larch-5.2 released

gradgrind · 2008-03-10 20:18:24

New version of the do-it-yourself Arch Linux 'live' system.

On the larch website (http://larch.berlios.de) I have promoted larch-5.2 to the status of 'current' version. It still needs wider testing, but has been working well here during my development work. The documentation has been updated for this new version.

Perhaps the most interesting new feature is the new approach to session saving. The default session saving is now a direct copy to/from memory of the topmost union layer, which is saved as an archive compressed with lzop (which is fast, though it doesn't compress that brilliantly). Additionally there is a layer of session-saving which works similarly to previous versions of larch, using squashfs. If the first (lzo) overlay gets large enough to produce a disturbing delay at boot/shutdown, it can be merged with this secondary layer, so that the top layer becomes small and fast again. Thanks to a new feature in aufs (introduced this week at my request - Junjiro, the aufs developer, is a really great guy!) it is now possible to perform this overlay merging with no significant memory overhead, and it should also be a lot faster than previously.

There is of course also the new hard disk installer with GUI, which should make it easier to install an Arch Linux system from a larch CD or USB-stick. The example profile 'xmini' provides a fairly minimal xfce based system with a desktop icon to launch the installer.

See http://larch.berlios.de/doc/larch_quick.html for a quick-start.

Share and Enjoy!

Sigi · 2008-03-10 22:31:27

Great! Looking forward to try it out in a few days (or weeks?)

stingray · 2008-03-29 05:48:26

Hello! I'm trying this out for the first time, very impressed!

One question, I ran "./mklarch -u -p larch/profiles/xmini" to install to a usb, but had the usb mounted (my mistake, I knew better), but it made it through the install and creating the live cd, then failed with the mounted usb. So I unmounted and started over. Just wondering if there was a way that I could have picked up with just the installing to usb part without starting from scratch.

I noticed that over on the FaunOS wiki it was suggested to use the -b to go skip to the build part, but that didn't seam to work with this release of larch.

Thanks for your help!

Rick

gradgrind · 2008-03-30 11:19:39

stingray wrote:

One question, I ran "./mklarch -u -p larch/profiles/xmini" to install to a usb, but had the usb mounted (my mistake, I knew better), but it made it through the install and creating the live cd, then failed with the mounted usb. So I unmounted and started over. Just wondering if there was a way that I could have picked up with just the installing to usb part without starting from scratch.

Please suggest how I can improve the documentation so that it is not necessary to post such questions

You need to use the 'larchify' script - run it with -h to get a usage message, you will probably want the -i option in this case.

stanger · 2008-03-30 15:47:47

Hi,
after today's updates has cd, built by last larch scripts, some problem with aufs.

Screenshot from virtualbox: http://core-dump.cz/livecd/kernel_panic.png

stingray · 2008-03-30 19:45:10

gradgrind wrote:

You need to use the 'larchify' script - run it with -h to get a usage message, you will probably want the -i option in this case.

That's what I needed! Thank you!

gradgrind wrote:

Please suggest how I can improve the documentation so that it is not necessary to post such questions

I was assuming the the script 'larchify' was used for taking an existing arch system and making a live cd or usb from it. So I didn't even look at it. So a suggestion would be to add something to the help message of mklarch that mentions larchify as being another useful script. You could even mention running it with -h for the usage messages.

Thank you again for your help! I am very impressed with larch and little by little tweaking the profiles to my liking. Great work!

Rick

gradgrind · 2008-03-31 09:54:41

stanger wrote:

Hi,
after today's updates has cd, built by last larch scripts, some problem with aufs.
Screenshot from virtualbox: http://core-dump.cz/livecd/kernel_panic.png

Ahh, the ever-changing world of Arch! New kernel, new patch selection ...

I've uploaded a new aufs package to the larch repository, so I hope it will work now.

Flying Saxman · 2008-04-13 16:25:38

When I run mklarch, it always tells me that initcpio_larch is not found in sync-db. And it's true, in your larch-5-repo there is really no initcpio_larch-file. Could you please correct this mistake?

gradgrind · 2008-04-14 04:54:55

Flying Saxman wrote:

When I run mklarch, it always tells me that initcpio_larch is not found in sync-db. And it's true, in your larch-5-repo there is really no initcpio_larch-file. Could you please correct this mistake?

initcpio_larch is not a part of larch-5. I guess you are using a profile (or at least an addedpacks) from larch-4. Please compare your addedpacks with that in the xmini example profile. You might well have to change other things in your profile, too, but that rather depends on what you've got in there ... . The best tested example profile is now xmini, so use that for reference.

