Live file system
Do we have a complete filesystem on CD like SuSE does? It's a nice addition for those short in disk space. Michael -- Dr. Michael Meskes | Th.-Heuss-Str. 61, D-41812 Erkelenz | Go SF49ers! Senior-Consultant | business: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Go Rhein Fire! Mummert+Partner | private: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Use Debian Unternehmensberatung AG | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | GNU/Linux!
Re: Live file system
Michael Meskes wrote: > Do we have a complete filesystem on CD like SuSE does? It's a nice addition > for those short in disk space. Please send an appropriate patch to the debian-cd maintainer. Regards, Joey -- Never trust an operating system you don't have source for!
Re: Live file system
On Tue, Oct 06, 1998 at 07:37:10PM +0200, Martin Schulze wrote: > > Do we have a complete filesystem on CD like SuSE does? It's a nice addition > > for those short in disk space. > > Please send an appropriate patch to the debian-cd maintainer. That means there is none? I don't have a patch. Neither am I going to create one, but a collegue that I try to persuade to switch from SuSE might be interested. The live file system is the only thing that keeps him from switching and he might be willing to put some time into it. So if we don't have it I talk to him and tell you more. Michael -- Dr. Michael Meskes | Th.-Heuss-Str. 61, D-41812 Erkelenz | Go SF49ers! Senior-Consultant | business: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Go Rhein Fire! Mummert+Partner | private: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Use Debian Unternehmensberatung AG | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | GNU/Linux!
Re: Live file system
Michael Meskes wrote: > On Tue, Oct 06, 1998 at 07:37:10PM +0200, Martin Schulze wrote: > > > Do we have a complete filesystem on CD like SuSE does? It's a nice > > > addition > > > for those short in disk space. > > > > Please send an appropriate patch to the debian-cd maintainer. > > That means there is none? I don't have a patch. Neither am I going to create > one, but a collegue that I try to persuade to switch from SuSE might be > interested. The live file system is the only thing that keeps him from > switching and he might be willing to put some time into it. > > So if we don't have it I talk to him and tell you more. It is quite easy to install a set of packages on a different partition and write it to cd afterwards. So if you have a cd write around you should be able to produce a custom cd for him. Regards, Joey -- Never trust an operating system you don't have source for!
Re: Live file system
On Tue, 6 Oct 1998, Michael Meskes wrote: : On Tue, Oct 06, 1998 at 07:37:10PM +0200, Martin Schulze wrote: : > > Do we have a complete filesystem on CD like SuSE does? It's a nice addition : > > for those short in disk space. : > : > Please send an appropriate patch to the debian-cd maintainer. : : That means there is none? I don't have a patch. Neither am I going to create : one, but a collegue that I try to persuade to switch from SuSE might be : interested. The live file system is the only thing that keeps him from : switching and he might be willing to put some time into it. : : So if we don't have it I talk to him and tell you more. IIRC Dale Scheetz used to have one for bo (sorry if I'm wrong, Dale :) -- Nathan Norman MidcoNet 410 South Phillips Avenue Sioux Falls, SD mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.midco.net finger [EMAIL PROTECTED] for PGP Key: (0xA33B86E9)
Re: Live file system
On Tue, 6 Oct 1998, Nathan E Norman wrote: > > IIRC Dale Scheetz used to have one for bo (sorry if I'm wrong, Dale :) > Well, not exactly. What I do is an imbedded file system that can be installed on a DOS/Windows/'95 file system as simple files and booted with a special patched kernel using the loop device. BTW, DiD is available in hamm as well as bo versions for anyone interested ;-) The problem of a "live" file system on CD is more complex than that because you need to be able to write to some files on your system. The current solution is to use the initrd feature of the kernel to mount the CD file system onto a ramdisk, copy the volatile files from the CD to the ramdisk and symlink the rest of the file system off of the CD. The real problem with this scheme is that it requires the kernel to have, or accuire, information about the hardware. In addition, because of the need for volatile files, sufficient memory is required for the ramdisk, making small memory machines unusable. Then there is the question of what to do about /home? I've been working on a CD specific install that basically delivers a "standard" system with "cp -a" that could be used to also construct a "live" file system. I'll let you know how it works out, if I can ever get back to working on it. Dwarf -- _-_-_-_-_- Author of "The Debian Linux User's Guide" _-_-_-_-_-_- aka Dale Scheetz Phone: 1 (850) 656-9769 Flexible Software 11000 McCrackin Road e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tallahassee, FL 32308 _-_-_-_-_-_- If you don't see what you want, just ask _-_-_-_-_-_-_-
