Create Debian 9 (Stretch) minimal ISO similar to DebianDog

[westwest]

Is the mklive script designed to work over wifi?
It cannot find the connection on either of my machines...

[fredx181]

Is the mklive script designed to work over wifi?
It cannot find the connection on either of my machines...

Yes, should work with wifi, are you getting message "There is no network connection. Cannot continue.... " ? Or... ?
The command in script to check for connection is:

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busybox ping -c1 google.com

Fred

[johnywhy]

Devuan mklive/isobooter Ascii Stretch Test Results

Hi

- I successfully generated a Devuan ascii iso with Fred's script. (wow, awesome Fred!)
- Successfully installed to SD card with isobooter. http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 028#964028
- On boot, i get the expected 4-option Debian grub menu (changes, always fresh, ram, no persistence).

That's where things start failing. Apparently, the grub options are not designed for booting from an iso file.

- The 'No persistence' grub-option is the only one that boots the OS as expected. All other grub options fail.

Option 1 Changes: grub can't find the .sgn file
Option 2 Always Fresh: grub can't find the .sgn file
Option 3 Ram gets almost to the desktop, then fails to load X. When i try to login, i see the following:

I noticed that Option 1 Changes seems to be pointing to the root directory. However, the stretch-isobooter instructions say to create my save-files on a separate partition.

I'm sure this is my own misunderstanding.

As an experiment, i did the following:

- extracted the live dir from the iso to the boot partition.
- deleted the iso
- created a new menu.lst in the boot partition:

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title Devuan Test
  kernel /live/vmlinuz1
  initrd /live/initrd1.xz

This worked-- it found the linux files and booted as far as the initramsf command.

But then, again, failed to find the .sgn file.

What did i do wrong?

THX

[johnywhy]

Hi

i successfully created a Devuan iso with Fred's script.

i installed it to an SD card using stretch-live-frugal-install, following instructions to the letter. The partitions are ext3 and ext4.

http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... ab4#979674

On boot, i get as far as intramfs command.
Then, grub failed to find the .sgn file.

I'm sure it's my mistake.
Any suggestions?

My OS EFI is disabled (i believe) cuz in BIOS, "Usb boot" is set to "legacy". I do not have Secure Boot enabled. Hibernation on my Windows is disabled.

THX

[fredx181]

Hi johny,

I'm sorry, no idea what went wrong for you, I don't know about isobooter, but your menu.lst entry should work (after copy live folder to partition) although it 's missing "root (hd0,0") and more, e.g.:

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title Devuan Test
  root (hd0,0)
  kernel /live/vmlinuz1 from=/ noauto 
  initrd /live/initrd1.xz

Make sure there's no other "live" folder on the root of other partition, it may conflict.

See here for more info about porteus boot options (it's for Jessie, but should be the same for Stretch):
https://github.com/DebianDog/Jessie/wiki/Porteus-boot

I see in your sig "StretchDog", did you manage to make that work, and how ?
Should be the same for Devuan.
Which 'Dog' or 'Stretch-live' you could make work, none ? or ... and how ?

EDIT: Just made Devuan install to SD card, two ext4 partitions, created folder "devuanchanges" on second partition for the changes, menu.lst entry:

Code: Select all

title Devuan Test
root (hd0,0)
  kernel /live/vmlinuz1 from=/ noauto changes=EXIT:/devuanchanges
  initrd /live/initrd1.xz

Works ok ("live" folder is on first partition)


Fred

[johnywhy]

Make sure there's no other "live" folder on the root of other partition, it may conflict.

there are none

I see in your sig "StretchDog", did you manage to make that work, and how ?

Stretch+systemd installed to HD, not SD. Ok with both your provided iso, and my iso generated with your script. And, I just installed my Devuan iso to HD, same setup as the Stretch iso. Writing to you now from Devuan. (all are booting from live folder, not from iso)

My difficulty is installing a persistant Devuan to SD.

