Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[peebee]

[FIXED] - see below

Tried both:

[gyro]

@peebee,
try

[gyro]

The missing "/" on psubdir does cause havoc, only for me the kernel line

[gyro]

Thanks to the folk who have tired to run this thing.
Trying to reproduce the problems that have been reported, has led to the fixing of some bugs.
Frustratingly, I still haven't been able to reproduce the same experiences.

But this post is to announce that a new version has been uploaded. (See first post for download utl's.)
Given BarryK's success with an overlay with a simple directory on disk as an rw layer,
I've decided to change the script in two ways.
1. It's now capable of doing the equivalent of a pupmode=5 boot using a directory on a disk as the rw layer instead of a directory in a tmpfs.
If you specify "pfix=nocopy", the sfs's are mounted directly off the disk and a save-directory is created and used as the rw layer.
As a consequence of this, on reboot the save-directory is found and it does a pupmode=12 boot.
This provides persistency without resort to "shutdowconfig". (Of couorse only on a Linux partition.)
In my testing I have a "shutdownconfig" that does nothing if "pfix=nosave" is specified, so I don't have to click on a "No" button on first shutdown.
2. The algorithm has been slightly modified, so that when processing each sfs one by one, each successfully mounted sfs is added to a list, not added to the stack.
Then there is a block of code that builds the stack using these lists of directories.
The idea is that when replacing aufs with overlays, it's all happening in a single block of code.

gyro

[peebee]

[FIXED] see below

Hi gyro - latest initrd.gz.....

I get:
*** Puppy install partition not specified

whatever combination of pdrv and psubdir I try.....

Is it because I'm using uuid??

Last attempt was:

[Keef]

@peebee

I used UUID and it works for me.

[peebee]

Sorry - found my error - I'd put the wrong "version" of DISTRO_SPECS into the frugal subdirectory - I'd used the version which goes into the woof-ce process rather than the output of woof-ce and therefore does not include the *drv specifications.....

With the correct DISTRO_SPECS, boots as expected!

[gyro]

@Keef,
You shouldn't need the "zdrv=" parameter.
I'm successfully booting xenial 7.0.8.1 with this boot entry:

[gyro]

I've done it.
The new version I've just uploaded to http://www.fishprogs.software/puppy/initrd/init and http://www.fishprogs.software/puppy/initrd/initrd.gz uses overlays to create the stack instead of aufs.

I used xenial 7.0.8.1 as my test bed, since it's kernel has overlay support as a module.

A normal first boot will boot like a normal pupmode=5 with sfs's copied to ram and the rw layer in tmpfs.
It you add a "pfix=nocopy" boot parameter and the frugal install directory is on a linux partition, it will create and use a savefolder for rw. On second boot it will do a pupmode=12 type boot with the savefolder as the rw layer.

Note: If you see the normal first shutdown config, always click on the "No" button.

Of course this is just first step, a proof of concept, there are lot's of things it can't do.
And a significant amount of effort to sortout exactly what it can do.

Observations:
It seems rather slow at shutting down.
I wonder how much of the rest of puppy has difficulties when booted with this init because aufs is assumed?

gyro

[gyro]

I've just uploaded a couple of files that I find useful with this init.

http://www.fishprogs.software/puppy/initrd/shutdownconfig is a patched "/ust/sbin/shutdownconfig" that honours "pfix=nosave" by doing absolutely nothing.

http://www.fishprogs.software/puppy/initrd/TIME_ZONE is an example file that enables "init" to set the time zone for itself and for the booted puppy. It has to be "/TIME_ZONE" in the "initrd.gz".
The TZ part before the ':' sets the time for "init", and the part after the ':' sets the time for the booted puppy.
Can completely remove all "Time of last mount...." error messages from fsck.

gyro

[peebee]

Just to report that the initrd.gz of 9-jun used together with the xenial-7.0.8.1 kernel 4.9.13 booted fine for me.....
also renamed my chromium .sfs to an adrv and that was loaded correctly.
Cheers
peebee

[gyro]

@peebee,
I've finally worked out why your deficient DISTRO_SPECS resulted in the misleading error message it did.
The function that deciphers the "pdrv=" boot parameter, does nothing if there's no default filename provided, thus ignoring any valid information that might be provided in the "pdrv=" parameter.
I'll try to fix this in the next version.

gyro

[gyro]

Thanks to all the folk who have taken the time to download and try this stuff, I do appreciate it.
gyro

[gyro]

I've uploaded new versions to http://www.fishprogs.software/puppy/initrd/init and http://www.fishprogs.software/puppy/initrd/initrd.gz.

Changes in this 11 June version:
1. Improved error reporting, particularly in the early "sorting out boot parameters" phase.
2. Interpretation of "pdrv=sdb2:dir/filename.sfs" has changed from "sdb2:/dir/filename.sfs" to "sdb2:/psubdir/dir/filename"
3. Checks for the existence of the "overlay" module, and error exits if it's not found.
4. Writes a "POVERLAY='yes'" line to PUPSTATE, if overlay support is found.
5. Builds the stack in 2 phases, first an ro sfss stack, mounted on "/pup_sfss" and then the full rw stack at "/pup_new".

I've also uploaded a couple of scripts I use a lot when working with "initrd.gz":
http://www.fishprogs.software/puppy/initrd/file2initrd and http://www.fishprogs.software/puppy/initrd/initrd2file.
Just execute them without any parameters to see the "Usage" info.

gyro

[Moose On The Loose]