2008.04-RC Images are out

neotuli · 2008-04-15 06:59:13

http://www.archlinux.org/news/389/

A new batch of install images is currently syncing to mirrors.
FTP images have been made available tonight, while CORE images
will be pushed tomorrow night in order to distribute the load.
This marks the first release (well ok... release candidate)
based on a true live Arch system. That is, what's on the
images is just a plain old base installation which just
happens to boot off of a CD or USB stick.
Whoah... did you just say USB stick? Why yes I did! That's
right, from here on out we'll be offering bootable USB disk
images that can act as a live system or installer.
The installer script itself is roughly the same as it's always
been. The most noticable change is the use of UUIDs instead of
sdX/hdX entries by default. A more detailed changelog
should be visible on projects.archlinux.org soon-ish.
If you get the chance, please give the images a spin. You can
find them on our mirrors, in the
iso directory. Please file bugs if you encounter any problems.
By the way, the "RC" status of these images should not be a
turn-off if you're looking to install Arch, there's a very
good chance they'll work just fine for you.

Ready. Set. Go!

wonder · 2008-04-15 09:11:09

i have a litte question.
why do we use now UUIDs instead of sdX/hdX ?

torin_dan · 2008-04-15 10:08:25

Because with latest changes a lot of hdX changed to sdX (pata deprecared ide)

Also because there are cases with some controllers that make you scream when sdX changes on every reboot (so you really can't guess what letter to put there for the next reboot)

UUID is unique for your sistem, and the system will boot no matter what.(Another idea was to use labels, but not every user assigned a label to each disk/partition, indeed it would be much easier to read /dev/seagate_boot then /dev/684956830-234923-1938)

Those are still is simlinked to sdX/hdX, but you have to ve VERY carefull when trying things like cfdisk /dev/sdb

jarryson · 2008-04-15 11:22:29

is it still have the problem with network restart ?

http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/9960

initsripts fixed it already ?

SpookyET · 2008-04-15 11:44:03

I've labeled my partitions. How does it affect me?

dmartins · 2008-04-15 12:21:30

SpookyET wrote:

I've labeled my partitions. How does it affect me?

It doesn't.
UUID is something completely different. Basically, each partition is assigned a unique identifier. This identifier doesn't change so using it in fstab means if you add another disk and your sdX devices get shifted around, the UUID still points to the correct partition.

UUID is not a filesystem label & AFAIK cannot be user assigned.

TjPhysicist · 2008-04-15 13:06:54

It does get changed when I reformat the partition though, at least it did for me, is it suposed to do that??

Mikko777 · 2008-04-15 14:19:25

Tried it in virtualbox. Here is how it went in chronological order.

First impression: Pretty Grub! Space Invaders! Ability to fix grub! Help files! (although very empty, but i guess there will be some maintenance docs there eventually, disk fixing, remote installs you name it!)

On with install: Two choices to boot, I have no idea what the legacy ide boot option is/does. Then there is two login options arch and root, yet no idea what arch login is used for.

Starts install, auto partitions hard drives... tries to install packages and fails Apparently enter got pressed two times fast at start and it tries to install from cd and fails to find packages

Second try: Selects the mount points, that i made in first attempt. Now this could be better since having sda1-4 doesn't say much so i guessed they were made in same order that in autopartitioner. Seeing partition sizes would make mounting easier imho.

Now I noticed I still have US keymap and i wonder if I could've changed it before starting installation, well its a minor annoyance.

Installs whole base. Proceeds to hwdetect, it does its job. So previous arch installs worked without changing config files, they seem to be there now too. Fstab looks quite empty tho. No sda mount points here.

Proceeds to install grub. There still seems to be the vga=773 help text was hoping to see the new v86d as default.
Gets scared by the uuids, those prolly make manual editing / fixing of grub pretty impossible.

Reboot: Sees old uglier grub again, would've wanted to see the same Grub as in archinstaller. Overlord changed to core dump again
So fstab was indeed wrong. Root seems to be mounted readonly, Sucks

du -cH / is Total=462M and 113M in /var (didn't keep downloaded packages)

So it works. Now if there would be fbcondecor/ splash option, new kernel and ext4 in filesystem choices ah it would be perfect.
ah and yes fstab would've been populated :'(

Last edited by Mikko777 (2008-04-15 14:25:21)

IsSuE · 2008-04-15 14:52:12

I tried installing on a butane powered toothbrush after I read the wiki entry, but it wouldnt work

The new iso worked fine here, tested them under VirtualBox!
Nice Grub and i like the options there. What I missed was "km" to select the keymap while installing.

Don-DiZzLe · 2008-04-15 14:55:45

Any idea on how to do an ftp install in a wifi network environment?

wuischke · 2008-04-15 15:27:30

It worked for me doing an install on an external usb hard disk, after my internal hard disk decided to go into early retirement...aged 0.5...

