larch-5.3 released

gradgrind · 2008-05-26 12:37:02

Mostly minor updates to this do-it-yourself Arch live-CD kit. It now comes with an aufs package updated for kernel 2.6.25.

Atticus · 2008-05-29 14:24:09

Thanks for the update, gradgrind. I'm still planning on doing work on some installer plugins, but am still working on other parts of my project.

funkyou · 2008-05-29 17:12:39

gradgrind,

i want to send you a big "thank you!" for larch. After evaluating several solutions for our upcoming liveCD, we have settled with larch (with some modifications) because it is by far the best and cleanest solution

I am also in the process of adding more stuff to the scripts, like kernel boot parameters for localization and xorg.conf creation (and much more). If you are interested, i will send you these changes of course ...

Again, larch is just great, thanks for your hard work, its very appreciated.

LTSmash · 2008-05-30 00:17:32

funkyou wrote:

gradgrind,
i want to send you a big "thank you!" for larch. After evaluating several solutions for our upcoming liveCD, we have settled with larch (with some modifications) because it is by far the best and cleanest solution
I am also in the process of adding more stuff to the scripts, like kernel boot parameters for localization and xorg.conf creation (and much more). If you are interested, i will send you these changes of course ...
Again, larch is just great, thanks for your hard work, its very appreciated.

Well I was working on an autoconfiguring script for X server including VESA fallback (based on ubuntu's solution...), so if it's needed I would also love to help.

gradgrind · 2008-05-30 04:53:14

Thanks for the positive feedback, and yes, please do send me any useful additions. I can put them in an example profile in the larch package in case they are of use to other people (assuming I understand them!).

And Atticus, no hurry - progress on the new larchin is also not very fast at the moment.

TheSaint · 2008-05-30 06:29:19

It's a bit long that I'm planning to set up Arch out of the box.
I have a 6 Gb USB-HD and I'd like to setup linux in it. So I will be easy to plug into several PC (my desktop, my laptop and some office PC) and run as if it is my own.
The only think I'm asking here it's that larch let me set up archlinux in a plain setting without compressing it and running into cloop method like Knoppix?
Actually I've Arch in my laptop, I'm looking at larch to see whether can be slimmed down to fit into that USB-HD and preserve my look-&-feel. I only have to find out to boot by a CD or floppy because my laptop boot not from USB.
Even a 4 Gb USB-Flash drive would run finely, to whom like to have it in a smaller shape, I still remember distro running in less than 1 Gb

F

gradgrind · 2008-05-30 08:26:06

Hi TheSaint,

One of the main points about larch is that it does compress the system (it uses squashfs). It sounds like you just need to do a fairly normal Arch installation on your drive.

Flying Saxman · 2008-05-30 10:41:39

LTSmash wrote:

Well I was working on an autoconfiguring script for X server including VESA fallback (based on ubuntu's solution...), so if it's needed I would also love to help.

I am also interested in these, as I do not get X running on my computer with larch and the standard-delievered xorg.confs.

Atticus · 2008-05-30 12:54:20

LTSmash wrote:

Well I was working on an autoconfiguring script for X server including VESA fallback (based on ubuntu's solution...), so if it's needed I would also love to help.

Hey I would love to get ahold of this if you'd be willing to send it to me. If you would, could you either post it here or email it to me? (adamplumb at gmail)

gradgrind · 2008-05-31 05:17:49

One thing that might help anyone trying to write an xorg autoconfig program would be if people whose systems don't work 'out of the box' (i.e. with no xorg.conf) could post what they have to do to get it working (maybe start a thread with this info).

gradgrind · 2008-05-31 07:12:27

The official Arch aufs package in 'extra' has now been fixed for kernel 2.6.25. As it is also configured with the 'SHWH' (show whiteouts) option used by larch's overlay merging, this package is now suitable for use in larch systems. So I have removed my own aufs package from the larch repository. Unfortunately the official package has the same name as my latest one, so you might get a 'corrupt package' message. If you have used my latest package (200080527), deleting it from the package cache beforehand will avoid this. For the moment I have left my PKGBUILD in svn trunk, in case it is needed sometime, somewhere ...

