Persistent myDSL extensions

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Persistent myDSL extensions
started by: starcannon

Posted by starcannon on Jan. 02 2006,23:14

!!SOLVED!!

Thanks Roberts! :cool:

I've read bout everything i could find on the boards here, and the dillo start up page, and still I can't seem to get myDSL applications to persist on a frugal install.
My setup is this:

hda1-- DSL image.../hda1/KNOPPIX and /hda1/boot
hda2 -- /opt and /home
hda3 -- swap

with that setup what is the stepXstep guide to getting dsl, uci, tar.gz extensions to persist and icons to remain on desktop?

Anyhelp much apreciated, this seems to be the only Frugal obstacle that i can not seem to jump on my own.

Thanks,
Rob

Posted by roberts on Jan. 02 2006,23:23

With your frugal setup /dev/hda1 is mounted as /cdrom and is writeable for user root.
So copy your desired extensions to /cdrom and then they wll autoload at boot time.

Posted by starcannon on Jan. 03 2006,02:55

Thanks that was the ticket, it worked.

Posted by jags78 on Jan. 07 2006,02:37

I have a very similar setup to the one described above. I have an old laptop with a 2GB harddrive, I created three partitions which look like this, (pretty much what the frugal install suggests):

hda1 - 500 mb - /
hda5 - 1400mb - opt and home
hda6 - 268mb - swap

I downloaded a couple of myDSL extentions, gtk2 and gaim, placed them in /cdrom so they are loaded at boot, but when they try to load a get a message that I am out of space. I don't know how that can be and I am not sure where they are trying to extract to.

Any advice would be created appreciated.

Thanks for the help.

jags78

Posted by larkl on Jan. 07 2006,13:01

I think that you're going to need to put your mydsl downloads into one of two places, depending on whether you want them automatically installed each boot or you want them available for optional install. I don't think the cdrom folder is going to work. On my frugal, I only want mine available, so I created a folder /mnt/hda5/optional, chown to dsl and then download to here. If you want them to install each boot, then put them into /mnt/hda5.

Posted by larkl on Jan. 07 2006,14:46

Well,

After reading this post, I'm not sure that my answer is correct. I guess I'm sure that what I'm doing works, looks like what you did should work, unless this is specific to USB booting.

< post >

Posted by jags78 on Jan. 07 2006,15:07

Just tried the previous suggestion, and I still get the same error when I try to load the extension, saying I am out of space.

Does myDSL load all the applications into ramdisk? Are they not extracted to a permenint place on the HD?

Ok so it looks like it loads everything under /..., according to df that only has 2.3 mb left, that would be why I am running out of space.

So my next question is how can I get more space under there or how can I extract the mydsl extention to someplace else.

Again thanks.

jags78

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 07 2006,15:25

Is your swap actually being used? How much ram do you have? Those are the two question i'd be paying most attention to...the size of hda1 means very little when you're dealing with mydsl.

Posted by jags78 on Jan. 07 2006,16:12

I am not sure how to check if my swap is being used, I am pretty new to linux.

How can I check?

I have 64mb of ram on this old 133mhz MMX laptop.

**EDIT***
So I figured out how to check the swap information. In /etc/fstab I have a line that says /dev/hda6 none swap defaults 0 0. It says it was added by KNOPPIX. So it looks like I have the swap enabled.

When I run: cat /proc/meminfo

I get

SwapTotal: 262040
SwapFree: 210452

So it looks like it is being used.

**END EDIT**

-jags78

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 07 2006,20:18

I'm not sure i can help any further except to say that your ramdisk might be filling up.
df -h might give you a more detailed view of your available space.

Posted by jags78 on Jan. 08 2006,04:23

So would it be acceptable to modify the lilo.conf to increase the ramdisk size? Or is that not a good idea? It makes me wonder how the frugal install can be useful if you cannot load any extenions to anywhere but the ramdisk. On an older machine would the HD install be a better option?

Thanks,
jags78

Posted by starcannon on Jan. 09 2006,23:58

Jags heres what i learned and implemented:

1)store all your DSL extensoions in your /mnt/hda5/home/dsl/My-DSL (or where ever you wanna store the dsl directory.

2)symlink the DSL extension into /cdrom (if you try to put 5 megs of extensions in a full up 50meg partition thats holding your boot image it will complain, symlinks are tiny tho, so can put loads of those in

)

3) if swap is not active then boot from CDRom with "dsl 2 vga=xxx"
dsl@box~$ sudo su
bash-2.05b# swapon /dev/hda6 (or whatever partition your swap is on)
reboot

4) if this post was correct you should now buy a 6pack of fat tire ale and drink one for me

Have fun and let us know if it works out.

