Frugul vs. Standard
Forum: HD Install
Topic: Frugul vs. Standard
started by: Sinphaltimus
Posted by Sinphaltimus on Dec. 22 2005,14:12
Let first start off by saying I am super new to linux. I have tried every distro I could get my hands on and personally, I like many of them, some more than DSL. The live CDs for them worked great however, the installs always failed on all the others. DSL installs work great and currently is the only one that I can install to my very old NEC laptop. However, I am a bit confused as to the 2 HDD install options. The standard install works fine for me and it saves all my data just fine etc... However, Synaptics doesn't work well, I can't seem to figure out how to install anything from it. I think the DSL help that opens up on boot up syas something to this affect and it recommends the Frugul install for upgradeability. Yes, I upgrade to the GNU tools and enable apt prior to trying Synaptic.
So, then I wipe out the system and install the Frugul installation. I am confused as to the difference between the GRUB install and the LILO install (even for the standard so I just choose LILO). Next, what are those boot option? (toram ssh lpd etc....) What should I choose.
My goal is simple. I have a 4GB HDD that I can partition anyway DSL would like best. I do not want to run anything in ran, I want it all on the HDD. I want to be able to upgrade, I want to be able to install DSL packages (and others I come across). I want to be able to save files to the HDD.
With the frugul installation, none of my settings or files get saved and I see hda1 as the ram drive I can't seem to find my physical HDD anywhere.
It is obvious to me that I am missing something. Yes I tried researching this prior to posting here.
Bascially, I want to be able to use DSL just like any windows installation. Install it, use it, upgrade it, install aps, uninstall aps etc... and know everything will be there when I reboot.
Please help... thanks sincerely,
Sinphaltimus Exmortus
(don't ask, just google it)
www.digital-church.com
Posted by _pathos on Dec. 22 2005,14:34
Whats the partition table in fdisk look like? also what is the output of mount?as for backing up your settings you may not have set a home partition in the lilo.conf so /home/dsl is not on a hard disk and thus all the files are discarded on reboot. I think you only need two partitions a ext2 for mydsl, lilo\grub, root, home, opt, etc etc and a swap partition.
You'll have to check out your lilo.conf and the man pages for which settings to change. best to post them here along with the parition table and mount points
Posted by doobit on Dec. 22 2005,14:41
You can do all that you want with either a regular hard drive install, or a Frugal install. The difference is in the details of how you do it. Linux is not like Windows. It's not any harder than Windows, but there is a learning curve if you have always used Windows. People who have never used Windows normally have no problem learning Linux.
Frugal is a very nice way to get into Linux without any danger. You can really mess things up in your configuration files, run as root and experiment around, and then restore everything back to the way it was in seconds just by deleting the backup files.
I typically will use cfdisk to partition my hard drive into a primary, which becomes / and two logicals which become swap and /home .
I put my backup/restore files and all of my extentions in /home and also on the same partition I make a directory called /opt which carries my editable configuration files. I usually will format that as a journaling partition too. Linux is pretty flexible and you can use a single partition for each directory if you want to.
I have used both lilo and grub, and they are both about the same. I just like grub because it is a little more cross-platform, and the config file is a little easier to edit.
Look at the information in the documentation. Read that info file that pops up when you first run the live CD.
Posted by Sinphaltimus on Dec. 22 2005,15:31
Pathos - Thanks, your reply kind of makes some sense however it is more linux techie savy than I have become thus far.Doobit, - I want to make sure I understand you correctly.
use cfdisk to create 3 partitions. one primary and 2 logical. the priomary will be for the HD install. The 2nd will be for my /home directory and the third for a swap.
Question, how big should they be (total HDD size = 4GB) ?
I won't be saving large media files, however, i do want to play with a lot of different aps and eventually see if I can indeed begin replacing some windows machines I have with Linux. I would at least require testing Wine for the adobe product I am registered for and some windows games however, it seems as though there is an open source solution to just about everything else.
