mkmyDSL

Forum: DSL Tips and Tricks
Topic: mkmyDSL
started by: green

Posted by green on Nov. 23 2005,01:58

I thought it was worth bringing up that John, Robert, and the Development Team have engineered a nifty tool for DSL that often goes overlooked.

mkmyDSL

What a great little tool. I first used mkmyDSL back when DSL 0.9.2 was new (started using DSL with version 0.8.2) and used it again within the last couple of days. I think more folks should pay attention to what this thing does and capatalize on it's power.

Basically, what I do with it is this:

I get my fav DSL CD out and spin it live toram.
Then I start grabbing extensions... all kinds of stuff, and start putting them in their proper locations.
Next, I light up Firefox and start making my fav bookmarks.
Then, I tweak fluxbox to suit my fancy (transparency, etc)
All other tweaks get done (emelfm buttons, etc,).
Anything I modify, I add to: filetool.lst
Then I do a backup and save in the proper place.

Reboot again, but this time using: dsl 2 toram

Follow the instructions in the DSL Wiki and when you are done you end up with a LiveCD that has all the stuff YOU want. Mine has all the extensions I use, bookmarks, eye candy tweaks, etc. And it's all on the CD. No more downloading stuff and making directory's, etc. Just pop it in, spin it up, and BLAM! you got yourself your own little custom DSL Live CD.

I have built some that are specific to a particular machine, but some are done to be generic so I can stick it in most any machine and have everything I need right at my fingertips. This is great when you can not or are not allowed to change BIOS to boot USB or on a machine with no USB. Or maybe you do not have a USB flash drive. CD-R's are much cheaper than USB flash drives and have plenty of room to store all the things you want for YOUR custom.

This is plain great no matter how cut it.

Does it get any better?

Posted by mrbatman on Dec. 07 2005,22:10

yes, CD-RWs !

Posted by logicmaster2003 on Dec. 11 2005,18:14

Hi I was wondering if u can help me.. regarding "mkmydsl". Note that I still have about 200MB left on my usb thumbdrive.

1) I booted up to "dsl toram" like u mentioned
2) I entered "sudo su" to do this mkmydsl privilege task
3) on the "Enter your extension directory", I entered my usb thumb drive "/mnt/sda1"
4) on the "Enter the directory to hold the new myDSL iso", I entered "/mnt/sda1" (so I can create a live cd from this newly-created iso image)

then it says "Copying DSL image for remastering..
cp: failed to preserve ownership for '/mnt/sda1/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX' : Operation not permitted "

etc etc.

any idea ?? Thanks in advance !

Posted by roberts on Dec. 12 2005,17:08

Personally, I would not attempt to do a remaster on a flash type of device.
Usually, I boot the liveCD with
dsl 2 toram base norestore

And this is on a machine with two partitions that are Linux ext2 type.
It will not work on fat partitions.
I mount the partitions, one partition is where my MyDSL extensions were previously saved. The other is for the output of the mydsl.iso

Once the mydsl.iso is created and burned to a cdrom. I then test it for proper operation and they use it to do an update to my pendrive.

HTH

Posted by logicmaster2003 on Dec. 13 2005,04:36

Thank you so much guys for your help and tips regarding the MkmyDSL which is indeed a brilliant idea !

now i've burned 2 different custom lived CD !

* one is for low-profile (aka laptop with 256MB ram):
- GAIM ( a "must-have" application )
- MPLAYER ( another "must-have" for all audio/video playback)
- TUXVXP (my only favorite background wallpaper)

* one is for high-profile (aka beefy desktop with plenty of memory):
- GAIM
- MPLAYER
- TUXVXP
- XMame ( old-school games such as zaxon, asteroid, berzerd, etc)
- XGalaga
- Maxima (really cool mathematical modelling with equations/graphs)
- OpenOffice (who can live without this ? )

thanks again for the assistance

actually I've burned 4 copies of each.. I'm giving 1 to my boss, 2 for my 2 sisters, and 1 for my sister's neighbor who is a computer tech

I'm 100% they'll be hooked on DSL like me !!!

Posted by Butch C. on Dec. 28 2005,14:41

Hi there,

first: Big thanks for DSL to all who have contributed

Works fantastically so far i just have one little problem:

Using mkmydsl:

I replaced the XF86config-4 and the .xserverrc, however when i
boot the $source it still has the originals from the cd. How do i get my own versions?

Thats probably the same answer as for: How do i restore my settings from the Live-CD? Cause when i move it to another machine it obviously can't restore the settings from my harddrive.

Any idea somebuddy?

Posted by roberts on Dec. 28 2005,16:51

You can place your custom configurations such as .xserverrc into your own myconf.tar.gz or myconf.dsl depending on where these files are located.
Then simply add this personal extension to the others while using mkmydsl

Posted by Butch C. on Dec. 28 2005,20:56

Hey Roberts,

thx for the fast answer. I did a search for the myconf.tar.gz you mentioned and i think that will do the job. That question seems to haunt you. I indeed was tempted to try that via backup.tar.gz like some others here. You cured me. But funny somehow. I already tried more than a dozen Linux distros including Knoppix, but this.... I think i am already hooked on DSL.