I tried duplicating my good HD install to SD. I used stretch-live-frugal-install to create a menu.lst on the SD. Then copied my grub entry from my HD grub to the SD menu.lst, and on boot grub dropped me to a command prompt.

Then i used stretch-live-frugal-install to convert the menu.lst to grub2. Again, on boot grub dropped me to a command prompt.

Just made Devuan install to SD card, two ext4 partitions, created folder "devuanchanges" on second partition for the changes, menu.lst entry:

Code: Select all

title Devuan Test
root (hd0,0)
  kernel /live/vmlinuz1 from=/ noauto changes=EXIT:/devuanchanges
  initrd /live/initrd1.xz

Works ok

Did you just copy the live folder from the iso to the SD boot partition?

You mentioned your changes.dat is on your second partition, but your grub changes option seems to point to first partition.

THX

[fredx181]

Ah, so the problem is only with SD card, I wish I could reproduce, but I can't, works ok for me.

Quote:
Just made Devuan install to SD card, two ext4 partitions, created folder "devuanchanges" on second partition for the changes, menu.lst entry:
Code:
title Devuan Test
root (hd0,0)
kernel /live/vmlinuz1 from=/ noauto changes=EXIT:/devuanchanges
initrd /live/initrd1.xz


Works ok


Did you just copy the live folder from the iso to the SD boot partition?

You mentioned your changes.dat is on your second partition, but your grub changes option seems to point to first partition.

Yes, copied "live' from ISO to first (boot) partition.
The changes point to "devuanchanges" folder which I have created on second partition of SD card, which is unique name that I don't have on root of any other partition, can be anything e.g. "mychanges_on_second_partition" as long as it's corresponding with menu.lst, e.g.

Code: Select all

 changes=EXIT:/mychanges_on_second_partition

It will be found by searching at boot on all patritions, if it has unique name

EDIT:

Ah, so the problem is only with SD card, I wish I could reproduce, but I can't, works ok for me.

Also problem booting from USB , I guess?

Fred

[johnywhy]

Hi Fred

Since i can boot to HD, i'll leave aside the SD issue for now.

Devuan errors

- ran synaptic-pkexec (that's the synaptic command in whisker menu)
- getting:

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# synaptic-pkexec
Error getting authority: Error initializing authority: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.freedesktop.PolicyKit1: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.PermissionsInvalid: The permission of the setuid helper is not correct

Similar problem for gparted-pkexec.

It might help if i can login to puppy desktop, but the booter seems to override boot level 3. Which i really want to do anyway, so i can login as puppy or other non-root user. How to boot to level 3?

Update: solved the pkexec issue with

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/usr/lib/policykit-1/polkitd &

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... comments/1
is that an acceptable long-term solution for DevuanDog?

tho' i see /root/.config/autostart/Start polkit.desktop. Should that have started? If so, it seems that it failed to start.

Or, why not just leaf off the -pkexec, and run without polkit???
And why not turn off dbus too?
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/xfce ... ost-308436


Chromium error:
- installed chromium from synaptic
- on launch, getting

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# chromium 
[4801:4801:0911/114606.094772:ERROR:zygote_host_impl_linux.cc(89)] Running as root without --no-sandbox is not supported. See https://crbug.com/638180.

Update: i solved the chromium issue with the --no-sandbox switch. Chromium runs, but says "You are using an unsupported command-line flag --no-sandbox. Stability and security will suffer."

I'd still like to boot to puppy desktop


Save-file

changes=EXIT:/mychanges_on_second_partition
It will be found by searching at boot on all patritions, if it has unique name

any way to restrict it to the current partition, or preferably the current folder? I don't like the limitation of having to worry about duplicate names on some other partition.

THX

[rcrsn51]

@johnywhy: The instructions for the stretch-live-frugal-install tool refer to an alternate initrd1.xz file that is required with some systems on USB/SD installs.

Have you tried it yet?