Pathos & Doobit - Been using computers since the early 80's (TI99/4a, Apple II, IIc, IIe, TRS-80, Amiga, x86 (BeOS, Netware then finally Windoze)) and have (due more to circumstance than anything else) settled on Windows PCs and have been working the industry since WFW3.1.
Most of my Dos (and other shell skills) have suffered over the years and being an IT manager (of people and projects) many mnore techie skills have suffered. I'm no dumbass and can only guess that as long as I stick with playing on Linux, reading, researching and learning the shell commands as well as asking questions, any day now there will be a *DING* and I will have tipped over the other side of the learning curve.
So thanks for your answers, I will play more when I get home. I will read as much as I can, above and beyond what I have already read (a lot of which is confusing) and of course be backhere for follow ups.
So thanks again, much appreciated -
P.S.E.
Posted by ruserious on Dec. 22 2005,21:11
Have you tried this: < http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub....wto.pdf >for a frugal installation. It will make sure that you have a persistent /home and /opt directory on the harddisk. It's what I am using, aand I am pretty happy with it. There's long threads that discuss frugal vs. "regular" HD Install, and the plus-side seems to be you can upgrade very easily. And from my experience that's very true.
Posted by Sinphaltimus on Dec. 23 2005,15:14
I'm sitting down to try these now. I will checdk out that PDF file. My understanding is that the frugul install is best, just for that...upgrading. For some reason though, and correct me if I'm wrong, I thought the frugul install works off ram disks, which limits the amount of storage you can have. Is that true? Anyway, maybe that pdf will help...Going to go read it now.
Posted by doobit on Dec. 23 2005,15:29
They all work off RAM disks to a certain extent. The OS loads as much information as it needs to operate into memory and then grabs the rest when you call for it by selecting an application or driver for a particular task. The difference is that Frugal is a compressed and locked package that gets uncompressed (and recompressed) on the fly. You can choose to run all 50MB of it in RAM if you have more thatn 128MB onboard, if you want to, by using the boot option "toram" , but that's an option. Also, having a swap file means that anything that won't or can't load into RAM will use the swap file as if it were RAM.
Posted by Sinphaltimus on Dec. 23 2005,16:31
Thanks, that clears things up a bit. I have repartitioned hda1,5&6 as such:
hda1 500MB Linux Primary Boot
hda2 3GB Linux Primary
hda3 800MB Linux Swap Primary
after a failed install. Initially, hda2 & 3 were logical hda5 &6 but after running the int\stall script, the system could not mount hda5 so I figured I partitioned wrong. Trying again... BBIAB.
***UPDATE*** That PDF has typos in it. My issue with the first install was I didn't format the additional 2 partitions.
First typo in that PDF is /usr/sbin/frugal_instal.sh - Instal.sh needs to be install.sh
Secone issue is the HDD format commands are wrong. A little googling and I got the correct syntax.
BBIAB -
Posted by Sinphaltimus on Dec. 23 2005,17:34
Well that went very bad - first reboot - screen fils up with..9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A9A 9A 9A
Maybe because I partitioned the hda2 & 3 as primaries? Going to start all over again...
Posted by AwPhuch on Dec. 23 2005,17:41
I think lilo has to have hda as master or it goes nutsBrian
AwPhuch
Posted by Sinphaltimus on Dec. 23 2005,17:49
OK, this isn't working, I got a screen full of 9A again. WTH?
Posted by Sinphaltimus on Dec. 23 2005,18:44
OK, well... Now I am completely stumped.. Why is the screen filling up with "9A"? As far as I can tell, I did everything correctly.
Posted by Sinphaltimus on Dec. 23 2005,20:25
OK - I think I got it now. I reformatted everything and instead of booting to the console only and following the manual instructions, I booted to the gui off the live CD, selected the frugal install from the menu system and then followed the pdf instructions from that point on. I am now booting up fine and everything is running real fast. I need to test this a bit more. First I will install an ap or two, then I will reboot and see if it is still there. If not, I will try backing up first.Wish me luck, I came close to giving up on this linux stuff and chalking it up to all hype. Let's see where these latest developements lead me.....
