live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

Sigi · 2006-08-25 07:33:56

I'm quite sure I can blame my USB Device for its "speed". :?

Sigi · 2006-08-29 06:26:14

I rebuilt my LiveCD (the one which is intended to integrate well into my schools IT-environment) using the larch 1.2-scripts.
Not only that it worked flawlessly, it even "magically" fixed my problems with firefox segfaulting on my live system! Thanks a lot, gradgrind

My LiveCD features a usual set of software (xfce4, openoffice, firefox & thunderbird, google-earth, xara-lx-0.7...) It runs a shell-script on startup which lets you setup a few things automatically:
After the user inputs its "name", it creates a user of this name, preconfigures thunderbird to send and receive the users emails on our schools imap-server (without any further configuration needed), lets you input a root password and switches to the new user account. The creating and switching of the user and the whole configuration stuff is blazing fast...

gradgrind · 2006-08-29 08:38:57

Sigi:

Glad to hear it's going well.

I could imagine there might be other people interested in a good xfce configuration - maybe you'd like to publish it when you're happy with it?

Sigi · 2006-08-29 08:51:34

gradgrind wrote:

I could imagine there might be other people interested in a good xfce configuration - maybe you'd like to publish it when you're happy with it?

Sure. I'll put the xfce-related overlay stuff into a .tar.gz and post a link to it here as soon as I get home (about 8 hours from now). I'll link the configuration to a wallpaper in 'arch-artwork'.

edit: here it is (ungzip and untar this in the folder .config in the homedir of the desired user [inside the overlay directory structure])

_alexmyself · 2006-08-30 16:35:35

hello,
try the 1.20 and no problem

gradgrind, is it possible to "remember" changes apply during a larch session ?

i know the overlay but, for example, i totally don't know which files i have to put in if i want different kde settings on my larch dvd.

i've thinking that it maybe possible to generate an overlay while running larch session, compare the original overlay with what existing now and create a new one (saving it on a hd or usb stick or..) which could be used in larch creating process to have a perfect tuned larch iso

oh, another "problem"
is it possible to have an install method that "just" copy the larch dvd that is running ? (i think at a copy/paste of the whole content of my dvd, overlay included, really a copy of what i have when running larch)

i just talk about what could be nice, don't want to afraid / hurt you, thank you very much for larch

..time to try usb good bye

gradgrind · 2006-08-31 06:30:10

Yes, it would of course be possible to generate a new overlay while running larch, I'll put it on my TODO list. With KDE it's not as simple as I would like because the config files are so complicated, but that is basically how I got the config I put in as default. You could just take everything in ~/.kde, but there is also quite a lot of irrelevant stuff in there (stuff that shouldn't really be on a live CD, such as histories, I think). Maybe if you're just making a personal config that would be no problem.

The install method including stuff from the overlay should also be no big problem, but you won't want absolutely everything copied over, because some of the overlay files are only suitable for use in the live system. My installer can already copy one or two of the live configs over, but extending this feature can go on my TODO list as well. Do you mean including new packages installed 'live'? Would this be useful? At the moment, I can't imagine that it could be, but it might be difficult to distinguish configuration files from installed package files...

Mr Green · 2006-08-31 06:40:52

gradgrind, is it possible to "remember" changes apply during a larch session ?

save settings or files during livecd session?

like load myconf in knoppix?

If it is then a scan for configs/settings somewhere would be possible...

save settings to pendrive (which you may be using!) or hd

Anything is possible with larch lol

gradgrind · 2006-08-31 07:42:53

Just in case anyone wants to use the pkgrepo script (not normally necessary), please note that I made a mess of it! I'll change it for the next version, but for now, here's a fix. The last line should read:

./gen_repo.py $PACKAGES larch -- $DESTDIR/var/lib/pacman/local

It looks like I can't ever have tested it! Sorry about that. I think this warrants my first ever eroticon, er - I mean, Smiley ... :oops: ( whoever invented the word 'emoticon' - it's a disgrace to the English(?) language ).