CU

Posted by davea0511 on Jan. 04 2006,05:43

Quote (roberts @ Dec. 12 2005,12:08)

Personally, I would not attempt to do a remaster on a flash type of device.

Hi Roberts-

This was also what I was going to do (put it on a flash) because it's going into a PC that is going to get alot of rough use as a traveling kiosk and I don't want any moving parts (it needs to be ultra robust). In fact, that's what I'm currently doing with knoppix that I remastered to fit on 512 Mb CF card in an IDE adapter, but for many reasons I want to use DSL instead.

But you obviously are the expert here and you opinion is very important. Why wouldn't you put it on a flash? Is there a better installation method I should use if I put it on a flash (should I remaster instead of use extensions), and why?

Posted by roberts on Jan. 04 2006,06:02

First I meant to say, I would not run the remastering process on a flash device. Flash devices have limited number of writes.

In my opinion, it is best to remaster on another machine and when you have your system ready, then I would do a Lilo Frugal install.

If you boot dsl with the install boot option:

boot: install

You will see the menu I use to do installs.
I prefer frugal grub for hard drive installs, or where you would want easy access to the grub boot menu to change boot options.

But typically with a flash device, CF, I would not want any user to have such easy access to change boot options. Lilo works good for this situation.

Either way, a frugal install will drastically cut down on real system writes thus prolonging the life of your flash device. Use frugal over the traditional hard drive install.

Posted by davea0511 on Jan. 04 2006,13:33

I see. That makes perfect sense. That's why I've been using a remastered knoppix liveCD image until now - to completely eliminate writes to the CF card.

You mentioned that a frugal install will "drastically cut down" on real system writes. I'd like to entirely eliminate real system writes - wouldn't booting a frugal installed system with the "toram" cheatcode do that?

Thanks again, your insight is invaluable.

Posted by roberts on Jan. 04 2006,22:39

If you are not using backup/restore then it would operate just like a cdrom.
toram not necessary for write count but would help speed factor.

Posted by AwPhuch on Jan. 05 2006,00:40

Why do you have to boot into runlevel 2?? Is it just to free up more RAM?

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by CF card install of MyDSL on Jan. 23 2006,18:16

Quote (roberts @ Dec. 28 2005,11:51)

Forgive my stupidity . . . please.

I understand the use of backup.tar.gz. But, like this message, I can't save my custom Xfree86 install with extra fonts to make Flash Player work.

Are you saying that i can make my own .dsl package that contains my extra drivers and Xfree86 config and .xserverrc file, etc. and somehow get MkMyDSL to burn a CD image with them in tact, or better yet, put them on a CF card?

Can someone point me in the right direction to accomplish this?

Posted by roberts on Jan. 23 2006,18:45

Brian, I require runleve 2 for several reasons.

1. Maximum free ram
2. Ensure user root
3. Ensure a minimal 'pristine' environment.

Some users would have mydsl-loaded up all their extensions and then try to run the script. That is not how it works. It is not a snapshot of the currently loaded up system. But instead it is a base system with a collection of unpacked extensions to be written to the cdrom image.

I am currently in the process of updating this script.

HTH

Posted by roberts on Jan. 23 2006,18:51

To the unregistered user,
Yes, you keep the XFree86.dsl and other fonts package etc, in tact, and then treat them like any other extension and they will be written to the cdrom for autoloading upon boot. I usually call it myconf.tar.gz or if write access to other than home & opt call it myconf.dsl. If you can load it with mydsl-load dynamically then you can persist it into the mydsl.iso using mkmydsl script.

Posted by sigger on Feb. 22 2006,03:08

First off, thanks for the excellent distro. When I started using Linux less than a year ago, DSL was the first distro I tried and I immediately came back to it. Stuck with it ever since.

Anyway, a thought on mkmydsl: Does it make sense for mkmydsl to optionally use a .iso as the base system to build on rather than requiring a CD? This way, when upgrading one does not have to burn a soon-to-be-discarded CD of the new .iso in order to use it as a base for mkmydsl.

Thanks again!

Posted by roberts on Feb. 22 2006,05:12

Yes, but in the beginning it would be like the chicken and the egg. Not only for the base system files,
but also to pre-test the extensions so that you would not be burning a cdrom blindly.
So the concept to boot the cdrom and download and test that the extensions work as desired then make and burn the collection known as mydsl.iso

Posted by cbagger01 on Feb. 22 2006,17:21

It's not a problem if you have a blank CD-RW disk sitting around, and your computer supports booting from a CD-RW disk (some older CDROM drives don't like them).

Posted by sigger on Feb. 23 2006,04:58

Yeah, CDRW is prolly the way to go. It was of interest to me because of the way I use DSL. I don't load my extensions, bookmarks, etc into the .iso; I keep everything on a HD and load at boot, so the only changes I make are to boot toram and to restore (server version also gets runlevel 2). This way I don't have to move all the extensions, rebookmark, etc. All i have to do to run a new DSL version is pop in the new live cd. I was just trying to save a step in the (1) burn new dsl, (2) reburn from mkmydsl cycle.

I guess its easy enough to tweak mkmydsl for my pupose.

Thanks guys!