2009.08 official snapshots

Dieter@be · 2009-08-09 18:23:06

Hey guys and girls.
We cannot post this on the mainpage (yet) but we don't want to hold you back, so we want to introduce you to the official 2009.08 images.

These images are the first fruits of our new arch-releng build environment on the sevenL server.
They are built from a current snapshot of core, which includes kernel 2.6.30.4-1, udev 141-5 and pacman 3.3.0-2.

Changes compared to 2009.02:
- more up-to-date software (see above)
- usage of new AIF installer, which brings:
* better disk editor with support for dm_crypt and lvm setups
* support for automated installations using config files (deprecates quickinst)
* a framework to build your own installation procedures
* better date/time setting with ntp support
* refactored grub installation routines
* usability improvements
- aufs instead of unionfs
- enhanced boot device detection on image start
- ftp images are renamed to netinstall to avoid confusion
- bugfixes (xfs freeze, mirror setting, clock correctness, network settings, ...)
- and much more...

detailed package list and additional snapshot information

As you can see, just like with 2009.02 there have been some huge changes.
We should be more settled now and hopefully it will be more straightforward to build snapshots in the future.
Time will tell ;-).

As usual, the images come in iso and img flavors, with grub and isolinux for people whose cd-rom drive doesn't work with grub
Due to all mentioned changes, the installation guide will get a bunch of changes in a few minutes
The new guide is for now only available in English but we'll add other versions when we receive translated versions.

We cannot update the download page yet, but most mirrors have these images and torrent files (with webseed support) in their iso directory.

Pierre · 2009-08-09 18:41:41

Here is a redirect for the lazy ones: http://www.archlinux.de/?page=GetFileFr … so/2009.08

The fastest choise is to use a webseed capable bittorrent client; and please keep seeding after download.

panzeroceania · 2009-08-09 19:15:34

Thanks, I'll be spreading this around.

Will be seeding the 686 and x64 torrent of the net install as soon as I have it downloaded.

Last edited by panzeroceania (2009-08-09 19:18:00)

apollokk · 2009-08-09 19:43:09

I can't see the x86_64 .iso image.

--EDIT--

All the updated versions can be found here.

Enjoy!

--2nd EDIT--

I also mentioned, that the ftp version is renamed to netinstall.

Last edited by apollokk (2009-08-09 19:48:25)

celthias · 2009-08-10 01:53:36

Oh brilliant, just in time for my clean install!

TigTex · 2009-08-10 03:34:42

Humm. I'm having troubles during my clean install. My fakeRAID is not booting! Somehow grub is not installing.
Intel ich9m 2 hdd RAID0 discs

dmraid -ay is ok
grub detects the partitions and mounts them
when I do setup (hd0) at log everything looks ok, but on last step I have a "partition not found" error... but partition exists. With 2009.02 it used to work! I made the exact same steps
ext4 filesystem on partition 2 (hd0,1).
root (hd0,1) and kernel line on menu.lst is ok (/dev/mapper/isw_blabalbla_RAID0_p2)
I'm out of ideias
Is it some recent bug with grub?... I will try installing grub with 2009.02 to see what happens.

EDIT: Used exactly the same steps to install grub on raid MBR with 2009.02 and it worked... my brand new system booted without a problem. Is it something wrong with 2009.08?

Last edited by TigTex (2009-08-10 03:52:37)

jelly · 2009-08-10 07:12:17

nice work, sadly rtorrent doesn't support webseeds

GerBra · 2009-08-10 07:59:54

TigTex wrote:

EDIT: Used exactly the same steps to install grub on raid MBR with 2009.02 and it worked... my brand new system booted without a problem. Is it something wrong with 2009.08?

Looks then like a grub problem. Please write a bugreport (either on grub(core) or on Releng-Bugtracker Section.
Give please the steps and output from 2009.02 and 2009.08 grub setup.

I don't know much on dmraid, but you know the modified name scheme since 2.6.30 kernel?
There is also a Report on mdraid (FS#15756).

MetalheadGautham · 2009-08-10 15:57:43

Nice. I hope the installer is easier to use than the older ones. I remember that the hardest part about archlinux was INSTALLING it when I installed the then currently available release exactly around an year back. It does its job but is seriously uncomfortable to use at the same time.

tpowa · 2009-08-10 16:51:24

dmraid need a installer hack to work correctly, you need old symlinks for dmraid 1.0.15
archboot setup hast the hack included

Dieter@be · 2009-08-10 17:32:54

tpowa wrote:

dmraid need a installer hack to work correctly, you need old symlinks for dmraid 1.0.15
archboot setup hast the hack included

Can you elaborate? which symlinks? and why do you need them?