Sigi · 2006-08-31 08:10:32

gradgrind wrote:

... eroticon ...

_alexmyself · 2006-08-31 13:11:16

very happy to read this

for the install method no, i don't think including packages installed live
(but why not ? will this change something to the procedure ?)

the idea is :
i made a beautifull dvd, contains what i like/need and configured like i want,
i want to install all of this on my hd.
no packages choice (they're all on the dvd)
no packages download (they're all on the dvd)
no config (packages have been allready configured with overlay)
a lot of personal content already there (overlay is my friend)

and another question (i haven't try with 1.20): is it possible to change settings in isolinux.cfg ?
in truth only resolution have my interest

sorry for all the problems i bring to you, but larch is a so exciting toy, it's your fault !!

bye

Sigi · 2006-08-31 13:19:11

_alexmyself wrote:

and another question (i haven't try with 1.20): is it possible to change settings in isolinux.cfg ?
in truth only resolution have my interest

Yes it is

_alexmyself wrote:

sorry for all the problems i bring to you, but larch is a so exciting toy, it's your fault !!

It's not just an exciting toy, it's also an exciting tool ;-)

_alexmyself · 2006-09-01 12:05:24

hello,

i don't know if it's normal, and maybe (surely..) it's an error of me, but those directories have appears after i've used the usb script :

/.overlay
/.rw_bin
/.rw_boot
/.rw_opt
etc...

without this the usb script have done it's job well,
i can't use it because my usb stick is one with some programs and so don't react like a normal one (my computer doesn't see it at boot..) but files are there and partition have been built.

it run well,
it's so easy that it make me smile stupidly....
larch is definitively a very very very good things in my linux world

gradgrind · 2006-09-01 14:38:27

i don't know if it's normal, and maybe (surely..) it's an error of me, but those directories have appears after i've used the usb script :
/.overlay
/.rw_bin
/.rw_boot
/.rw_opt
etc...

That's quite normal on a running larch live system. These are directories and mount points used by the unionfs stuff. If you've got them somewhere else, that is not normal!

As to your USB-stick: it might be possible to get rid of those 'strange' programs that prevent it booting (that is, if you don't want them). I think my stick had something like that, but after removing all partitions and repartitioning in qtparted there was no trace of them anymore and my stick booted very nicely.

_alexmyself · 2006-09-01 22:37:43

all those diretories have appeared in my real root,
but certainly it was when i have not configured something because i have run the usb script two times now and nothing of this come back

/.overlay
/.rw_bin
/.rw_boot
/.rw_opt
etc...

my usb stick seem to have lost (and this is not bad at all..) pre-installed programms, but it's still not discover at boot time, certainly my computer is not good for this, anyway files are at the good place so...
this is not really a problem, i've do it just "to see"
i'll try with different stick / pc and then give a right comment

bye

Sigi · 2006-09-02 16:43:51

_alexmyself: You could change your BIOS-Settings or, if you don't have any usb-options in it, update your BIOS. Maybe it isn't supported yet...

mumpf · 2006-09-06 11:51:11

gradgrind wrote:

I could imagine there might be other people interested in a good xfce configuration - maybe you'd like to publish it when you're happy with it?

Hi Sigi
I'm sure there are quite some people who would appreciate an alternative to e.g. zenwalk when looking for a MS-alternative.

Meanwhile I use thunderbird and open office instead of the MS-products, but it's pretty tough to someone who only knows about the basic unix commands like cp mv etc. to fight these "little" problems like enabling a swiss keyboard with zenwalk (took me several hours, until I found out, that the settings in the xorg.conf must be set very special due to a slackware bug).

I still haven't managed to get nice truetype fonts allthough I managed to compile a bytecode-enabled freetype myself. Very frustrating. Therefore a bytecode enabled freetype would be great as well for a xfce live-cd. Allthough these patent-issues have to be accepted, in Europe this shouldn't be a problem.