paraflu · 2008-07-02 01:16:45

Hello gradgrind

I have got a major problem with the larch usb installation. Using qemu like before and larchify
an existing partition, transfer it to my usbstick and try to boot it afterwards, i experience the
error messages that it could not found any partition (sdx) with larchboot. The boot process
is very fast, so it is not easy for me to really see where the error occured. I rebooted and rebooted
and after some time i came with the conclusion i`ve mentioned above. It ends with the message that it
could not found the /proc/XXX file. After larchify again and again. I tested larchify with the profile
option and after that it did found the partition. ??? But this is not what i wanted , i want to use it
without a profile. I really don`t know if it depends on my system configuration, so i read the posts in
the threads, but nobody mentioned it. It would be nice if someone could tell me if they experience the
same without a profile, because i am getting closer into thinking that the error is on my part. By the way
i updated to 5.3, because i thought that this had been solved, but it did not changed. It worked
before with the same usbstick, so i think this is also not the problem. Could it be that the profile is involved
in the booting process, otherwise i really don`t know. Some informations from other could really help me
here to limit the error further.
Maybe i should begin to use a real system or change the VM (qemu has/had some acpi bugs, but i don`t
think this is involved, but maybe thats the case. I don`t know) :-)

Thanks for your answers.

gradgrind · 2008-07-06 20:18:17

Hi paraflu,

I'm afraid I'm not at home until the end of July, so I can't investigate this. At the moment I can only suggest you try to find out which bit of the profile is needed by starting from a working situation and gradually removing stuff from the profile bit by bit. It might also be worth testing this on a real system, or perhaps on a different vm.

stanger · 2008-07-09 15:10:03

Hi, i have problem with all profiles with X. X doesnt start and show this errors:

https://jcms.cz/larch/larch_problem.PNG

thanks

stanger · 2008-07-11 09:13:41

its only need downgrade vesa driver

digitalcrypto · 2008-08-08 23:30:30

Hey gradgrind,

I think packages.txt was deleted from the repos and is slowly being replicated out since 7 August.

So perhaps this need to be changed to not rely on the outdated packages.txt method or if it is needed you can host a local file on larch repo to fix the problem temporarily.

Thanks,
DC

gradgrind · 2008-08-09 15:30:07

Thanks for that, digitalcrypto. It should be fixed now (by using pacman -Sg base), in larch-5.3.7.

Unfortunately the loss of pacman.static in pacman-3.2 means that mklarch cannot be used from non-Arch systems any more - I hope someone comes up with a solution for that one.

gradgrind · 2008-08-10 13:18:55

Well, I came up with a solution - a package of pacman together with all the libraries it needs.

So now (larch-5.3.8) it should be possible to build using mklarch on non-Arch systems again. I tested it on ubuntu.

paraflu · 2008-09-11 03:20:56

hello , gradgrind

I:
Regarding my boot problem: I did a new install in a qemu enviroment. Installed all needed larch components
and larchify the system with larchify -gu / and it worked. So the problem is solved, even if i don`t know
what the problem was.

II:
IIa: If got some questions about the boot process. Why don`t you use uuid in the
booting script, when it searched for the root partition, or is this not
possible? I ask this for knowledge and maybe this could avoid booting
the wrong system when two larch-usbstick are inserted.

IIb: About the kernel update. This will crash the system. Do you know how to avoid
the kernel update when i do a pacman -Su? I think i have to avoid the kernel
modules, too.

IIc: Kernel update v2: I thought about the kernel update and hopefully you can comment
about the thoughts.
Let`s say i`ve got two usbsticks. One with an installed larch system , the other partitioned,
but empty. I boot and then mount the other usbstick partition for example to /new-install
then i do a pacman -Syu avoid the kernel update and related modules. I create a .larchify
dir and ln the larchify/cd to the /new-install and larchify -gu / . This would create the
new larch-system on the empty usbstick. After that i create a new dir /new-larch-kernel.
Now i do a pacman -root /new-kernel-kernel -S kernel-26 mkinitcpio and the needed larch-scripts
for generating the modified larch kernel. After that i chroot into the dir and execute the
scripts. I exit and copy the new kernel to the new usbstick and execute the grub-install.
This could update larch with a new kernel or am i wrong here. I don`t know about the libs.
But it will be interesting what you think about it, even if i think you thought about
solving this a long time ago.
This could also be done with one usbstick if it would be loaded complete into ram.

