DebianDog - Jessie - Continued

[fredx181]

I thought DebianDeog Jessie would be able to run fully in RAM....am I possibly doing something wrong that it cannot survive fully in RAM after pulling out the USB stick?

Sure it can with "copy2ram" parameter, if you have enough RAM, e.g. using porteus-boot:

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title Debian-Dog  -  Copy to RAM sysvinit
 root (hd0,0)
 kernel /live/vmlinuz1 noauto from=/ copy2ram
 initrd /live/initrd1.xz

Or with changes from harddrive, if exist folder "debdogchanges" on root of HDD partition

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title Debian-Dog  -  Copy to RAM changes to HDD sysvinit
 root (hd0,0)
 kernel /live/vmlinuz1 noauto from=/ copy2ram changes=EXIT:/debdogchanges/
 initrd /live/initrd1.xz

Btw, posting from it now, everything fully functional after usb stick pulled out, no HDD mounted.

EDIT: With live-boot it should be possible also, but you need to specify it using 'toram' parameter:

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toram=01-filesystem.squashfs

Fred

[rufwoof]

Now I know this sounds silly, but can DebianDog Jessie withstand, or endure----after it has completely booted up into "Live Boot 3"---having the USB unplugged & yet DebianDog Jessie be fully functional and operational on your, say for example, laptop?

For Live Boot 3 you add toram boot parameter. Extract from man live-boot

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   toram
           Adding  this  parameter,  live-boot  will  try  to  copy  the whole
           read-only media to the computer's  RAM  before  mounting  the  root
           filesystem.  This  could  need a lot of ram, according to the space
           used by the read-only media.

[belham2]

Fred and Rufwoof,

I swear I am blaming YOU BOTH! I started playing around with this today, and I've screwed up my grub4dos menu.lst and now I can't get my all-set-up, super-redshift-pretty Debian Dog Jessie 32 to boot back up. Thank the heavens that the DD64 still boots...just gotta copy some of its magic back to the 32-bit.


Every time I read your guys posts on something, I get to thinking I know what I am doing and BLAMMMM---I am again staring in the abyss of my own stupidity.....hahahhahahha. Like why was I such an idiot and did not back up my menu-lst before I started making changes all over the place? Grrrrrr........

Oh well, family is calling right now, but I'm gonna get it right, though, come he!! or high water, process of elimination of stuff on the boot line. Come on, Belham, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it.....

....and note to self: quit reading Fred's and Rufwoof's posts on anything they might post about Debian Dogs. More important: quit asking them what-if questions when everything on your system is working great

[mikeslr]

Hi belham2,

The nice thing about DebianDogs, if your hard-drives have the room, and you're not employing rufwoof's method of booting DebianLive Frugal or fredx181's variation applied to Debiandog [neither of which frankly I've yet gotten my head around] is that, like Puppies, they can be run from a folder. So rather than messing with a system which does what you want, you can:

1. Create a folder named, for example, Test,
2. Copy your "live" or "casper" folder into it,
3. Add another listing to your boot menu which specifically points to it;
4. Boot into it, and experiment to your heart's content.

or, sometime, just add an additional boot menu listing to try out different boot parameters.

No offense meant. I'm astigmatic and recently misplaced my glasses. I can read text on the screen pretty well without them, except that sometimes letters blur together and I have to guess. Thought your moniker was bedlam2 -- which didn't bode well for ever getting things organized.

mikesLr

[fredx181]

@belham
Ooff, I feel very ashamed and guilty, my deepest apologies
so better don't read the below advice or you're gonna screw up more again maybe

Watch out using the 'toram' option for live-boot, I once used it without =.... (just toram only) and it tried to copy my whole (almost full) 16GB usb-stick to RAM, which failed of course.
So use: "toram=01-filesystem.squashfs"

Fred

[labbe5]

Hi,

I read your article about WattOS; i even got to the point that I now use it with a flash drive.

But I never came across an article about Debiandog, and from the same family : Mintpup and Xenialdog.

One would object that they are from the same family as Puppy distro; but no. Far from it.

Puppy has been an inspiration, but after years of testings and fixings, Debiandog became a distro of its own, first as 32-bit and now for 64-bit as well.

Mintpup has Mint as a base, and Xenialdog has Ubuntu 16.04.

System tools are plenty. And you can use Synaptic to download and install apps. And the remastering is one of the easiest.

I don’t have to say more at this point. For a lightweight distro, you don’t need to look elsewhere.


I look forward to see a review of Debiandog in LinuxInsider Reviews

Good work.

