DebianDog - Jessie - Continued

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rufwoof · #31 Post by **rufwoof** » Tue 18 Oct 2016, 20:28

With live boot 3 you can create a partition with a label of 'persistence' and use that as the save 'folder'. That can also contain grub4dos bootloader (grldr and menu.lst) and the /live folder within which 01-filesystem.squashfs resides. When all of 01-filesystem.squashfs is extracted to that / root partition, then everything is in effect in the "savefolder", such that the 01-filesystem.squashfs can be empty. With everything extracted to the / folder it also means you can boot it like a full install. My menu.lst looks like :

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# menu.lst
color white/blue black/cyan white/black cyan/black
timeout 2
default 1

title Debian FULL Install RW filesys (/boot/grub/menu.lst)
  find --set-root /debian-usb
  configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst
  commandline

title Debian Jessie Frugal RO only saves if run flush2disk
find --set-root /live/01-filesystem.squashfs
kernel /vmlinuz boot=live timezone=Europe/London xorg-resolution=1280x768 config nofastboot persistence persistence-read-only persistence-label=persistence quickreboot noprompt showmounts live-media-path=/live/ config rw
initrd /initrd.img

i.e. by default boots frugal/read only (but with a save2flash type script that can flush memory recorded changes to disk), or it can be booted like a full install ... handy for installing the likes of kernel updates and (in time) later versions of Debian stable as and when they come online (that might otherwise not be installed using a frugal type boot due to insufficient memory space being available to record all of the changes).

Whilst 01-filesystem.squashfs is empty, leaving it present means you can still load other sfs's if you so desire (just drop them into /live folder so they're loaded at bootup).

Slower to boot, but once a program has been run once then typically it remains memory resident so subsequent runs are quick. Easy to backup, I just boot frugally and make a mksquashfs of /mnt/sda1 on another partition. No need to pin apps or the kernel i.e. accepts all updates such as to wget rather than running with older (weaker security) versions. The equivalent of a full Debian stable version, where security updates come through in a timely manner and the set of programs available in the repository work well.

I originally allocated 16GB to that partition, but typically it uses less than 5GB in total.

A nice feature is that /lib/live/mount/persistence/sda1 is the path to the persistent layer, so for instance in my home folder I created a sym link called documents-persistent to /lib/live/mount/persistence/sda1/documents-persistent, so that any document changed in that folder are preserved across reboots even if no save is run during a frugal booted (read only) session. Similar for Osmo (so all calendar/task changes are preserved). 99.9% of time I'll boot frugal. Full boot is only when a attempted update during a frugal booted session indicates that it was unable to apply the updates (kernel or whatever), in which case reboot without saving ... into full boot mode and re-run the updates, before rebooting back into frugal mode again.

For the full boot, menu.lst chains to Debian installed boot menu.

Works well for me, and just requires a single additional script to make it save changes (extended version of save2flash that I called flush2disk)

fredx181 · #32 Post by **fredx181** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 09:44

@rufwoof, thanks for testing!

Frisbee was a clear bottleneck

Yes, it hangs a little just before login, maybe that's caused by dhcpcd, not frisbee itself.
Another alternative for wireless-manager could be wifibox

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apt-get install wifibox

William and I worked on that in the Xenialdog thread some time ago, it uses busybox's udhcp, so it's very light.
http://debiandog.github.io/Jessie/i386/ ... 4_i386.deb

@dancytron

Yes, I was shocked by how quick the remaster went with the "Quick Remaster" script.

Me too, it's hard to believe that it works well, with the speed of light

The only thing I can see that I would change would be to also rename the save folder/file rather than give you a choice to delete it. That would make stepping back if there is a problem bullet proof.

I had looked into that before but did seem too complicated (e.g. to cover all cases, savefile, savefolder, possibly be on different partition than boot-partition)

Should be OK now, included choice for backup of save storage, install new version 1.0.2a:

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apt-get update
apt-get install quick-remaster

Or from synaptic, or install this deb package:
http://debiandog.github.io/Jessie/i386/ ... 2a_all.deb

To get back again to older version:

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apt-get install quick-remaster=1.0.1

Testing most appreciated!

Fred

backi · #33 Post by **backi** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 11:09

Hi rufwoof !

Thanks for your reply and your patience .
This seems to be another sophisticated method to run
frugal or frugal(full) with save on demand only .