[johnywhy]

@johnywhy: The instructions for the stretch-live-frugal-install tool refer to an alternate initrd1.xz file that is required with some systems on USB/SD installs. Have you tried it yet?

i think so. i used stretch-live-frugal-install to install a Devuan iso to an SD card, per these instructions.
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... ab4#979674

I see initrd1.xz, initrd.img, and vmlinuz1, in my iso, created by this script
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 908#996908

The SD wouldn't boot. My results are here
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 47#1004347

i suspect some UEFI issues, even tho' my BIOS is set to "USB Boot: Legacy".

The same iso boots fine, if i extract to a frugal folder on my HD.


THX

[fredx181]

Hi johnywhy,

Update: solved the pkexec issue with
Code:
/usr/lib/policykit-1/polkitd &

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... comments/1
is that an acceptable long-term solution for DevuanDog?

To be honest, I could never understand how this "pkexec" thing works, if above works for you it's ok, I guess.
I made Synaptic and Gparted run from Menu (when logged in as normal user) work by editing the .desktop launcher in /usr/share/applications and change Exec= line to:

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Exec=gsu synaptic

Similar for gparted, (gsu = "Graphical sudo")

Probably you'll find more issues when login as puppy or other normal user, it isn't much tested, so I wouldn't recommend it.
EDIT: I understood (wrong, I think) that you had this pkexec issue when logged in as puppy.

Update: i solved the chromium issue with the --no-sandbox switch. Chromium runs, but says "You are using an unsupported command-line flag --no-sandbox. Stability and security will suffer."

You can add also:

Code: Select all

--disable-infobars

And the message will not appear.

any way to restrict it to the current partition, or preferably the current folder? I don't like the limitation of having to worry about duplicate names on some other partition

Yes, with UUID, e.g.
changes=UUID:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX/my_changes
Replace the "XXXX...." with the UUID string, you can find it with blkid

It might help if i can login to puppy desktop, but the booter seems to override boot level 3. Which i really want to do anyway, so i can login as puppy or other non-root user. How to boot to level 3?

What I do is:
- Exit X
- type login, press Enter
- type username, press Enter
- type password, press Enter
No need for level 3, I guess (but maybe I misunderstand)

Fred

[johnywhy]

Hi fred

Is it possible to boot to command prompt, without logging in, instead of booting into X?

Is it possible to run X as puppy?

when i tried to startx as puppy, i got
"[ 27920.615] (EE) modeset(0): drmSetMaster failed: Permission denied"

Fixed that with specify to use the intel(4) driver
via /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Section "Device"
Identifier "Configured Video Device"
Driver "intel"
EndSection

http://debian.2.n7.nabble.com/Bug-83318 ... 01124.html

Is that a good fix?

Now i believe i'm getting

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[ 42556.191] (II) intel(0): EDID vendor "SEC", prod id 14407
[ 42556.191] (II) intel(0): Printing DDC gathered Modelines:
[ 42556.191] (II) intel(0): Modeline "1440x900"x0.0   96.31  1440 1504 1536 1760  900 903 906 912 -hsync -vsync (54.7 kHz eP)

THX

[fredx181]

Is it possible to run X as puppy?

when i tried to startx as puppy, i got
"[ 27920.615] (EE) modeset(0): drmSetMaster failed: Permission denied"

I think I see what's the problem, it's XFCE build right ?
I just tried and I got similar error.
It's not pre-configured for user puppy, instead of startx, type startxfce4 after puppy login, then X should start.
Also you need to configure XFCE, like theme, icons etc...
Sorry, didn't realize this earlier.

Is it possible to boot to command prompt, without logging in, instead of booting into X?

Yes, do from terminal:

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cp -af /etc/inittab-noauto /etc/inittab

After save and reboot, autologin should be disabled then.

EDIT: Fix to make startx work with puppy login:

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ln -s /etc/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc /home/puppy/.xinitrc

Fred

[dcung]

External monitor question.
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?p=1004855

[dcung]

I use mklive-stretch to make xfce 64 bit iso.
Thunar has the 'root warning' bit, and a little searching led me
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... &start=675
So, I looked in synaptic and it's already installed (later version).