III:
Various things and slightly off topic

IIIa: When i want to install an arch system to an usbstick, what do i have to do. Load the
usb hook. Avoid repeated writing on the system when i cancel syslog-ng? Load /tmp and
/var/tmp into tmpfs? Use uuid? Maybe you know something about it.

IIIb: Combined with IIIa. I tried FuseCompress to gain a smaller system, but it is very slow
, normaly i get 6-7 MBytes/sec and using it i get 1.2 MByte/sec. But it has the ability
to compress on-the-fly, so maybe it could be an alternative.

IIIc: Combined IIIa with IIIb and luks and truecrypt. I would like to have a fully encrypted
system on an usbstick with a user encrypted container which could be mounted even on
windows. I say this only because i am confused and don`t know what to do, but maybe
somebody has any hint or suggestion.

IV:

IVa: Is it possible to use larch with a backup system like timevault or rsync, to archieve
a rollback system? I think so, it should be independent of larch.

And absolute offtopic: I discovered a really small live-system with http://slitaz.org/en/ . Very fast
and small. I am really impressed. So, maybe somebody is interested in it.

Thanks for your answers.

gradgrind · 2008-09-11 07:01:10

Hi paraflu

As I started a new job recently and will be very busy over at least the next month or so, I can't look at all your suggestions/questions at the moment, but I'll do what I can.

paraflu wrote:

II:
IIa: If got some questions about the boot process. Why don`t you use uuid in the
booting script, when it searched for the root partition, or is this not
possible? I ask this for knowledge and maybe this could avoid booting
the wrong system when two larch-usbstick are inserted.

I think that might be a good idea, but I'd have to read up on how to do that ... patches welcome.

paraflu wrote:

IIb: About the kernel update. This will crash the system. Do you know how to avoid
the kernel update when i do a pacman -Su? I think i have to avoid the kernel
modules, too.

The only thing that comes to mind at the moment is either to be careful when installing , or else putting ignores in pacman.conf.

paraflu wrote:

IIc: Kernel update v2: I thought about the kernel update and hopefully you can comment
about the thoughts.
Let`s say i`ve got two usbsticks. One with an installed larch system , the other partitioned,
but empty. I boot and then mount the other usbstick partition for example to /new-install
then i do a pacman -Syu avoid the kernel update and related modules. I create a .larchify
dir and ln the larchify/cd to the /new-install and larchify -gu / . This would create the
new larch-system on the empty usbstick. After that i create a new dir /new-larch-kernel.
Now i do a pacman -root /new-kernel-kernel -S kernel-26 mkinitcpio and the needed larch-scripts
for generating the modified larch kernel. After that i chroot into the dir and execute the
scripts. I exit and copy the new kernel to the new usbstick and execute the grub-install.
This could update larch with a new kernel or am i wrong here. I don`t know about the libs.
But it will be interesting what you think about it, even if i think you thought about
solving this a long time ago.
This could also be done with one usbstick if it would be loaded complete into ram.

I think a kernel update should not be so difficult. The main problem is that the kernel and initramfs are separate on the usb-stick, so you would need to do a full update and then rebuild the (correct, i.e. the larch!) initramfs and put this and the new kernel in the right place on the usb-stick, then save the session. I don't think there is much more to it (unless I have forgotten something).

paraflu wrote:

III:
Various things and slightly off topic
IIIa: When i want to install an arch system to an usbstick, what do i have to do. Load the
usb hook. Avoid repeated writing on the system when i cancel syslog-ng? Load /tmp and
/var/tmp into tmpfs? Use uuid? Maybe you know something about it.

I think there were some other threads about this somewhere. Maybe there is some relevant stuff in connection with the EEE pc.

paraflu · 2008-09-19 17:34:58

Hello, gradgrind

As usual i have some questions. This time they be very
basic ones, but i hope you can answer some of them,
even, if i don`t exactly know if they are a benefit. They
are only for me to test, so they are for sure no larch suggestions.
Just a thought process, in which i need some advice.

