 16:52
Location: Karlsruhe, Germany
Contact:

#58 Post by MU »

dinky wrote:Thanks for that. Have been fun with your pet2sfs converter, and the sfs combiner. There seems alot less need for an sfs file database now. Incidentally, when setting sfs files at bootup, can there be a problem with file clashes? I.e., if one sfs file has the same file as another, and they are not combined but mounted as one of the three you can boot up from, can there be issues?
yes, if they are different...
Puppy mounts them in the priority as they are listed in the bootmanager.
If you add:
a.sfs
b.sfs
c.sfs
and all have /usr/bin/playme.sh
then only playbe.sh from c.sfs is used.
dinky wrote:Also, if two sfs files with the same file on them are combined, does this duplicate the file? I'm guessing not, but thought it a good idea to check.
As above.
Here, files are overwritten with the ones from the last sfs added to the combiner.
Mark
[url=http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=173456#173456]my recommended links[/url]

User avatar
sunburnt
Posts: 5090
Joined: Wed 08 Jun 2005, 23:11
Location: Arizona, U.S.A.

#59 Post by sunburnt »

Hi; I found the post again finally... Disregard the PM. I'll send what I write.
If you have code to feed .tar.gz or .pet files directly to mksquashfs, tell me.

Yep, each source in the mksquashfs command is over written by the next.

NOTE: I've read on the web it's a bad idea to use ext3 for flash devices.
The journal gets written to lots, so it tends to wear out the flash drive.
BUT... For this purpose it won't hurt, because the SFS build is a short use.

So instead of: mkfs.ext3 /dev/sda1

For most uses: mkfs.ext2 /dev/sda1

User avatar
dinky
Posts: 699
Joined: Sat 19 Jan 2008, 23:39

#60 Post by dinky »

Hi sunburnt, how close are you to having a test version of your project with making sfs files without a linux partition? Think it's a great idea, and would love to try it. Cheers!
~dinky

Post Reply