I also found articles that suggested to edit thunar-window.c, but I guessed that require re-compiling.

How do I get rid that 'root warning'?

Also, in FullDog, XFCE menu is slightly different.
How do I get the 'search' section on top instead of bottom?
Is there a different 'whisker' plugin to install?

[Mike Walsh]

Interesting project, Fred.

After several false starts, I've finally got an XFCE-based, multimedia-centric compressed image made.....but every time it fails when trying to create the ISO.

I'm doing this in Xenialpup64. Created an ext4 partition just for the job. The script works beautifully.....it's really weird seeing Debian stuff scrolling through Puppy's terminal, I can tell ya!

I installed the xorriso package from the Xenial64 repos; obviously it needs to be installed on the host machine you're building this in, yes? It keeps telling me it can't find the correct path for the information required for the ISO.....or summat similar.

Any suggestions? Bearing in mind I'm not in Debian, how would I go about creating the ISO from the material I have inside the 'stretch' directory? (see below):-





Or can it be used directly as the basis for a 'quick-n-dirty' frugal install? (Create folder, copy contents of ISO across, run Grub4DOS?) Total size of the 'stretch' directory, by the way, is around 3.3 GB.....there is a lot of multimedia stuff in there, mate!

I assume I need to end up with something similar to BionicDog's /mnt/home, yes?





I await instruction, Maestro......


Mike.

[mikeslr]

.
How do I get the 'search' section on top instead of bottom?
Is there a different 'whisker' plugin to install?

Make sure your mouse-cursor is on the Whisker Menu, not just next to it. Right-Click. Select Properties. Left-Click the Behavior Tab. Check or uncheck boxes as appropriate.

[fredx181]

Hi Mike Walsh,

I installed the xorriso package from the Xenial64 repos; obviously it needs to be installed on the host machine you're building this in, yes?

Yes, xorriso on host machine, but also package "isolinux" is required for creating ISO (missing that is probably why it failed to create ISO for you), I think it's available from PPM on newer puppies.

Or can it be used directly as the basis for a 'quick-n-dirty' frugal install? (Create folder, copy contents of ISO across, run Grub4DOS?)

Without having created ISO you can still make frugal install using Grub4DOS.
On Bionicdog it's "casper" directory having the files inside, for Stretch it's "live" directory (inside stretch/isodata folder)

EDIT: See here for options frugal install:
https://github.com/DebianDog/Jessie/wiki/Porteus-boot
(change where it says in title "Wheezy" to "Stretch")
TODO: Make wiki page specially for Stretch

EDIT: Reading your message better, I think you'd like to create ISO from what has been built already.
If xorriso and isolinux is installed:
From terminal standing in the "stretch' directory:

Code: Select all

NEWISO=$PWD/isodata
LABEL=deblive
NAME=../DebLive_Stretch.iso

cd "$NEWISO"

xorriso -as mkisofs -r -J -joliet-long -l -isohybrid-mbr /usr/lib/ISOLINUX/isohdpfx.bin -partition_offset 16 -V "$LABEL" -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o ${NAME} "$NEWISO"

Fred

[dcung]

Make sure your mouse-cursor is on the Whisker Menu, not just next to it. Right-Click. Select Properties. Left-Click the Behavior Tab. Check or uncheck boxes as appropriate.

Thanks Mike.

[Mike Walsh]

Hi, Fred.

Yes; it seems you were right. 'Twas the addition of isolinux from Xenial64's repo that did the trick.

Code: Select all

root# NEWISO=$PWD/isodata 
root# LABEL=deblive 
root# NAME=../DebLive_Stretch.iso 
root# 
root# cd "$NEWISO" 
root# 
root# xorriso -as mkisofs -r -J -joliet-long -l -isohybrid-mbr /usr/lib/ISOLINUX/isohdpfx.bin -partition_offset 16 -V "$LABEL" -b isolinux/isolinux.bin -c isolinux/boot.cat -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o ${NAME} "$NEWISO"
xorriso 1.4.2 : RockRidge filesystem manipulator, libburnia project.