1. When the system has finished boot process, i see a dir
overlay where i can see the changes of the live system
or better saying the diff of the compressed live system
and the now running system file changes. Would it be possible
to link it to a real dir on my usbstick. I think that it is
a tmpfs and at shutdown it will get lzop or merged. I have the
problem that the updates takes to many space for my ram and it
also effects my ram i can use before i reboot and to lzop`ed
it and rebooted and merged it with the overlay.sqfs. So i thought
i can`t really change the boot script which create the tmpfs
and mount via aufs. So the question is is / a tmpfs or is it a
link to / from the overlay dir. Maybe i could link some subdirs to
the usbstick, so that the lzop process is not compromised at
shutdown. I`m confused here and i don`t know if this will get
me anywhere i would like, in this case reducing the usage of
ram and updates and using the system, but also benefit from
the possibility to compress the changes for the next reboot.

2. Very larch specific. When i shutdown and i choose merge overlays
do it merge the actual system (so don`t use the lzop image with
the suashfs image), with the last overlay.sqfs, or do have to
choose the lzop-image, reboot and then choose merge overlays to
gain one only squashfs-image?

3. When i use another kernel at the live system, in my case the eeepc-kernel
i should use mkinitcpio.conf from larch and direct to the other kernel.
Mount the usb-root rw and copy it on this. Is this enough or should use i
the normal mkinitcpio ans add the larch1 - larch3 hooks and then copy it.
I know this could be very arch basic install specific, but maybe you got
an advice for me.

4. And now something i really can`t imagine how this should could be done.
Is it possible to use larch as an full encrypted by luks with larch.
I don`t think so, but i would like to hear what do think about it. I know
that the larch system is not so easy to attack because of the aufs, that
i can protect my /home dir with luks afterwards, but would it be possible?
I am really confused what i want/need/see-as-a-scenario-for-other. But i
thought about it.

So as already mentioned my goals are to have a usbstick/sd/flash filesystem for
portable capable of having encrypted the hole system and gaining a compressed filesystem
which is fast for incremental changes of the system. I thought about using the normal
install with luks, and maybe compress the heavy dirs with squashfs like /opt /usr, maybe
using aufs. But when i look at larch it has the really nice scripts to merge this and
prompt to the system, so at reboot this is all done. This, i can`t do by myself. Do you see
any possibly to have this for a normal arch install, where the /tmp /val/log /var/tmp are
in tmpfs, the changes get onto the drive as a seperate dir and the shutdown-scripts offer
the choosing of merging it into a compressed squashfs which could be booted as a layer to
aufs at the next boot time? Ok that`s a little to much of a dream. But only and i repeat only
could this been archieved by the scipts, with little changes?
So let`s clear up what is, i am capable of, for my goals.
1. Installing a system with luks should be possibel.
2. Squashing the the heavy dirs /opt /usr
3. Putting /tmp /var/log /vat/tmp on tmpfs
4. Using aufs to union the dirs into a complete sytem (no experience here)

not capable of having a script to merge the overlays to a (luks encrypted) system
and having reconfigured to use them at boot.

About the uuid. As i mentioned my skills are very limited. I don`t even use uuid
for myself, also at now trying to install to a usbstick i have to get used to it.
I don`t even use it at my main internet system. I am still using hdx instead of sdx,
because i get confused of it when a removable drive has the same beginning as my
fixed installed storage. i have to get used to it too, because in the future it
will be the main way.
So.... my theory. The uuid parameter has to flow into the startup system when the
usbstick is build, because when you build the system you don`t know which storage
is inserted. So, when usbboot or usbbot_grub is executed it has also have to
check the uuid of the device to installed and before it do that it has to rebuild the
larch-kernel with the right changes to the larch scripts/hooks which examine the
right device to boot the squashfs-images. One con is that is it bound to the device, so
it has to be changed when it is installed afterwards to another device like a
frugal-install.

That`s it for the moment.
I know that you are busy the moment, so no problem if you take your time.
It`s all or most of the time vapour ware or some thoughts so it is not
so important.

