live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

lilsirecho · 2006-07-21 17:09:42

Continuing the discussion...

I have in cache a 1228MB added packs in addition to the 102.8 of base packs.

I reran mkarch and it loaded the cached base pkgs without download.
Folllowing that, an upgrade to gxine (currently on the archlinux recent upgrade list) occured.

The remaining 1228MB of packs was then installed without download.

The larch system thusly upgrades by first making the "sync" test via pacman.

You can get these upgrades it seems and they are automatic.

I have ftp mode selected for my larch source of added packs.

lilsirecho · 2006-07-21 18:18:02

Sigi;

I noticed many references to .....proc is empty(not mounted?)...during the mkarch install of the 1228MB of pkgs.

I have no clue as to what causes that to appear...maybe my Larch is corrupted.

I also have had trials that end in kernel panic with a statement ...cat /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info no such file or directory........

Any ideas?

lilsirecho · 2006-07-21 23:33:10

Downloaded the latest Larch pkg from SIGI.

Still having problem with /proc empty (not loaded?) During mkarch added pkgs linstall.

Must be I missed some entry required in the scripts....

gradgrind · 2006-07-22 05:59:40

@grail:

Are you still having the problem? It sounds like you had been breaking off the process before it really got going. It is normal that an enormous list is displayed, but if these packages are in the cache they should be taken from there, as lilsirecho says. This is just the normal pacman output. Let it run further and see what happens. Only start worrying if it actually starts downloading packages that are definitely in your cache, but that would be very unexpected!

@lilsirecho:
Can you try to find out exactly when the /proc errors occur - which packages were being installed at the time? It may be caused by problems with the install scripts for these packages, which may warrant a bug report. At some point some gnome packages were a bit dodgy, I remember. When pacman installs to an alternative base directory, using the -r option, I think it does a chroot for the install script without mounting the proc filesystem, so the install script will find no proc filesystem.

lilsirecho · 2006-07-22 15:42:15

Gradgrind;

Deleted all refernces to gnome pkgs in added packs. Saved and exit added packs. That was a lot of pkgs deleted.

Re-ran mkarch and received latest upgrades but the list of added packs was essentially the same...still had the gnome packages and the install still indicated no /proc which means that the live-data will have no.... cd dev info....

Do I have to clear the cache? That would mean a long download.....

Perhaps an error in the procedure?

gradgrind · 2006-07-22 19:36:17

@lilsirecho:

It's a problem with the install scripts of certain gnome packages. Something (I guess gconftool-2) wants to access the proc filesystem, which is not available in the installation environment. I have posted a question - http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?t=23429 - hoping for some feedback on this point as I have no idea why these packages do this, nor whether the consequences are 'serious'.

Have you tried ignoring the '/proc' messages? If so did you notice any problems when running gnome applications? I'm not a great fan of the gnome stuff on the whole, so I haven't tested it.

Another point: Can you describe when you got the following problem?

I also have had trials that end in kernel panic with a statement ...cat /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info no such file or directory........

Is it repeatable?

lilsirecho · 2006-07-22 20:19:36

Gradgrind;

I received the kernel panic after running mklive and it repeats with more trials.

I am convinced its a RAM problem since my 3GB ram has developed an intermittent condition.

I have one DVD with 3.577GB of uncompressed pkgs which includes many gnome pkgs and it performs well.

I have to spend more time with this after getting 3GB of dependable RAM(next week).

That will set-up my limiting factor in making full DVD sized Larch.

I cannot go beyond 3GB in mobo but if swap is useable, can run a couple hundred max in swap. Would have to partition more if not enough.

Trying the limits of Larch I am!

I

lilsirecho · 2006-07-22 21:44:53

Gradgrind;
Copied my 3.577GB DVD to a DVD-R DVDmedia disc.

Installed the disc in my wif'e's pentium 111 with 256 RAM 800mhz.

Booted and performed well. She can run win2000, puppy, and now Larch!!!

grail · 2006-07-23 08:18:38

I'm letting it go now that I know it's not really going to try download 500Mb but it's still failing:

swscanner: not found in sync db

Package installation from addedpacks FAILED.

ls -ltr /export/larch_all/custompacks/swscanner-0.2.2-1.pkg.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1002020 2006-07-23 14:33 /export/larch_all/custompacks/swscanner-0.2.2-1.pkg.tar.gz

cat addedpacks | grep swscan
swscanner

Any ideas? I put the package in custompacks and added it to addpacks?

gradgrind · 2006-07-23 09:56:51

Strange!

You could check that the swscanner package gets an entry in the db file custom.db.tar.gz which is generated (by mkarch) in the custompacks directory.