I encountered no problems, it works just as well as the old installer. (Thanks to tpowa, simo and neotuli for your work!)

stefan1975 · 2008-04-15 17:56:12

Hi,

just tried the new iso and did a clean ftp install. So far it is working perfectly. No issues whatsoever using the new iso. Just two questions though:

1) I really like the graphical grub the during the iso boot. Is it not possible having this (by default?) on the installed version afterwards as well? It is really looking very slick!

2) Would it not be better to either remove or hash '#' out the cdrom and floppy devices in the /etc/fstab by default?

thx and good work,
stefan

stavrosg · 2008-04-15 20:01:13

dmartins wrote:

SpookyET wrote:
I've labeled my partitions. How does it affect me?
It doesn't.
UUID is something completely different. Basically, each partition is assigned a unique identifier. This identifier doesn't change so using it in fstab means if you add another disk and your sdX devices get shifted around, the UUID still points to the correct partition.
UUID is not a filesystem label & AFAIK cannot be user assigned.

I *really* welcome that one.
the hdx/sdx mangling has already bitten me on one installation with the old image, just days before this one got out.. and THAT was bad timing from my part

stav

Ink-Jet · 2008-04-15 21:16:14

Any screenshots of this new grub boot screen?
I would really like to see it.

neotuli · 2008-04-15 22:11:23

Ink-Jet wrote:

Any screenshots of this new grub boot screen?
I would really like to see it.

http://neotuli.net/img/blue-splash.png

By the way, the grub-gfx package is in community for those of you that are interested in a little razzle dazzle on boot. I still need to put the background images somewhere on line (probably the artwork page).

neotuli · 2008-04-15 22:23:34

Also let's answer a few UUID questions:

- If you aren't using hdX/sdX (so like encrypted root, lvm, fun things like that) during your install, the installer will *not* autopopulate things with uuids, it'll use regular device names.
- If you're interested in the decision making process to use UUIDs as a default, check out the thread on arch-dev-public
- Yes, they are really big scary hexadecimal numbers, but they're reliable. If they make you nervous, you can always use the hdX/sdX scheme, we just don't default to it anymore.
- UUIDs are assigned when the filesystem is created, so if you reformat a partition, a new UUID will be assigned.
- UUIDs are just a big random number (seriously! run 'uuidgen' on your system, it'll spit out different ones every time)
- UUIDs can be changed if *you* change them (see the tune2fs manpage, specifically the -U flag)

I think that covers the questions I saw. I hope that clears things up.

neotuli · 2008-04-15 22:43:37

Oh and one more thing that I should have probably put in the news item in the first place

You can get the USB images onto a usb stick using dd. Like so:

dd if=das.img of=/dev/das_usb_stick

*warning* This will nuke your usb stick.

Alrighty then.

toofishes · 2008-04-15 23:33:33

Mikko777 wrote:

<trimmed>
On with install: Two choices to boot, I have no idea what the legacy ide boot option is/does. Then there is two login options arch and root, yet no idea what arch login is used for.
Second try: Selects the mount points, that i made in first attempt. Now this could be better since having sda1-4 doesn't say much so i guessed they were made in same order that in autopartitioner. Seeing partition sizes would make mounting easier imho.
Now I noticed I still have US keymap and i wonder if I could've changed it before starting installation, well its a minor annoyance.
Installs whole base. Proceeds to hwdetect, it does its job. So previous arch installs worked without changing config files, they seem to be there now too. Fstab looks quite empty tho. No sda mount points here.
Proceeds to install grub. There still seems to be the vga=773 help text was hoping to see the new v86d as default.
Gets scared by the uuids, those prolly make manual editing / fixing of grub pretty impossible.
Reboot: Sees old uglier grub again, would've wanted to see the same Grub as in archinstaller. Overlord changed to core dump again
So fstab was indeed wrong. Root seems to be mounted readonly, Sucks
du -cH / is Total=462M and 113M in /var (didn't keep downloaded packages)
So it works. Now if there would be fbcondecor/ splash option, new kernel and ext4 in filesystem choices ah it would be perfect.
ah and yes fstab would've been populated :'(

The legacy-ide boot option is for those machines (like my desktop!) that tend to suck under the new pata subsystem. You would probably know if you needed it (mostly SiS chipsets).

Trying not to come down on you hard, but this is the typical cries for "more more more!" that we really want to make a conscious effort to stay away from- an installer should be lean and mean, which a touch of color. Want a graphical grub installer on your host system? Use grub-gfx from community, just like we did, but we aren't going to force that on everyone. People come to Arch because we don't patch the heck out of our packages. Want v86d? Well I don't, so its not going to be default. But no one is stopping you from installing and using it, and it saves us the hassle of misconfiguration woes.

With that said, thanks for all the feedback- Simo and I are glad to see people are trying these out. Are most people using the ISO image still, or have people ventured to using the USB images?

wuischke · 2008-04-16 06:18:21

I tried an "dd if=arch.img of=/dev/sdb1", but then I realized that I had to write it to root and I didn't fancy nuking my external hdd, so I burned a CD instead. Is there now way to install it to a partition and install a boot-loader afterwards? Actually, this would be a super-fast way of installing Arch.