Thanks for your answers
and good luck with your new job.

gradgrind · 2008-09-21 16:55:37

paraflu wrote:

Hello, gradgrind
As usual i have some questions. This time they be very
basic ones, but i hope you can answer some of them,
even, if i don`t exactly know if they are a benefit. They
are only for me to test, so they are for sure no larch suggestions.
Just a thought process, in which i need some advice.
1. When the system has finished boot process, i see a dir
overlay where i can see the changes of the live system
or better saying the diff of the compressed live system
and the now running system file changes. Would it be possible
to link it to a real dir on my usbstick. I think that it is
a tmpfs and at shutdown it will get lzop or merged. I have the
problem that the updates takes to many space for my ram and it
also effects my ram i can use before i reboot and to lzop`ed
it and rebooted and merged it with the overlay.sqfs. So i thought
i can`t really change the boot script which create the tmpfs
and mount via aufs. So the question is is / a tmpfs or is it a
link to / from the overlay dir. Maybe i could link some subdirs to
the usbstick, so that the lzop process is not compromised at
shutdown. I`m confused here and i don`t know if this will get
me anywhere i would like, in this case reducing the usage of
ram and updates and using the system, but also benefit from
the possibility to compress the changes for the next reboot.

I'm not sure I understood all that, but I think if you want to avoid the lzo overlay getting too big the easiest way is to do a merge save from time to time as this moves the stuff in the lzo overlay into mods.sqf, so it is not loaded into memory. If you really, for some reason, want the top overlay on usb-stick or whatever, you'll have to rewrite the boot (initcpio) hooks, e.g. to have an extra aufs layer.

paraflu wrote:

2. Very larch specific. When i shutdown and i choose merge overlays
do it merge the actual system (so don`t use the lzop image with
the suashfs image), with the last overlay.sqfs, or do have to
choose the lzop-image, reboot and then choose merge overlays to
gain one only squashfs-image?

merging rewrites mods.sqf, including nearly all of the lzo overlay, so that the latter becomes very small.

paraflu wrote:

3. When i use another kernel at the live system, in my case the eeepc-kernel
i should use mkinitcpio.conf from larch and direct to the other kernel.
Mount the usb-root rw and copy it on this. Is this enough or should use i
the normal mkinitcpio ans add the larch1 - larch3 hooks and then copy it.
I know this could be very arch basic install specific, but maybe you got
an advice for me.

It's not quite clear to me what you want to do here, but in any case to get a working initramfs you will need to have the larch-live package installed on the system you do the build on. The easiest way is possibly to set up your system in a directory somewhere and run larchify on it (then larch-live only needs to be installed in the system being larchified, not in the host system).

paraflu wrote:

4. And now something i really can`t imagine how this should could be done.
Is it possible to use larch as an full encrypted by luks with larch.
I don`t think so, but i would like to hear what do think about it. I know
that the larch system is not so easy to attack because of the aufs, that
i can protect my /home dir with luks afterwards, but would it be possible?
I am really confused what i want/need/see-as-a-scenario-for-other. But i
thought about it.

I guess it would be possible to encrypt the filesystem, but don't ask me how!

paraflu wrote:

So as already mentioned my goals are to have a usbstick/sd/flash filesystem for
portable capable of having encrypted the hole system and gaining a compressed filesystem
which is fast for incremental changes of the system. I thought about using the normal
install with luks, and maybe compress the heavy dirs with squashfs like /opt /usr, maybe
using aufs. But when i look at larch it has the really nice scripts to merge this and
prompt to the system, so at reboot this is all done. This, i can`t do by myself. Do you see
any possibly to have this for a normal arch install, where the /tmp /val/log /var/tmp are
in tmpfs, the changes get onto the drive as a seperate dir and the shutdown-scripts offer
the choosing of merging it into a compressed squashfs which could be booted as a layer to
aufs at the next boot time? Ok that`s a little to much of a dream. But only and i repeat only
could this been archieved by the scipts, with little changes?
So let`s clear up what is, i am capable of, for my goals.
1. Installing a system with luks should be possibel.
2. Squashing the the heavy dirs /opt /usr
3. Putting /tmp /var/log /vat/tmp on tmpfs
4. Using aufs to union the dirs into a complete sytem (no experience here)
not capable of having a script to merge the overlays to a (luks encrypted) system
and having reconfigured to use them at boot.