[fredx181]

*** Experimental ***

Script 'new-kernel' attached, to install new kernel from (downloaded) deb.
It's modified 'upgrade-kernel' script, I used it to experiment with different kernels Same as 'upgrade-kernel' it will generate new initrd and copy vmlinuz (in frugal installed directory), no new "pinning" will be done
Because DebianDog depends on aufs module included in the kernel, there's not much choice. (most newer kernels found on the web are compiled without aufs)
Here's modified (aufs added) kernel 4.7 package from Stretch
https://github.com/DebianDog/Jessie/rel ... 1_i386.deb
Btw, the fact that this kernel works (using aufs) is good news for the future of DebianDog (for DebianDog-Stretch release, when Stretch becomes stable)

The liquorix kernel from here works also for me:
https://liquorix.net/debian/pool/past/l/linux-liquorix/
Direct link to PAE version:
https://liquorix.net/debian/pool/past/l ... 9_i386.deb
There's also a liquorix 4.8 version but it gave me problems (extreme slow boot).

Fred

[belham2]

@belham
Ooff, I feel very ashamed and guilty, my deepest apologies
so better don't read the below advice or you're gonna screw up more again maybe

Watch out using the 'toram' option for live-boot, I once used it without =.... (just toram only) and it tried to copy my whole (almost full) 16GB usb-stick to RAM, which failed of course.
So use: "toram=01-filesystem.squashfs"

Fred

Fred,

It was all good. Know way was it your fault (or Rufwoof's). I was just joking ya both. Sometimes I can be too hasty in not backing up stuff first. Anyhow, I just made myself go back and re-read a lot of your posts about understanding what my grub4dos entries should be, and once I did that, everything booted up great.

Also, I used your new remaster script (on my fully setup DebDog32), and that script is absolutely great. I remastered, then loaded it on another USB by itself (with grub4dos on the USB) and put only one menu.lst entry so that it booted fully to RAM. Everything worked great! I got in the hotel room, powered up my latop, booted my remastered DebianDog32 up, then unmounted the USB, and DebianDog32 Jessie ran for three straight days and nights fully in RAM, on laptop that has no hard drive nor any kind of storage (other than its RAM).

It was great! Thanks again!



P.S. I also wanted to tell you, that while it all was in RAM, one of the nights it got late and the family was asleep, so I was looking around on Murga as I am usually doing in my free time, and I came across this:

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=79911

I downloaded this qtWeb browser, and my Gooood, it is the fastest browser I've ever come across and yet it handles stuff like https, html5, etc with ease. And its only 12.5MB. Geoffrey and Mike had talked about it before, but I finally gave it a go. It is something else. the DebianDogs easily accepted it for installation (after converting the .pet to a .deb), put a shortcut on the desktop, and the thing makes Firefox/Chrome/Chromium/etc look like Grandma-applications. I am sure there are some shortcomings I haven't come across yet, but so far, I really cannot see any.

[greengeek]

I downloaded this qtWeb browser, and my Gooood, it is the fastest browser I've ever come across and yet it handles stuff like https, html5, etc with ease.

Did you have any trouble with Certificate authentication?

[belham2]

I downloaded this qtWeb browser, and my Gooood, it is the fastest browser I've ever come across and yet it handles stuff like https, html5, etc with ease.

Did you have any trouble with Certificate authentication?

Hi Greengeek,

Ugh...well, had some more time tonight to play with Qtweb browser, and sure enough, these problems (per what you asked about and is shown below in the pic) started popping up all over the place with sites that are "agglomeration 3rd party aggregator sites", like Yahoo, News sites, Sports sites, etc, etc. Such a shame, as this browser seemed to have such fantastic promise..... ....but this constant hassle is a deal-breaker (unless Geoffrey, Mike or any other knows a way around this without compromising normal security of a user browsing)...

[fredx181]

It was all good. Know way was it your fault (or Rufwoof's). I was just joking ya both.

Yes, I knew you were joking, good to hear it all works out well for you, thanks for bringing the good news also.

Fred

[greengeek]

Ugh...well, had some more time tonight to play with Qtweb browser, and sure enough, these problems (per what you asked about and is shown below in the pic) started popping up all over the place with sites that are "agglomeration 3rd party aggregator sites", like Yahoo, News sites, Sports sites, etc, etc.

I have a feeling that OscarTalks has produced a pet (or pets) that install(s) CA certificates to eliminate this problem. I haven't kept up to speed with the latest version (if there is one) but may be worth PMing him to see if still available. In all other respects I found QTWeb really good and still use it for some sites.

[fredx181]

*** DebianDog - Stretch preview ISO ***

New: DebianDog Sid Test ISO 2016-11-19, see below.

Based on the Debian 'testing' branch.