I managed to get crispy fonts in xubuntu, but it's extremely slow.

Seems to be a minor point, but I really get a headache after some hours in front of the screen.

By the way: I appreciate the effort to build a Arch Linux Office Install CD. If I had known that beforehand I wouldn't have fiddled arount with a arch-installation for several days (allthough the wiki helped a lot, but to a non-IT guy it's still quite tricky to deal with the xdm etc. things).

Sigi · 2006-09-06 12:26:01

Welcome to ArchLinux, mumpf!

mumpf wrote:

Hi Sigi
I'm sure there are quite some people who would appreciate an alternative to e.g. zenwalk when looking for a MS-alternative.
Meanwhile I use thunderbird and open office instead of the MS-products, but it's pretty tough to someone who only knows about the basic unix commands like cp mv etc. to fight these "little" problems like enabling a swiss keyboard with zenwalk (took me several hours, until I found out, that the settings in the xorg.conf must be set very special due to a slackware bug).
I still haven't managed to get nice truetype fonts allthough I managed to compile a bytecode-enabled freetype myself. Very frustrating. Therefore a bytecode enabled freetype would be great as well for a xfce live-cd. Allthough these patent-issues have to be accepted, in Europe this shouldn't be a problem.

This shouldn't be a problem. Even if I'm not entirely sure about this, I think bytecode should be compiled in (in the freetype2 package). Would it be enough to include the freetype2-package?

I wouldn't be surprised if freetype2 is a dependency of a package I have on my LiveCD. Too bad I'm not at my Arch System right now...

mumpf wrote:

I managed to get crispy fonts in xubuntu, but it's extremely slow.
Seems to be a minor point, but I really get a headache after some hours in front of the screen.
By the way: I appreciate the effort to build a Arch Linux Office Install CD. If I had known that beforehand I wouldn't have fiddled arount with a arch-installation for several days (allthough the wiki helped a lot, but to a non-IT guy it's still quite tricky to deal with the xdm etc. things).

The Arch Linux Office Install CD is indeed a nice and quick way to set up an Arch System. Remember that it's also possible to install from a (maybe customized) larch LiveCD/DVD.

Just feel free to post questions in the forum before wasting too much time in trying to configure your system ;-)

Cheers Sigi

edit: added link to the ALOICD

mumpf · 2006-09-07 06:38:15

This thread gives some details about nice fonts:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions … p?t=257705

The author quotes the freetype-documentation

" The TrueType bytecode interpreter is disabled in all public releases
of the FreeType packages for patents reasons (see
http://www.freetype.org/patents.html for more details).
...
- open the file "include/freetype/config/ftoption.h"

- locate a line that says:

#undef TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER

- change it to:

#define TT_CONFIG_OPTION_BYTECODE_INTERPRETER

These steps must be done _before_ compiling the library."

It's possible, that the bytecode-interpreter is allready enabled in Arch. In Suse you have to activate bci, I'm not sure about debian. Seems that debian testing downloads in certain countries enable the bci.
I'm a bit confused about the different statements.

Regards

mumpf

Sigi · 2006-09-08 14:10:47

mumpf: My knowledge about the internals of font libraries is far behind yours, I'm sorry I can't help you.

I'm curious if there are easy ways of hardware detection possible with the larch scripts. Are there?
I thought about an automated generation of a suitable xorg.conf, mounting of found HD-partitions, including a script like this one, etc

edit: typo

NeOnsKuLL · 2007-04-16 15:48:55

Hi, I'm making my own larch-based livecd. I need to have the root user with a password and a normal user with a password too. I put an rc.local file in overlay/etc/ with this content:
echo "root:root" | chpasswd
useradd -g users -G audio,video,storage,optical user
echo "user:user" | chpasswd

The /home/user/ dir exist, that's the reason there is no -m option in useradd.

Larch ignores this changes, and drop me to a console, logged as root without passwd. Really, I need to print the /etc/issue file, that informs the user what users exist in the system, and their respective passwords.