Mikko777 · 2008-04-16 07:56:57

toofishes wrote:

Trying not to come down on you hard, but this is the typical cries for "more more more!" that we really want to make a conscious effort to stay away from- an installer should be lean and mean, which a touch of color. Want a graphical grub installer on your host system? Use grub-gfx from community, just like we did, but we aren't going to force that on everyone. People come to Arch because we don't patch the heck out of our packages. Want v86d? Well I don't, so its not going to be default. But no one is stopping you from installing and using it, and it saves us the hassle of misconfiguration woes.

Totally agree! I just thought v86d was the "default" way of doing things now. (and imho patches ain't bad by default)
Wonders why fstab was left empty tho? I'm pretty sure it was populated in older installers.

Guess I could try the usb next ;)

Back2Cali · 2008-04-16 08:11:59

Hi!

I checked out the FTP install image for Arch64 this morning and I did change the keyboard layout through the options from grub, but however the console I entered before installing arch still has only the US layout. And since the km command doesn't exist, I was wondering how to change the keyboard layout to something other than US?

But other than that it looks awesome! Great work!

neotuli · 2008-04-16 08:53:32

Instructions for keyboard mapping and such are in the updated install guide...which right now exists only on the disks, heh.

Anyhow, km was basically just a wrapper for loadkeys. So to change your key mapping, simply run "loadkeys <your keyboard>". As for specifying it on the options from grub...that should be working... I'll have to take a look at that.

[edit] ok so I took a look right away, it's working as it should. In order to get your keymap loaded by the initscripts you need to add "keymap=<yourmap>" to the kernel boot line. I'm guessing you found grub's keymap stuff, which doesnt actually affect the running system, just grub.

foxbunny · 2008-04-16 09:53:06

First of all, great job! I really liked the Space Invaders touch.

But: +1 for don't add new "features", this works just fine

Anyhow, I installed Arch from this new ISO just last night. It's just splendid. I had no problems whatsoever.

Last edited by foxbunny (2008-04-16 09:53:19)

kjon · 2008-04-16 13:19:35

Jeez... I have a question.

Although the new cds looks pretty nice, I'm missing the 30-mb-pocketknife-style of the good n' ol' ftp install disc. I just wonder: Will a 30 mb ftp install disc be available on these relases? I had no problems with the new relase, but the size --yeah, I know is still under 600 mb-- is significatively larger than the older version.

I would like to know about the availability of this kind of cd. I don't care if I get a negative answer here, as long as the 2007.08-2 ftp-install iso don't get wiped from the arch's servers. X.X

Thanks for the patience.

neotuli · 2008-04-16 17:08:55

kjon wrote:

Jeez... I have a question.
Although the new cds looks pretty nice, I'm missing the 30-mb-pocketknife-style of the good n' ol' ftp install disc. I just wonder: Will a 30 mb ftp install disc be available on these relases? I had no problems with the new relase, but the size --yeah, I know is still under 600 mb-- is significatively larger than the older version.
I would like to know about the availability of this kind of cd. I don't care if I get a negative answer here, as long as the 2007.08-2 ftp-install iso don't get wiped from the arch's servers. X.X
Thanks for the patience.

We're looking into busybox-based implementations for the size-conscious. The reason ISOs prior to 0.6 were small was because they ran busybox. The ISOs after that were small because they copied individual binaries and libraries off the host system, rather than leveraging dependency resolution we already have in pacman. That said, I also invite you to investicgate options where things like manpages and /usr/include are stripped to save size (although these are poor examples of things to strip, they're text and compress really well anyway).

So basically what I'm saying is that for the time being we're going to favor usability and technical corectness over size. The ftp images still fit on those mini CDs. If you're interested in smaller images, I invite you to join in and work on it, since I know it won't be our main focus for a while.

Arch Linux

#1 2008-04-15 06:59:13

2008.04-RC Images are out

#2 2008-04-15 09:11:09

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#3 2008-04-15 10:08:25

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#4 2008-04-15 11:22:29

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#5 2008-04-15 11:44:03

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#6 2008-04-15 12:21:30

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#7 2008-04-15 13:06:54

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#8 2008-04-15 14:19:25

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#9 2008-04-15 14:52:12

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#10 2008-04-15 14:55:45

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#11 2008-04-15 15:27:30

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#12 2008-04-15 17:56:12

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#13 2008-04-15 20:01:13

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#14 2008-04-15 21:16:14

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#15 2008-04-15 22:11:23

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#16 2008-04-15 22:23:34

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#17 2008-04-15 22:43:37

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#18 2008-04-15 23:33:33

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#19 2008-04-16 06:18:21

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#20 2008-04-16 07:56:57

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#21 2008-04-16 08:11:59

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#22 2008-04-16 08:53:32

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#23 2008-04-16 09:53:06

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#24 2008-04-16 13:19:35

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

#25 2008-04-16 17:08:55

Re: 2008.04-RC Images are out

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