Drive current: -outdev 'stdio:../DebLive_Stretch.iso'
Media current: stdio file, overwriteable
Media status : is blank
Media summary: 0 sessions, 0 data blocks, 0 data, 33.8g free
xorriso : WARNING : -volid text does not comply to ISO 9660 / ECMA 119 rules
Added to ISO image: directory '/'='/SeaDesk/SeaDesk-4/stretch/isodata'
xorriso : UPDATE : 25 files added in 1 seconds
xorriso : UPDATE : 25 files added in 1 seconds
xorriso : NOTE : Copying to System Area: 432 bytes from file '/usr/lib/ISOLINUX/isohdpfx.bin'
libisofs: NOTE : Aligned image size to cylinder size by 53 blocks
xorriso : UPDATE :  0.34% done
xorriso : UPDATE :  21.54% done
xorriso : UPDATE :  30.66% done, estimate finish Tue Sep 18 22:06:17 2018
xorriso : UPDATE :  43.88% done, estimate finish Tue Sep 18 22:06:17 2018
xorriso : UPDATE :  52.43% done, estimate finish Tue Sep 18 22:06:17 2018
xorriso : UPDATE :  56.88% done, estimate finish Tue Sep 18 22:06:19 2018
xorriso : UPDATE :  63.85% done, estimate finish Tue Sep 18 22:06:19 2018
xorriso : UPDATE :  66.82% done, estimate finish Tue Sep 18 22:06:20 2018
xorriso : UPDATE :  70.75% done, estimate finish Tue Sep 18 22:06:21 2018
xorriso : UPDATE :  74.36% done, estimate finish Tue Sep 18 22:06:22 2018
xorriso : UPDATE :  77.32% done, estimate finish Tue Sep 18 22:06:23 2018
xorriso : UPDATE :  81.24% done, estimate finish Tue Sep 18 22:06:23 2018
xorriso : UPDATE :  84.36% done, estimate finish Tue Sep 18 22:06:23 2018
xorriso : UPDATE :  88.57% done, estimate finish Tue Sep 18 22:06:24 2018
xorriso : UPDATE :  93.36% done
xorriso : UPDATE :  96.83% done
ISO image produced: 284672 sectors
Written to medium : 284672 sectors at LBA 0
Writing to 'stdio:../DebLive_Stretch.iso' completed successfully.

Took all of about 10 seconds. Thank you.

It's a 'biggie', at 556 MB......but I told you I'd added a lot of stuff. Openshot, VLC, the GIMP, xvidcap, recordmydesktop, libreoffice.....to name but a few. Plus several of your additional 'dog' packages as well. And Google Chrome, of course.

Doubtless I shall modify it further as I go along, but it'll be nice to start off with what I consider to be the multimedia 'essentials'.....Openshot in particular. (Which I gave its first really serious 'run' today; joined 2 webm videos together, changed output types and format, and transcoded and exported as a single .mp4 video. Worked perfectly, too!)

It's probably the hardest the dual-core Athlon64 has ever worked; flat-out, 98-99% CPU usage for well over an hour. (And still didn't break through the 60C mark.) There again, I wouldn't like to say; I 'inherited' the Compaq desktop from my sister 4 years ago. The single-core Athlon it came with had had a very gentle life.....all she ever used to do was play 'The Sims'. This X2, I picked up on eBay for around £7 GBP.....but it was in pristine condition. Never given me any trouble, either.

You're right, though; I didn't really want to have to do it all over again. I had around a dozen 'false starts' before I finally got everything right.....but, like I said, your scripts worked perfectly.

Thanks for the tip about 'isolinux'..!

Cheers.


Mike.

EDIT:- One query, if I may? Since this was 'built' on an ext4 file-system, will it need an ext4 partition to run from.....or will it work from ext3? And would it run from a sub-directory?