Dieter@be · 2009-08-10 17:35:45

MetalheadGautham wrote:

Nice. I hope the installer is easier to use than the older ones. I remember that the hardest part about archlinux was INSTALLING it when I installed the then currently available release exactly around an year back. It does its job but is seriously uncomfortable to use at the same time.

This is odd. I often think our installer is too userfriendly. I mean once you have Arch installed, all configuration is done with config files, and all work by using tools on the commandline.
When you install, you are guided and have ncurses interfaces that hide stuff like pacman invocation, network setup etc.
I often think we should make the installer more minimal but I'm not sure yet how exactly I would implement it.

Anonymo · 2009-08-10 18:42:16

Dieter@be wrote:

MetalheadGautham wrote:
Nice. I hope the installer is easier to use than the older ones. I remember that the hardest part about archlinux was INSTALLING it when I installed the then currently available release exactly around an year back. It does its job but is seriously uncomfortable to use at the same time.
This is odd. I often think our installer is too userfriendly. I mean once you have Arch installed, all configuration is done with config files, and all work by using tools on the commandline.
When you install, you are guided and have ncurses interfaces that hide stuff like pacman invocation, network setup etc.
I often think we should make the installer more minimal but I'm not sure yet how exactly I would implement it.

Depends on the user.

For me it's easy, for my brother, who is used to Ubuntu, he would be lost. Works great though, I have installed and had no problems.

wonder · 2009-08-10 18:48:09

Dieter@be thanks for doing a great job releasing this new version.
tacos?

Misfit138 · 2009-08-10 19:44:46

wonder wrote:

Dieter@be thanks for doing a great job releasing this new version.
tacos?

Yeah, thanks from me too. Excellent job. I appreciate the hard work.

kolbycrouch · 2009-08-10 23:08:24

I always thought the installer should be like sysinstall from freebsd or sysinst from netbsd. the old was a bit too minimal for an installer.

phrakture · 2009-08-11 03:02:51

Dieter@be wrote:

tpowa wrote:
dmraid need a installer hack to work correctly, you need old symlinks for dmraid 1.0.15
archboot setup hast the hack included
Can you elaborate? which symlinks? and why do you need them?

I'd like to try to get away from this folk-lore model of development. If there's a bug that someone solves, can we please document it somehow - email, wiki, etc?

I find two archboot changes related to dmraid, but can't grok them to know if this is what you're talking about:
http://projects.archlinux.org/?p=archbo … b7b0f5c78d
http://projects.archlinux.org/?p=archbo … 6cbc71925c

Dieter@be · 2009-08-11 07:47:10

kolbycrouch wrote:

I always thought the installer should be like sysinstall from freebsd or sysinst from netbsd. the old was a bit too minimal for an installer.

what do you mean? 2009.02 installer was too minimal for you? then aif will probably be too. is sysinst(all) more advanced/complicated? I googled around for some screenies and it looks kinda similar.

Dieter@be · 2009-08-11 07:48:14

wonder wrote:

Dieter@be thanks for doing a great job releasing this new version.
tacos?

don't forget to thank Gerhard as well. We both did a lot of work.

mariusmeyer · 2009-08-11 09:10:46

Great job with the new install media, kudos to all who made it possible. Even detected my custom hostname while I was modifying rc.conf and put it right where it belongs in hosts. Ten thumbs up from me!

Thunfisch · 2009-08-11 11:02:02

Hello,

unfortunately, I still have the XFS freeze problem with the latest netinstall ISO Image (archlinux-2009.08-netinstall-x86_64.iso). Everything's fine until the bootloader installation. Although I can quit using CTRL + C and reinstall GRUB after chrooting, I'm not able to boot from that partition. Choosing reiserfs or ext3 seems to work fine.

I should mention that I'm trying to install Arch Linux on my Macbook Pro 5,5 Unibody. I have installed rEFIt which recognizes reiserfs/ext3 partitions in my case and starts GRUB which I've installed in the same partition (apparently, this is the most reliable way of using GRUB in a dual boot setup with Mac OSX). As I said: this works fine with reiserfs/ext3 partitions but fails with XFS.

Dieter@be, I did a quick grep on the image's /usr/lib/aif/core/libs/lib-ui-interactive.sh file, it seems to have the xfs freeze patch which has been committed a couple weeks ago.

Any hints?

P.S.: I don't have my Macbook with me right now, so I'm gonna post technichal details later if someone is interested.