How can I do this?

Thanks in advance, especially to gradgrind for larch.

See you

NeOnsKuLL

Last edited by NeOnsKuLL (2007-04-16 15:50:39)

gradgrind · 2007-04-16 20:13:15

NeOnsKuLL wrote:

Hi, I'm making my own larch-based livecd. I need to have the root user with a password and a normal user with a password too. I put an rc.local file in overlay/etc/ with this content:
echo "root:root" | chpasswd
useradd -g users -G audio,video,storage,optical user
echo "user:user" | chpasswd
The /home/user/ dir exist, that's the reason there is no -m option in useradd.
Larch ignores this changes, and drop me to a console, logged as root without passwd.

It should work (it does - I just tested it). But maybe you mean you don't want to be logged in automatically. Then you need to adjust /etc/inittab - it should be enough to remove the version in the overlay.

NeOnsKuLL wrote:

Really, I need to print the /etc/issue file, that informs the user what users exist in the system, and their respective passwords.
How can I do this?

Could you explain a bit more extensively what you mean. Maybe it's just me being thick, but I'm not sure what you're looking for.

NeOnsKuLL · 2007-04-16 20:26:29

Many thanks gradgrind, I'll try what you say about inittab. The other (/etc/issue) is just the file that which is printed when the system is full loaded, whith a message, in Arch case, just prints "Arch Linux 0.8 (Voodoo) " over the login prompt. It's not important, you're right, the only think I need is to remove the autologin feature.

Thanks a lot again

NeOnsKuLL

PS: Sorry about make you suffer because of my bad english

lilsirecho · 2007-04-17 04:34:45

Gradgrind;

Hoping that you can help in finding out what causes erratic boot of alsa sound.

I sometimes get full USB sound at boot and at full volume. Most of the time, I get no sound and cannot get it into USB mode ( not using internal ich5 sound).

At other times, I get an error message saying arts cannot make connection...continue with null device. When this occurs, I enter KDE control center and disable the sound hardware FULL DUPLEX and select APPLY...this enables the USB sound.

I suspect that the USB device I have connected for USB sound , enabled more than once during the boot-up sequence ?,and probably needs a delay to permit it to settle when addressed by KDE or during the install sequences.

I do not know why FULL DUPLEX is enabled nor why it affects the USB sound initiation.

Perhaps you can advise wherein I should try a delay of a few seconds for the USB audio device to settle. This seems the logical answer to the erratic behavior.

gradgrind · 2007-04-17 06:20:52

lilsirecho:
I'm afraid I have no experience with USB sound. I suggest you ask on the 'Workstation User' list.

lilsirecho · 2007-04-26 04:57:14

Trying to generate larch3.5 latest and get this error:

initcpio_larch: not found in sync db

Wherein is initcpio_larch.... in the scripts?

Arch Linux

#126 2006-08-25 07:33:56

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#127 2006-08-29 06:26:14

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#128 2006-08-29 08:38:57

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#129 2006-08-29 08:51:34

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#130 2006-08-30 16:35:35

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#131 2006-08-31 06:30:10

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#132 2006-08-31 06:40:52

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#133 2006-08-31 07:42:53

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#134 2006-08-31 08:10:32

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#135 2006-08-31 13:11:16

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#136 2006-08-31 13:19:11

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#137 2006-09-01 12:05:24

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#138 2006-09-01 14:38:27

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#139 2006-09-01 22:37:43

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#140 2006-09-02 16:43:51

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#141 2006-09-06 11:51:11

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#142 2006-09-06 12:26:01

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#143 2006-09-07 06:38:15

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#144 2006-09-08 14:10:47

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#145 2007-04-16 15:48:55

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#146 2007-04-16 20:13:15

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#147 2007-04-16 20:26:29

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#148 2007-04-17 04:34:45

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#149 2007-04-17 06:20:52

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

#150 2007-04-26 04:57:14

Re: live Arch CD construction kit (larch)

Board footer