Posted by doobit on Dec. 23 2005,21:07
The apps will load at boot everytime if they are installed to the ROOT directory of the partition that the OS is on. If you want the option of starting them after boot, then put them in /home
Posted by Sinphaltimus on Dec. 30 2005,16:48
OK, I gave up entirely on the frugal installation. I came to realize something. I was waiting a lot of time trying to get something more than what I needed. Bottom line, I don't want to pit Linux vs. Windows. I simply want to learn linux as an alternative OS. Somthing I can use and learn for myself. I don't care about upgrading right now. I don't really care about installing aps right now. right now I just want to learn the basics and work my way up from there.I guess I was being too ambitious at first. I chose to install DSL on the laptop using the HD install. It works, I'm not doing anything crazy with it that I need to save files or install applications.
right now, I am simply following a tutorial on linuxcommands.org .
Once I become familiar with that and comfortable, I will move on to the next level.
However, this thread (and your help (all of you)) is not in vein. I learned a lot just from this thread, the docs, my own investigation etc... and for that I am happy I tried the frugal install first.
I am running DSL on my old NEC laptop, I am running DSL Embedded on any windows machine I log into and I am running Puppy Linux as my travelling OS.
I have to say, I am glad computing has become fun and interesting to me once again.
Thanks All.....
Posted by doobit on Dec. 30 2005,17:36
I'm having a lot of fun with it. My wife complains sometimes when I tell her I want this or that new computer thing, but her hobby is shopping, so mine takes up a lot less space. I use, and love the Frugal Install because it's so easy on the hardware. Everything that you need get's loaded on a RAM disk and only writes to hardware when you log off or backup. Anyway, When I first started in computing and other people were asking me to help them out, I used to say, "Just play around with it until you learn it. You can't do anything to it that I can't undo." I don't say that too much anymore, because I found that you could lose some important stuff for good, if you don't put it somewhere safe. However, it's still mostly true. It's worth the risk to keep learning and growing. DSL makes it easy to learn because it's small and less complicated to figure out.
Posted by mshilly on Jan. 01 2006,04:48
My setup: PIII 666Mhz 512MB ram, with 6GB disk.I need to know if I can re-make the Kernel from a frugal install?
I have tried both today (frugal and HD DSL 2.0 installs) with poor results each time. On my frugal install I got gnu-utls.dsl, gcc1.dsl, linux-kernel-headers.dsl. I uncompressed the source for linux-kernel-3.4.31 in /home/dsl. After linking the linux-3.4.31 directory to linux, I copied dsl.config to linux/.config and ran 'make oldconfig' which completed.
Then when I run 'make dep' to setup all of the dependencies it gets wierd... it starts (what looks like recursively) make like over 1000 times until it fills up memory and my 1GB swap. Also, make seems to start to do something similar.
Any help appreciated.
Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 01 2006,07:00
I would create a temporary hd install just to compile my kernel.Then I would save the files somewhere and apply the DSL remastering process (search the forums for keyword remaster) to build a new livecd with your recompiled kernel.
Finally, I would do a frugal installation from your new livecd.
Not a quick-n-easy process, but it is do-able.
Posted by mshilly on Jan. 03 2006,00:13
OK, so I have a recompiled kernel (make config; make dep; make bzImage) on a basic HD install. I am familiar with the remastering process. What I need help with is:
1) What files from the kernel compile do I need to copy over
to the directory that I am sourcing the remaster from?
and
2) What boot files from the kernel compile need to be copied and to where?
I have not found (using search) descriptions of incorporating a new kernal into the DSL remastering process.
Any help appreciated.
Posted by cbagger01 on Jan. 03 2006,12:15
Pretty much the enitire /lib/modules contents need to be copied over.You also need a new linux24 (the file is usually called vmlinuz after a compile) for the boot folder.
Finally, you need to mount your minirt24.gz initial mini root filesystem as a "loopback device" and copy over any required boottime modules like usb or sata drivers for example.
I could have missed something, but that should cover most of the steps.