Re: Live file system
From: Dale Scheetz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Live file system Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 15:40:24 -0400 (EDT) > I've been working on a CD specific install that basically delivers a > "standard" system with "cp -a" that could be used to also construct a > "live" file system. I'll let you know how it works out, if I can ever get > back to working on it. I've tried to make a live CD called Livian (Live Debian :-)) a few weeks ago (It is quite useless and I don't have enough time to improve it now though). I've untarred base2_0.tgz into a new directory and used dpkg's "--admindir" and "--root" options to create a filesystem without affecting the real filesystem. Instead of "cp -a", we can have a generic method that the live CD creators can make a image as they want (just like a new installation). Keita Maehara <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Re: Live file system
On Tue, Oct 06, 1998 at 03:40:24PM -0400, Dale Scheetz wrote: > > IIRC Dale Scheetz used to have one for bo (sorry if I'm wrong, Dale :) > > > Well, not exactly. What I do is an imbedded file system that can be > installed on a DOS/Windows/'95 file system as simple files and booted with > a special patched kernel using the loop device. BTW, DiD is available in > hamm as well as bo versions for anyone interested ;-) The way I see to do this You have boot files on the CD, like you would on a rescue floppy, in fact you COULD have a rescue floppy, but that rescue floppy would have a much simpler install function... To install, just figure out where user wants this stuff to be and create a Debian dir for them on the filesystem they choose which will have an initrd and stuff, and then build them a ext2 image with extra space for /, with /etc and /var and an empty /usr. The initrd's job? Mount the filesystem (probably msdos or vfat) and set up the loopback fs so it'll be mounted as root. The init stuff for the loopback root of course mounts your cdrom someplace and makes /usr be what's on the live filesystem.. You now have canned Debian in about 30-50 megs HD space. The same technique could be used for a no-partitioning-needed installation (someone posted a message about that, forget who) Take that and add a way for the initrd to find the device containing the loopback / image and you'll have the basis for Debian on things like Zip and Superdisks that can be downloaded and unpacked to the disk and it'll set itself up even as bootable, etc. Why do that? My rescue zip disk project, which I WILL get back to at some point. I had gotten as far as an idea of how to do the part you've apparently done already---the / loopback deal---and was trying to figure out a good way to find the image from the initrd.. Maybe some magic filenames or something, I have no idea how best to do it actually. pgpKD1RcTFl4f.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Live file system
Keita Maehara <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > I've been working on a CD specific install that basically delivers a > > "standard" system with "cp -a" that could be used to also construct a > > "live" file system. I'll let you know how it works out, if I can ever get > > back to working on it. > I've tried to make a live CD called Livian (Live Debian :-)) a few > weeks ago (It is quite useless and I don't have enough time to improve > it now though). > I've untarred base2_0.tgz into a new directory and used dpkg's > "--admindir" and "--root" options to create a filesystem without > affecting the real filesystem. Instead of "cp -a", we can have a > generic method that the live CD creators can make a image as they want > (just like a new installation). Actually, it is easiest to untar base2_0.tgz. Cd into the directory and do: "chroot . bin/bash" Will give you a bash shell in an environment that thinks the current directory is the root directory, then you can do: mount /proc /proc -t proc and configure and install packages. (I often use this technique to test glibc 2.1, or install Debian on a different partition. At one time I had a machine that was running Red Hat and Debian at the same time - if you telneted in, you got Debian and if you used ssh to connect you got Red Hat.) Steve [EMAIL PROTECTED]