You could also edit mkarch, commenting out the last line (rm pacman_conf), and then check that the custompacks directory is correctly entered as the [custom] server in pacman_conf (after running mkarch).

grail · 2006-07-23 10:52:31

This is what is in the custome.db.tar.gz file:
tar xvzf custom.db.tar.gz
a2ps-4.13b-3/
a2ps-4.13b-3/desc
a2ps-4.13b-3/depends
acroread-7.0.8-1/
acroread-7.0.8-1/desc
acroread-7.0.8-1/depends

and in the pacman_conf file
[custom]
Server = file:///export/larch_all/custompacks

ls -ltr /export/larch_all/custompacks/swscanner-0.2.2-1.pkg.tar.gz
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1002020 2006-07-23 14:33 /export/larch_all/custompacks/swscanner-0.2.2-1.pkg.tar.gz

gradgrind · 2006-07-23 13:19:39

Well, the entry in pacman_conf looks ok, but how did a2ps and acroread get in custom.db.tar.gz? These packages are in the extra/current repos and thus shouldn't be here. And is that all that is in there? What exactly do you have in your custompacks directory?

grail · 2006-07-24 03:49:00

OK got it to work and all seems well. It was (as you suggested) an issue with a couple of packages from extra in the /custompacks dir.

I have not burnt or run the live system yet so will see how that goes.

Anyway is there a way/option to tell it not to squash when creating the .iso. My .iso is 850Mb so I'm going to have to burn it to DVD (I think it's about 4Gb uncompressed)

gradgrind · 2006-07-24 04:48:44

I'm afraid I never considered the possibility that someone might want an 'unsquashed' live CD. Why would you want to do that?

grail · 2006-07-24 05:24:17

hmmm no real desire to do it other than if it's going on a DVD then there will be 3.5Gb of free space anyway. So I have seen a few people using this to make a LiveDVD which is probably what I'll try and do instead.

lilsirecho · 2006-07-27 20:57:20

Sigi;

If you have the mkarch ...ArchImage file..., would you open the /proc folder and see what is in it?

Mine are always empty. There should be data for the cdrom in it.

I haven't been able to repeat the larch kit since the latest upgrades to mkinitcpio and kernels.

Sigi · 2006-07-30 16:55:51

lilsirecho wrote:

Sigi;
If you have the mkarch ...ArchImage file..., would you open the /proc folder and see what is in it?
Mine are always empty. There should be data for the cdrom in it.
I haven't been able to repeat the larch kit since the latest upgrades to mkinitcpio and kernels.

Sorry for my late answer. (It's summer/holiday-time here in switzerland and i've been camping in Italy for a week and I'll go to Lloret de mar, Spain tomorrow for a stay of 9 days.)

My experiences regarding the /proc dir and mkarch are the same as yours. I never mentioned this before because I've never had any problems caused by this.

Cheers Sigi

lilsirecho · 2006-08-07 17:36:08

Latest results here: Live Arch DVD of 7578MB dual-layer Larch : in ARCH DISCUSSION forum.

Kudos to gradgrind and his Larch scripts

Sigi · 2006-08-09 15:46:58

I'm back from holiday. Does larch already have a new webspace provider?

Sigi · 2006-08-15 14:52:32

With the upcomming kernel 2.6.18 the initrd-days are gone and mkinitcpio becomes Arch's default boot process initializer. How does larch handle this fact? Doesn't it boot an initrd? I haven't investigated in this topic yet, I'm just wondering...

Cheers Sigi

gradgrind · 2006-08-16 08:13:44

I'm just back from holiday, too. I'll try to get things a bit up to date, gradually. There's a copy-to-ram feature awaiting publication (for all those with oceans of RAM, i.e. not me), and I'll try to get some sort of website going again.

The mkinitcpio stuff is only a way to get the modules which are necessary for booting loaded. In principle, larch could also use it, but as it's quite a bit more complicated than what is already there, I'm not sure about it yet (why make myself more work when the present setup is still functional?). larch uses an initramfs (as mkinitcpio does) but it uses busybox/uclibc rather than the newer klibc.

Sigi · 2006-08-16 08:53:03

In other words: new kernels (>= 2.6.18 ) are able to handle the larch initrd-stuff and I don't have to worry anything? Great! 8)

gradgrind · 2006-08-16 15:54:17

The latest version of larch, now promoted to version 1.0.0, should be available (temporarily) at http://ultrashare.net/hosting/fl/d212b93b64/

Share and enjoy!

Sigi · 2006-08-16 16:28:57

Here is a fast mirror

lilsirecho · 2006-08-17 03:28:34

The new 1.0 larch scripts performed correctly.

Many thanks for your great scripts!

Arch Linux

#76 2006-07-21 17:09:42

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#77 2006-07-21 18:18:02

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#78 2006-07-21 23:33:10

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#79 2006-07-22 05:59:40

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#80 2006-07-22 15:42:15

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#81 2006-07-22 19:36:17

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#82 2006-07-22 20:19:36

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#83 2006-07-22 21:44:53

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#84 2006-07-23 08:18:38

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#85 2006-07-23 09:56:51

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#86 2006-07-23 10:52:31

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#87 2006-07-23 13:19:39

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#88 2006-07-24 03:49:00

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#89 2006-07-24 04:48:44

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#90 2006-07-24 05:24:17

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#91 2006-07-27 20:57:20

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#92 2006-07-30 16:55:51

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#93 2006-08-07 17:36:08

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#94 2006-08-09 15:46:58

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#95 2006-08-15 14:52:32

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#96 2006-08-16 08:13:44

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#97 2006-08-16 08:53:03

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#98 2006-08-16 15:54:17

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#99 2006-08-16 16:28:57

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#100 2006-08-17 03:28:34

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

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