Flying Saxman · 2008-04-14 14:31:46

OK, thanks for that info, I used the kde-profile for comparison!

BeRReGoN · 2008-04-22 05:41:37

Just to let you know that you have done a really good job!

I've tried faunos but i didn't like having to remove a lot of stuff and install XFCE4 since i'm using some older computers at my job. But the saving session was getting long to do. Probably there was a way to rebuild things to be quicker but didn't find out anyway i wanted to try larch and configure things myself but i had some USB boot problems.

Got me some days to figure out how to do a boot CD to load on my USB pen drive, even my recent laptop with an update bios could not boot on USB. Now that i find a way, i'm really please with it. Having an arch system in your pocket ready to plug it everywhere is awesome!

Will just need to find some small cd for the non USB boot computers, since the boot is only 5 megs no need for a big one.

Flying Saxman · 2008-04-22 14:09:30

I've got another problem. This time something technical: I want two partitions on the stick, one for the live-system and the other one fat-formatted for data-exchange between Windows<-->Linux. This means that the data-partition needs to be recognized instantly if I connect it to a Windows-Machine (or lets say any WinXP-Version and newer) that Windows recognizes the fat-partition as a normal stick. Is this possible?

Sigi · 2008-04-22 15:16:56

Flying Saxman: I'm not 100% sure about that but I think Win only recognizes 1 (the first?) partition on a usb stick (if it recognizes the filesystem). So I don't think your idea is possible because of Windows restrictions... But I'm not really that sure about that.

lilsirecho · 2008-04-22 15:22:35

FaunOS uses archlinux and Larch and provides the first partition as fat for windows compat altho as provided it is small in size.

Flying Saxman · 2008-04-22 15:27:37

@lilsirecho: Do you know, how FaunOS solved this? I wanna know because I'd like to customize the stick a lot.

wantilles · 2008-05-10 08:54:40

@ gradgrind

Is there a way to instruct Larch 5.2 to:

- take into account the repositories present in the existing system's pacman.conf and in the order they are declared there
- use the existing pacman cache
- do not sync and download packages

The reason I want to do this is because I need 3-4 specific packages from testing in order to make a kernel 2.6.25 live CD.

gradgrind · 2008-05-10 14:38:56

wantilles wrote:

@ gradgrind
Is there a way to instruct Larch 5.2 to:
- take into account the repositories present in the existing system's pacman.conf and in the order they are declared there

That is the default (if there is no pacman.conf in the profile or in the directory in which mklarch is run). If this contains no larch5 repository entry, that will be added before 'testing'.

wantilles wrote:

- use the existing pacman cache

That is the default (I assume you mean on the build machine). To change this, use the -c option to mklarch.

wantilles wrote:

- do not sync and download packages

If you mean you want to use the pacman database on the build machine, use the -y option to mklarch, e.g.

mklarch ... -y /var/lib/pacman ...

Please let me know if you have problems with this, I haven't tested it much.

wantilles wrote:

The reason I want to do this is because I need 3-4 specific packages from testing in order to make a kernel 2.6.25 live CD.

aufs might be a problem as I have compiled this with special options for larch. The build process has changed a bit for kernel 2.6.25. You could try the aufs package in testing, though that probably won't support overlay merging. If that's not important to you (e.g. if you are only interested in CDs), I would suggest copying your pacman.conf to the directory you call mklarch from (your working directory) and adding the larch5 repository manually, after the testing repository, so that the testing version of aufs is used. Otherwise you will have to build your own aufs (I will update my aufs when 2.6.25 hits current).

wantilles · 2008-05-11 09:30:59

@ gradgrind

What is the difference between overlay and rootoverlay?

Is it just a rename?

Last edited by wantilles (2008-05-11 09:38:28)

gradgrind · 2008-05-11 11:22:16

wantilles wrote:

@ gradgrind
What is the difference between overlay and rootoverlay?
Is it just a rename?

I assume you're looking at svn trunk. There are a couple of outstanding issues with the larch development code at the moment (not bugs, I think, but design changes that may be reverted), so it is probably best not to use it yet, stick to 5.2.

Anyway, from CHANGES:

version 5.2.1, slight reworking of overlay handling in profiles - now files
owned by root:root do not have to be in overlay.xpk, they can be held within
directory 'rootoverlay', and their ownership will be changed automatically.

wantilles · 2008-05-11 11:29:26

gradgrind wrote:

I assume you're looking at svn trunk. There are a couple of outstanding issues with the larch development code at the moment (not bugs, I think, but design changes that may be reverted), so it is probably best not to use it yet, stick to 5.2.