I made this mostly as a preparation for future DD-Stretch (stable) when Stretch becomes stable next year.
In time I will probably update the ISO a few times since (hopefully small) bugs are expected.
Built from Debian Stretch minimal netinstall. Almost setup the same as DebianDog-Jessie-openbox_xfce release.
Kernel: 4.7.0-1-686-pae
Drastic changes in Stretch! e.g. the filesystem hierarchy has changed.
Almost all binaries are in /usr/bin and all libraries in /usr/lib
/bin /sbin and /lib are symlinks. (ArchLinux has it this way for years, looks like Debian follows)
sysvinit (the older initscripts) still is supported (default in this DD), to use systemd add:
init=/bin/systemd to the kernel commandline

Stretch has many updates but can be made into a 'static' release (no updates):
(in my opinion this way is more suitable for a live distro, you can always change to today's date, e.g. in time, a month later, change to e.g. 20161208, and update then)
Backup first your /etc/apt/sources.list:

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cp -a /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list.orig

Then edit sources.list like this (the "snapshot.debian.org" line to today's date):

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deb https://debiandog.github.io/Stretch/i386/Packages/ ./
deb http://snapshot.debian.org/archive/debian/20161108/ testing main contrib non-free

And uncomment Acquire::Check-Valid-Until "0"; in /etc/apt/apt.conf so becomes this:

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Acquire::Check-Valid-Until "0";

And update the package lists:

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apt-get update

It's a small step to dist-upgrade to Sid (unstable Debian branch)
Edit sources.list to become this:

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deb https://debiandog.github.io/Stretch/i386/Packages/ ./
deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid main contrib non-free

Then:

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apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

EDIT: 2016-11-14, New ISO uploaded, many fixes, e.g. live-boot works now, quick-remaster more stable, installer works (didn't work when formatting first inside Stretch, see also Workaround for yakkety(and Stretch) and more. Older ISO has been removed.
EDIT2: 2016-11-16 Sorry, re-uploaded 2016-11-14.iso, previously forgot to replace /etc/mke2fs.conf with the jessie version

Download Stretch ISO:
https://github.com/DebianDog/Stretch/re ... -11-14.iso
Md5sum:
https://github.com/DebianDog/Stretch/re ... -11-14.md5
DEVX:
https://github.com/DebianDog/Stretch/re ... h.squashfs

Update: Also Sid Test ISO available, download:
https://github.com/DebianDog/Sid/releas ... -11-19.iso
https://github.com/DebianDog/Sid/releas ... -11-19.md5

On Github: https://github.com/DebianDog/Stretch
https://github.com/DebianDog/Sid
Packages: https://debiandog.github.io/Stretch/i386/Packages/

EDIT: Quoted from here:
http://www.debianuserforums.org/viewtop ... 7844#p7844

Stable is for senior citizens and Sid is for kids. Be a man and run Testing.

Fred

[backi]

Hi fred !

Seems your restless genius-mind is hungry-looking for a new challenge-frontier .
I am going to put it on a Usb-Stick and will fool around a bit with this Doggie .
Will give feedback .

Have a nice day

[fredx181]

Hi fred !

Seems your restless genius-mind is hungry-looking for a new challenge-frontier .
I am going to put it on a Usb-Stick and will fool around a bit with this Doggie .
Will give feedback .

Have a nice day

Thanks backi! Feedback would be much appreciated.
Yes, challenge is the right word, there were many problems to overcome.
e.g. no aufs support in the new Debian kernel (now 'overlayfs' is the new standard), but I did it the "Jessie way" by including aufs module in the initrd
And had to modify some packages because of the different filesystem hierarchy (need to check more for compatibility later)
So this should be considered as alpha release.

EDIT: Ooops... found a bug already, quick-remaster makes a remastered .squashfs, but it's incomplete, can't figure out why yet.
Remasterdog works fine though.
EDIT2: Mmm... seems like false alarm, tested quick-remaster a couple of times more and worked fine, must have done something wrong first time by manually removing stuff.

Fred

[Keef]

Quick test of Stretch has been successful.
Wifi and sound working ok, keyboard layout change needs a reboot to take effect rather than just restarting X, but that was the same with Jessie.

[dancytron]

I also install Stretch on hard drive, porteus boot save on exit only.

Updated firefox, installed mesa drivers, did a GUI Quick Remaster. Everything seems to work.

I think I've said it before, but I like this desktop more than the tint2/jwm combination setup in DD64 and the Ubuntu Dogs.

Once again, great job.

[fredx181]

Thanks Keef & Dan

One thing is not working for me on Stretch: setting mouse acceleration from Settings > Keyboard and Mouse has no effect.
Fixed it by uninstalling libinput10 (also removes a few other packages depending on it) and restart X

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apt-get purge libinput10

I think I've said it before, but I like this desktop more than the tint2/jwm combination setup in DD64 and the Ubuntu Dogs.

Yes, me too (file size of ISO is larger with the xfce components included though)

Fred

[backi]

Keef said:

Quick test of Stretch has been successful.
Wifi and sound working ok, keyboard layout change needs a reboot to take effect rather than just restarting X, but that was the same with Jessie.

same for me ..........just Ram usage seems to be a bit higher than Jessie (on my machine ) ......30 mega bytes higher .

Going to continue testing and reporting .

[Keef]

backi,

You are right, hadn't noticed before.
Booting to desktop (jwm) with no other apps apart from htop uses 80mb on Jessie, but 134mb with Stretch.