Rob

Posted by roberts on Jan. 10 2006,00:51

starcannon, just some comments. That is a rather novel approach.
It may work for well your specific setup, but ...
1 It assumes a frugal with persistent home otherwise the mount of your hda5 would not be there for the symlinks to work.
2. Storing extensions in the home directory is generally not a good approach. Most users not using a persistent home would then have those huge static extensions be backed and restored with every boot.

In general, extensions should be separate from /home/dsl so as to not be in the backup. Should one wish to use that feature.

With DSL there are so many ways to do things.

Posted by starcannon on Jan. 10 2006,02:21

Quote (roberts @ Jan. 09 2006,19:51)

Roberts thats a good point,
as i forgot to mention i listed my "My-DSL" directory in my "/home/dsl/.xfiletool.lst" as well as any other directories that i have made static, in this way i have lots of files on my HDD but my backup.tar.gz remains small.

Anyway i use this aproach on both frugal installs that i'm running, and lovin it, i was unclear how to aproach it when confronted with the idea of a 50~60mb boot partition so this seemed the logical aproach for me. Anyway i ramble on.

I'm a noob to DSL yet, but learning fast, if you find my aproach useful cool, if not i'm all ears to a better way.

Rob

Posted by roberts on Jan. 10 2006,03:00

I am always interested in how people use software that I write.
Many times, I learn of alternate ways to use it as well.

I just wanted to be sure that there is not confusion with so many new users comming to our site.

Posted by JGC on Jan. 11 2006,23:41

Quote (starcannon @ Jan. 09 2006,18:58)

Have fun and let us know if it works out.

Rob

As a total noob to DSL I have been searching/reading/trying different ways to keep opera850.uci
persistent and have yet to succeed! Finding your post has given me new hope - Now if you would
just be kind enough to walk me thru these two steps it would me much appreciated!

My frugal setup is as follows
hda8 -- DSL image - 55meg
hda9 -- /opt & /home - 1gig
hda6 -- swap (also used as swap for other distros) 540meg
Have 3gig of ram so swap never seems to get used by any distos I use or have tested
Boot via grub including the options home=hda8 mydsl=hda8

1)store all your DSL extensoions in your /mnt/hda5/home/dsl/My-DSL

"store" How? I am a drag & drop via KDE person and when I attempt a download to hda9 it
results in an error msg telling me to mount a directory and try again

2)symlink the DSL extension into /cdrom

Each time I have download the .uci by default it goes to /tmp. Lets say I manage to "store" it
in /mnt/hda9/home/dsl/My-DSL, could you provide an example or explain how to create a symlink
to /cdrom

If it makes any difference, all tweaks, bookmarks, ect which I do when opera is installed are
saved - Just lose the desktop icon, opera850 dir, and sub dirs for it after a reboot.

Posted by roberts on Jan. 12 2006,00:24

While you can do it this way, it is not recommended.
It is alot of manual work, making symlinks and then to update .xfiletoo.lst.
And I would not say it may or may not be supported going forward.

There is alot of documentation on how to save extensions, but let me recap here and in particular for a frugal type setup.

1. Make your target system install directory much larger so as to accomodate storing extensions.
or
2. Make an additional partition just for mydsl extensions.

With option 1 you can just Drag-N-Drop the extensions to /cdrom
With option 2 you edit the file /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.list and add mydsl=hdxy
Then Drag-N-Drop to this other partition hdxy
You can also make the "optional" directory on this additional partition.

A little setup at the beginning save a whole lot of work later.

This symlink and .xfiletool.lst method works when there was not enough space allocated on the install partition and no other partition was created for the extensions.

Allocating space is the desired way.
You will be glad you did, when you see what I have comming in DSL v2.2

Posted by JGC on Jan. 12 2006,03:36

Thanks Roberts - Have just been playing/testing DSL on my main system.
When I install it on the sys which shall run it full time will take your advice
and make the install dir larger - Seems the easy way and I like easy. Did
finally get the .uci file copied over to my home & opt partition but had to do
it using another distro - Just can't get the hang of using Emelfm! Already
had mydsl=hdxy in menu.lst so now opera is persistent and loads at boot.