Since I am quite happy using Porteus boot method with save on demand , so it seems to me not much advantage going over (although there are some quite interesting aspects in it) using Deb Dog this way.
Maybe someone else will.

There is just one thing which is confusing me in your description above ( maybe could confuse some other amateur too) .....how to " empty" this 01-filesystem.squashfs ?

When all of 01-filesystem.squashfs is extracted to that / root partition, then everything is in effect in the "savefolder", such that the 01-filesystem.squashfs can be empty. With everything extracted to the / folder it also means you can boot it like a full install.

Also... can everything the "savefolder" and the live folder be on the same partition labeled persistence ?
or am i asking a wrong question .....makes me somehow curious...did i misunderstood this ?

But not so urgent.
Maybe in some quiet hour i will go experimenting with it ,it`s not a question of live or death for me......maybe for someone else it is .

Thanks ruf !

fredx181 · #34 Post by **fredx181** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 13:22

Hi backi,

In case you or anyone like one day to bring rufwoof's idea in practice, here's a howto for DebianDog (but can in fact be used with any Debian Live, (with some small changes)):
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 964#928964
It's very similar to what I posted earlier for DebianDog64:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 339#916339

See it as sort of a mix between frugal and full install, the good thing is that way it's 100% pure Debian (Live) (as with porteus-boot it's not, of course), and there's the ability to upgrade the kernel (not on DebianDog normal frugal install, the kernel is pinned).
The RO menu.lst entry is similar to porteus-boot "EXIT" (but you can save on demand, using flush2disk).

Fred

backi · #35 Post by **backi** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 13:56

Hi fred and rufwoof !

I think this compendium will answer (almost) all my questions .

Thanks !

backi · #36 Post by **backi** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 14:15

Just another Question .

In puppy ,to mount an Iso file with Rox-Filer, just click and it will be mounted .
In Deb-Dog Rox-Filer won`t do it... also Thunar does not mount Isos........is there a way to make this work ?

fredx181 · #37 Post by **fredx181** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 15:38

backi wrote:Thunar does not mount Isos....

Are you sure? It does for me by just clicking on a ISO.

Fred

belham2 · #38 Post by **belham2** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 16:09

backi wrote:Just another Question .

In puppy ,to mount an Iso file with Rox-Filer, just click and it will be mounted .
In Deb-Dog Rox-Filer won`t do it... also Thunar does not mount Isos........is there a way to make this work ?

Backi,

I just checked mine, and I agree with Fred. I tried 4 different ISOs I have on a data partition, and with one 'click' Thunar mounted them & for each opened up a Thunar to show you what was inside 'em. Then, to unmount, just 'click' them again, and they are unmounted.

I'm telling ya, Backi, I swear you gotta lay off the weed & alcohol a little bit, or you're gonna fry those remaining brain cells of yours....hahahahahah (just joking ya).

backi · #39 Post by **backi** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 16:24

hahahahahah (just joking ya).

hahaha ..i hope so ....hahaha

I just checked mine, and I agree with Fred. I tried 4 different ISOs I have on a data partition, and with one 'click' Thunar mounted them & for each opened up a Thunar to show you what was inside 'em. Then, to unmount, just 'click' them again, and they are unmounted.

I am going to check it .

rufwoof · #40 Post by **rufwoof** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 17:01

I'm running pure Debian Jessie (installed from Debian live cd), and neither pcmanfm nor thunar load a ISO directly.

Open a su terminal in the folder and
mkdir t
mount *.iso t
will mount it
umount t
when done to unmount it (assuming just the one iso otherwise change *.iso to a more single iso identifiable name).

There's likely a way to enter a command sequence into pcmanfm and/or thunar to automate something like that as per DebianDog likely does ???

backi · #41 Post by **backi** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 17:08

removed

rufwoof · #42 Post by **rufwoof** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 17:26

Looks like DebianDog has a script filemnt which is a sym link to /usr/local/bin/mnt-img that is associated to .iso files

i.e. install a copy of that mnt-img file into Debian /usr/local/bin (I've edited the attached to use pcmanfm, was using thunar (one line might need to be uncommented/changed according to which file manager you use). Make it executable. Then on a .iso file right click and select the open with choice and set it up to use that mnt-img script (ticking the relevant box to make that association persistent).