Okay I will try with 5.2, but, watch this:

Anyway I tried 5.3 SVN on amd64, to produce a 2.6.25 kernel live CD.

It does not work.

Initramfs never finishes.

It says something about device "/dev/loop0" and exits to a "ramfs" prompt.

I used aufs from testing.

The same profile (using your own aufs) works with the 2.6.24 kernel.

So, I will rebuild your own aufs against kernel 2.6.25 and try again.

Last edited by wantilles (2008-05-11 11:47:33)

wantilles · 2008-05-11 12:13:59

I made the changes to the larch5.2 aufs PKGBUILD.

But it does not build against kernel 2.6.25.

gradgrind · 2008-05-11 17:58:00

Yes, I believe there are a couple of 'gotchas' connected with switching to 2.6.25.

1) aufs. This now has separate code specifically for 2.6.25, which means that the PKGBUILD must be changed. I haven't tried it yet, but I would suggest either using the aufs from Arch testing for the moment, or basing your build on that. I think the only change desirable for larch is the addition of CONFIG_AUFS_SHWH (for overlay merging).

2) loop mounts. I think I may have read somewhere (!) that the Arch (testing) kernel no longer has 'loop' built in, so it would need to be added to the modules in the initramfs.

I hope that is of some help. I'll try to do some tests with 2.6.25 soon, but it's a bit annoying that new versions seem to be appearing every 5 minutes!

wantilles · 2008-05-11 18:08:38

gradgrind wrote:

2) loop mounts. I think I may have read somewhere (!) that the Arch (testing) kernel no longer has 'loop' built in, so it would need to be added to the modules in the initramfs.

You think that was why it did not boot?

I assume I do that by adding it to the "MODULES=" line in the "mkinitcpio.conf" of the profile.

Do I have to add it into "rcconfx"? I think not.

gradgrind · 2008-05-11 18:35:07

wantilles wrote:

gradgrind wrote:
2) loop mounts. I think I may have read somewhere (!) that the Arch (testing) kernel no longer has 'loop' built in, so it would need to be added to the modules in the initramfs.
You think that was why it did not boot?
I assume I do that by adding it to the "MODULES=" line in the "mkinitcpio.conf" of the profile.
Do I have to add it into "rcconfx"? I think not.

Yes, try putting it in mkinitcpio.conf. I'm not sure if these modules get loaded automatically, so, if not, a modprobe would be necessary somewhere.

wantilles · 2008-05-11 20:29:54

OK putting "loop" in "MODULES=" in "mkinitcpio.conf" worked.

LArch 5.2 can produce kernel 2.6.25 live CDs.

It only needs from testing the kernel and aufs.

Tested successfully on both architectures.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-03-10 20:18:24

larch-5.2 released

#2 2008-03-10 22:31:27

Re: larch-5.2 released

#3 2008-03-29 05:48:26

Re: larch-5.2 released

#4 2008-03-30 11:19:39

Re: larch-5.2 released

#5 2008-03-30 15:47:47

Re: larch-5.2 released

#6 2008-03-30 19:45:10

Re: larch-5.2 released

#7 2008-03-31 09:54:41

Re: larch-5.2 released

#8 2008-04-13 16:25:38

Re: larch-5.2 released

#9 2008-04-14 04:54:55

Re: larch-5.2 released

#10 2008-04-14 14:31:46

Re: larch-5.2 released

#11 2008-04-22 05:41:37

Re: larch-5.2 released

#12 2008-04-22 14:09:30

Re: larch-5.2 released

#13 2008-04-22 15:16:56

Re: larch-5.2 released

#14 2008-04-22 15:22:35

Re: larch-5.2 released

#15 2008-04-22 15:27:37

Re: larch-5.2 released

#16 2008-05-10 08:54:40

Re: larch-5.2 released

#17 2008-05-10 14:38:56

Re: larch-5.2 released

#18 2008-05-11 09:30:59

Re: larch-5.2 released

#19 2008-05-11 11:22:16

Re: larch-5.2 released

#20 2008-05-11 11:29:26

Re: larch-5.2 released

#21 2008-05-11 12:13:59

Re: larch-5.2 released

#22 2008-05-11 17:58:00

Re: larch-5.2 released

#23 2008-05-11 18:08:38

Re: larch-5.2 released

#24 2008-05-11 18:35:07

Re: larch-5.2 released

#25 2008-05-11 20:29:54

Re: larch-5.2 released

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