Another question if you don't mind - Is there a way to get the keyboard
number pad keys to NOT act like Num Lock is ON? A minor matter but
one which bugs those of us who use those keys with Num Lock OFF.

Regards, JGC

Posted by El Chupey on Jan. 16 2006,19:58

I have a hd install. all works well and i even got the ALSA (alsa.dsl) drivers to work on my soundcard...but the dam thing doesnt stay installed after reboot. Do i have to manually back up every dir the drivers touch/ write to or is there an easier way? also..i used to run a frugal install and new where my home and dsl apps were, now that i have a full hd install im not so sure

Posted by El Chupey on Jan. 16 2006,20:33

better yet...is there a way to just backup my entire system...because i finally have it perfect...with the exception of the ALSA drivers not loading on boot.

Posted by xaccrocheur on Jan. 17 2006,14:31

Quote (roberts @ Jan. 11 2006,19:24)

(...)
There is alot of documentation on how to save extensions, but let me recap here and in particular for a frugal type setup.

1. Make your target system install directory much larger so as to accomodate storing extensions.
or
2. Make an additional partition just for mydsl extensions.

With option 1 you can just Drag-N-Drop the extensions to /cdrom
With option 2 you edit the file /cdrom/boot/grub/menu.list and add mydsl=hdxy
Then Drag-N-Drop to this other partition hdxy
You can also make the "optional" directory on this additional partition.

When going for option1, that is, put every .dsl extension that I need to be present at each boot in /cdrom, should I add or remove anything to the GRUB command line ? Should'nt I take out the "frugal" option ?

Quote (roberts @ Jan. 11 2006,19:24)

This symlink and .xfiletool.lst method works when there was not enough space allocated on the install partition and no other partition was created for the extensions.

Allocating space is the desired way.
You will be glad you did, when you see what I have comming in DSL v2.2

When going for option2, can I create a "MyDSL" dir in "/" if I can't create another partition ? My scheme is :

hda1 NTFS 1Gb resized by < ntfsresize >using < RIP >.
hda2 swap 256Mb
hda3 /home 500Mb
hda4 / 1500Mb
So nope, no specific MyDSL partition... Is there a way to use a directory ? And if so, how to tell DSL to look for MyDSL exts in it ?

I have to say I don't really like the idea of putting things in /cdrom.. Is'nt that already my cdrom mountpoint ?! I'd really like to use a special MyDSL dir.

Thank you very much ! This MyDSL thingie is the last mystery, but this system is already *humming* in 32Mg !! Yikes !

Quote (roberts @ Jan. 11 2006,19:24)

Allocating space is the desired way.
You will be glad you did, when you see what I have comming in DSL v2.2

Wow, sounds cool. You dev guys are heroes.

DSL just rules
< http://hallucinet.online.fr/IMG/random/RawLikeMe.jpg >

Posted by mikshaw on Jan. 17 2006,15:49

Quote

No need to do that. /cdrom is the base of frugal installation, which is the default location where the boot script looks for them. The frugal option should remain if you want to be able to write to /cdrom (e.g. add more extensions).

Quote

When going for option2, can I create a "MyDSL" dir in "/" if I can't create another partition ? My scheme is :

hda1 NTFS 1Gb resized by ntfsresize using RIP.
hda2 swap 256Mb
hda3 /home 500Mb
hda4 / 1500Mb
So nope, no specific MyDSL partition... Is there a way to use a directory ? And if so, how to tell DSL to look for MyDSL exts in it ?.

If you create anything in "/", it will be gone when you reboot. If you do not have a separate partition, or some other disk like a pendrive or cd, then you MUST put your files in /cdrom. This is the only persistent place in the frugal system. However, you have hda3 there, which could be used. If you add the packages to the root of hda3, you can use the boot option "mydsl=hda3". Or if you put them in /home/dsl/mydsl (for example), you should be able to use the boot option "mydsl=hda3/home/dsl/mydsl". I have personally never auto-loaded extensions stored in a persistent home, so i'm not positive it works...i think it should, though.

EDIT: I'm now using a persistent home on hda3 (suse system on reiserfs), with a /home/dsl/mydsl directory. Using the boot option "mydsl=hda3/home/dsl/mydsl" works as expected. The old extensions that are still hanging around in /cdrom/optional are found as well...not sure i like that, but it doesn't really matter since i'm going to delete all the extra stuff from /cdrom after completing my new setup. The ext2 filesystem isn't really very reliable when you are constantly writing to it.