Looks like that might only work for frugal booted i.e. I think I saw some code that used a loop file.

fredx181 · #43 Post by **fredx181** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 17:45

rufwoof wrote:Looks like DebianDog has a script filemnt which is a sym link to /usr/local/bin/mnt-img that is associated to .iso files

Yes, and also associated with squashfs, sfs, dat, 2fs, 3fs and more.

Fred

rufwoof · #44 Post by **rufwoof** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 18:28

backi wrote:There is just one thing which is confusing me in your description above ( maybe could confuse some other amateur too) .....how to " empty" this 01-filesystem.squashfs ?

Once all of 01-filesystem.squashfs is extracted to the save area, its in effect redundant i.e. the layering is such that the save area overlays 01-filesystem.squashfs and as they're the same nothing in 01-filesystem.squashfs ever gets used. So you can replace that 01-filesystem.squashfs with another version that contains nothing (and save-on/use-less disk space).

Which can be achieved by renaming or deleting the existing 01-filesystem.squashfs and creating a new one.

cd /live
mkdir t
mksquashfs t 01-filesystem.squashfs
rmdir t

Which normally comes out at around a 4K filesize for that empty 01-filesystem.squashfs.

You could run with no 01-filesystem.squashfs, but I believe Fred encountered problems that way if you want to load other sfs's. Something like if no 01-filesystem.squashfs exists, then no loops are created and without loops you can't allocate a sfs to a loop i.e. the sfs doesn't get loaded. With a empty 01-filesystem.squashfs the loops are created.

Under boot 3 style booting, you can create a filesystem.module file in /live that lists the sfs files to load at startup and they're loaded in the order presented in that filesystem.module file. Under Porteus (boot 1) style, any .squashfs files in /live are loaded in alpha-numeric sorted order (as they are in boot 3 style if no /live/filesystem.module file exists).

rufwoof · #45 Post by **rufwoof** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 18:54

deleted

backi · #46 Post by **backi** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 19:46

Regarding mounting Isos with Thunar .Also squashfs and sfs are now mounting well .

Something was corrupted .....did new install ....now works fine .

belham2 · #47 Post by **belham2** » Wed 19 Oct 2016, 21:30

backi wrote:Regarding mounting Isos with Thunar .Also squashfs and sfs are now mounting well .

Something was corrupted .....did new install ....now works fine .

Backi,

Will you please send me some of your special weed & hefeweizens over on one of tonight's ICE trains? I just spent 3 hours pulling my hair out trying the "Pupjibaro-Jessie" creation. All I can say is: my God, I want to wash Fred's feet as the 2nd Coming after enduring that ordeal.

Glad you got the mounting thing sorted out with a new install.

[edit: spelling errors]

fredx181 · #48 Post by **fredx181** » Fri 21 Oct 2016, 18:06

Hi All,

Just couldn't resist to make a GUI version of the Quick-Remaster tool.
When installed newer quick-remaster package (gui version included), run it from Menu > DebianDog > Quick Remaster Gui.
More options included than in the CLI version, make your choices in the GUI, click OK and remastering is done in less than a minute! (well, if you choose default LZ4 compression).
EDIT: (of course it depends, on a slow USB stick it took for me a little more than 2 minutes, oh well..)
Only for very lazy and impatient persons (including me

)

Install from synaptic or from terminal:

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apt-get update
apt-get install quick-remaster # will install latest v1.0.3

.deb package:
http://debiandog.github.io/Jessie/i386/ ... .4_all.deb
EDIT: Bug fix: gz compression option not working in previous version 1.0.3, now fixed in 1.0.4

P.S. as mentioned before, only works when booted with 'porteus-boot' frugally installed.
Thanks again to rufwoof for the concept idea!

Fred

dancytron · #49 Post by **dancytron** » Sat 22 Oct 2016, 05:48

I just tested the new GUI Remaster tool. Worked great.

I tested the old CLI version with a couple of different configurations a few days ago (on hard drive ext4, save on exit; on usb drive FAT32 Grub for dos, not save on exit with all the different options).

Nothing to report, everything worked as it should.

backi · #50 Post by **backi** » Sat 22 Oct 2016, 08:06

COOL TOOL !

Makes remaster fun .

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DebianDog - Jessie - Continued