Dieter@be · 2009-08-11 11:49:07

Thunfisch wrote:

unfortunately, I still have the XFS freeze problem with the latest netinstall ISO Image (archlinux-2009.08-netinstall-x86_64.iso). Everything's fine until the bootloader installation. Although I can quit using CTRL + C and reinstall GRUB after chrooting, I'm not able to boot from that partition. Choosing reiserfs or ext3 seems to work fine.
I should mention that I'm trying to install Arch Linux on my Macbook Pro 5,5 Unibody. I have installed rEFIt which recognizes reiserfs/ext3 partitions in my case and starts GRUB which I've installed in the same partition (apparently, this is the most reliable way of using GRUB in a dual boot setup with Mac OSX). As I said: this works fine with reiserfs/ext3 partitions but fails with XFS.
Dieter@be, I did a quick grep on the image's /usr/lib/aif/core/libs/lib-ui-interactive.sh file, it seems to have the xfs freeze patch which has been committed a couple weeks ago.
Any hints?

Well, that's odd. It looks like you'll need to reopen http://bugs.archlinux.org/task/14573
You mentioned you cannot boot from the xfs? Even if you installed grub yourself? The issue was originally only about grub freezing while installing (when using xfs)

MetalheadGautham · 2009-08-11 14:10:00

Dieter@be wrote:

MetalheadGautham wrote:
Nice. I hope the installer is easier to use than the older ones. I remember that the hardest part about archlinux was INSTALLING it when I installed the then currently available release exactly around an year back. It does its job but is seriously uncomfortable to use at the same time.
This is odd. I often think our installer is too userfriendly. I mean once you have Arch installed, all configuration is done with config files, and all work by using tools on the commandline.
When you install, you are guided and have ncurses interfaces that hide stuff like pacman invocation, network setup etc.
I often think we should make the installer more minimal but I'm not sure yet how exactly I would implement it.

Its userfriendly if the user in question is an experienced linux user who is used to ncurses. But for those guys who are shifting to serious distros from toys like ubuntu, its a real pain in the rear sometimes.

Anyway, the hardest part in the installer IMO is partitioning.

The funny thing is that archlinux is otherwise really easy to use because everything is plain and simple and the default configuration files all have great inbuilt commented documentation. I found archlinux easier to use the first time I used it than CentOS 5.2 for example.

The only saving grace is the excellent inbuilt guide in the installer CD. I think it would be great if the installer also transfered this guide to a place like /var/doc or placed it in the /root folder by default after installation.

jelly · 2009-08-11 14:26:44

Dieter@be wrote:

MetalheadGautham wrote:
Nice. I hope the installer is easier to use than the older ones. I remember that the hardest part about archlinux was INSTALLING it when I installed the then currently available release exactly around an year back. It does its job but is seriously uncomfortable to use at the same time.
This is odd. I often think our installer is too userfriendly. I mean once you have Arch installed, all configuration is done with config files, and all work by using tools on the commandline.
When you install, you are guided and have ncurses interfaces that hide stuff like pacman invocation, network setup etc.
I often think we should make the installer more minimal but I'm not sure yet how exactly I would implement it.

I really like the installer , how it is today. The ncurses interface makes it easy and fast to install.

Nice work Dieter and GerBra

Last edited by jelly (2009-08-11 14:27:05)

Gen2ly · 2009-08-11 14:51:52

oY! The wiki page appears to be forgot in the process. Glad it got updated but looks to be casually put together.

A couple things:

1) The first sections is difficult to tell where a paragraph ends and begins.
2) Avoid words like not... please!
3) AIF installation - bash, procedures, libraries...  Are these useful, especially to a new user?

In fact is the whole AIF section needed? Perhaps we could name this "Installation Types" and put it in a better place??????

Arch Linux

#1 2009-08-09 18:23:06

2009.08 official snapshots

#2 2009-08-09 18:41:41

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#3 2009-08-09 19:15:34

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#4 2009-08-09 19:43:09

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#5 2009-08-10 01:53:36

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#6 2009-08-10 03:34:42

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#7 2009-08-10 07:12:17

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#8 2009-08-10 07:59:54

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#9 2009-08-10 15:57:43

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#10 2009-08-10 16:51:24

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#11 2009-08-10 17:32:54

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#12 2009-08-10 17:35:45

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#13 2009-08-10 18:42:16

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#14 2009-08-10 18:48:09

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#15 2009-08-10 19:44:46

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#16 2009-08-10 23:08:24

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#17 2009-08-11 03:02:51

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#18 2009-08-11 07:47:10

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#19 2009-08-11 07:48:14

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#20 2009-08-11 09:10:46

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#21 2009-08-11 11:02:02

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#22 2009-08-11 11:49:07

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#23 2009-08-11 14:10:00

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#24 2009-08-11 14:26:44

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

#25 2009-08-11 14:51:52

Re: 2009.08 official snapshots

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