Well, you've got a nice project to occupy yourself with, haven't you! I don't see why this sort of thing shouldn't be possible, but I don't know much about it so I can't really help.

paraflu wrote:

About the uuid. As i mentioned my skills are very limited. I don`t even use uuid
for myself, also at now trying to install to a usbstick i have to get used to it.
I don`t even use it at my main internet system. I am still using hdx instead of sdx,
because i get confused of it when a removable drive has the same beginning as my
fixed installed storage. i have to get used to it too, because in the future it
will be the main way.
So.... my theory. The uuid parameter has to flow into the startup system when the
usbstick is build, because when you build the system you don`t know which storage
is inserted. So, when usbboot or usbbot_grub is executed it has also have to
check the uuid of the device to installed and before it do that it has to rebuild the
larch-kernel with the right changes to the larch scripts/hooks which examine the
right device to boot the squashfs-images. One con is that is it bound to the device, so
it has to be changed when it is installed afterwards to another device like a
frugal-install.

I may be wrong (I haven't looked at this yet) but isn't it only the bootloader configuration file that needs changing when you use a different device?

miko · 2008-09-30 10:09:48

Hello,
is it possible to overlay "commands"?
I know that files can be overlaid by putting them in profile/overlay. But how can I run commands as a last step of creating livecd? Is there a standard way of executing say "useradd myuser" or "echo Built on `date` >> /etc/issue` as a last step of mklarch, within a chrooted environment?

I know I could do something like:
# mklarch -a -p profile BUILDDIR
# chroot BUILDDIR sh myextracommands.sh
# larchify -p profile BUILDDIR

But is there a better way?

Thanks,
miko

gradgrind · 2008-09-30 13:20:42

miko wrote:

Hello,
is it possible to overlay "commands"?
I know that files can be overlaid by putting them in profile/overlay. But how can I run commands as a last step of creating livecd? Is there a standard way of executing say "useradd myuser" or "echo Built on `date` >> /etc/issue` as a last step of mklarch, within a chrooted environment?
I know I could do something like:
# mklarch -a -p profile BUILDDIR
# chroot BUILDDIR sh myextracommands.sh
# larchify -p profile BUILDDIR
But is there a better way?
Thanks,
miko

I haven't thought of a better way of doing it yet. Is your suggestion above not good enough for you? (You could always modify mklarch, but in the end that would probably be more work ...)

miko · 2008-10-08 15:36:14

gradgrind wrote:

I haven't thought of a better way of doing it yet. Is your suggestion above not good enough for you? (You could always modify mklarch, but in the end that would probably be more work ...)

Well, I would like to keep everything "custom" within my profile directory. But I can live with it.

OTOH, larch 5.3.8 stopped to work for me since initscripts-2008.09-2 is out. There is a problem with rc.sysinit (after booting some files like /dev/null are not accessible).

miko

Arch Linux

#1 2008-05-26 12:37:02

larch-5.3 released

#2 2008-05-29 14:24:09

Re: larch-5.3 released

#3 2008-05-29 17:12:39

Re: larch-5.3 released

#4 2008-05-30 00:17:32

Re: larch-5.3 released

#5 2008-05-30 04:53:14

Re: larch-5.3 released

#6 2008-05-30 06:29:19

Re: larch-5.3 released

#7 2008-05-30 08:26:06

Re: larch-5.3 released

#8 2008-05-30 10:41:39

Re: larch-5.3 released

#9 2008-05-30 12:54:20

Re: larch-5.3 released

#10 2008-05-31 05:17:49

Re: larch-5.3 released

#11 2008-05-31 07:12:27

Re: larch-5.3 released

#12 2008-07-02 01:16:45

Re: larch-5.3 released

#13 2008-07-06 20:18:17

Re: larch-5.3 released

#14 2008-07-09 15:10:03

Re: larch-5.3 released

#15 2008-07-11 09:13:41

Re: larch-5.3 released

#16 2008-08-08 23:30:30

Re: larch-5.3 released

#17 2008-08-09 15:30:07

Re: larch-5.3 released

#18 2008-08-10 13:18:55

Re: larch-5.3 released

#19 2008-09-11 03:20:56

Re: larch-5.3 released

#20 2008-09-11 07:01:10

Re: larch-5.3 released

#21 2008-09-19 17:34:58

Re: larch-5.3 released

#22 2008-09-21 16:55:37

Re: larch-5.3 released

#23 2008-09-30 10:09:48

Re: larch-5.3 released

#24 2008-09-30 13:20:42

Re: larch-5.3 released

#25 2008-10-08 15:36:14

Re: larch-5.3 released

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