Frugal or not?

Forum: HD Install
Topic: Frugal or not?
started by: pbransford

Posted by pbransford on Jan. 05 2006,18:06

I want to install DSL to my hard drive, should I be using frugal or not? What exactly does Frugal do that the normal mode doesn't?

Posted by doobit on Jan. 05 2006,20:05

Frugal:
1. Takes up less space (only 50MB or less) for the OS because it's a compressed image just like the LiveCD.
2. Is not a writeable file system, just like the Live CD, therefore is less prone to corruption.
3. Because it's less prone to corruption, you can restore to a workable state by simply deleting your backup files in most cases.
4. Does not read and write to your media drives except on backup and restore, or when swapping. If you use toram, then everything is done in RAM with no writing to disk during processing. This saves your disk, which is very important to the disk life of flash memory drives, for example.
5. You can find more info in the documentation: < http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub....pdfdocs >

Posted by larkl on Jan. 06 2006,00:31

I would highly recommend the frugal install. Having used a traditional HD install with Feather (Debian), I ran into dependency hell when trying to install new apps. Not that frugal is perfect, but I've found to be very usable with few problems.

Posted by starcannon on Jan. 09 2006,21:02

Rob

Posted by davea0511 on Jan. 14 2006,02:36

Quote (starcannon @ Jan. 09 2006,16:02)

Frugal FTW!

Frugal is the way to go.
with frugal and persistent opt and home you can easily upgrade your DSL to any version you wish and if you dont like the update its as easy as booting from the dsl version disk of your choice dsl 2, mke2fs -j hdx, and then frugal_install.sh and your back up and running with wichever version was on the cd you booted from.

Also when you decide to have dsl packages load on bootup just symlink the files into the /cdrom directory off the root directory, this is NOT the same as the /mnt/auto/cdrom, and as stupid as it sounds that was my biggest stumbling block as i didn't understand at first that they were completely seperate and different.
so symlinks to your DSL extensions go in:
/cdrom
and compact disks go in:
/mnt/auto/cdrom

anyway maybe you go that figured out already but thought i'd share my understanding as it took me awhile to get it

Rob

I wish I knew more about linux so I could understand what you're talking about. How do you create a symbolic link (a symlink is geek-speak for symbolic link, yes?) to the /cdrom directory?

And where do you actually put the dsl file itself so it's persistent? In the /home/dsl or /opt directory? Why do you have to symbolically link it to the /cdrom directory? I haven't read anywhere else that I have to do that.

Posted by RoGuE_StreaK on Jan. 14 2006,05:59

You don't really have to do any linking. Or much of anything. The install scripts do it all.

Basically, make a clean ext2 linux partition of maybe 55MB. I cheated and used Partition Magic, but there's plenty of info around on how to make a partition. This is where the "fake CD" is going to get permanently stored.
If you want your /home and /opt data to be persistent, you'll need space for them somewhere. For tidiness and ease of update, usually best to have these on a separate partition. Mine are sitting on my windows data partition ("D Drive").
And a swap partition may come in handy if you have low RAM.

Before jumping in over your head, boot with the liveCD, use the mount tool, and find out exactly which partition name this is; mount all of the partitions you can find, then in emelfm hit the "df" (disk free?) button down the bottom, and you should be able to tell from disk sizes as to which is which. Make a note of the name, eg hda5. Same for the /home and /opt partitions.

Then just find the "frugal grub install" (or similar) link in the menu, follow the prompts, and away you go. More indepth issues are addressed elsewhere in the forum.

Then to update the core image, you just go through the frugal install procedure again, point to a new DSL iso (be it file, liveCD, etc), and answer "n" to whether you want to format the partition. 1min later, updated install. MUCH easier than updating a standard HD install.

Posted by xaccrocheur on Jan. 15 2006,00:09

Quote (RoGuE_StreaK @ Jan. 14 2006,00:59)

You
(...)
If you want your /home and /opt data to be persistent, you'll need space for them somewhere.
(...)
And a swap partition may come in handy if you have low RAM.
(...)

Hi ! I 'd like to finalize my DSL install, outlined < here >.

I prepared my HD as follows :

/dev/hda1 NTFS 1000Mb (resized using < ntfsresize > !!)
/dev/hda2 Linux Swap 256Mb
/dev/hda3 Linux /home 500Mb
/dev/hda4 Linux / 1800Mb

And installed DSL in hd4 using the DSL GRUB frugal installer.

Now, two things : I have to pass the cheatcodes to the dsl kernel each time w/ GRUB. Does somebody knows how to edit this permanently ? Well, this question is really not important, what is is this :

#How do I make my SWAP partition active, and affect my /home partition to a user ?

#How do I *save* my SDL settings ? At each boot I have to choose the XServer type, the mouse type, then the KB layout, THEN again, switch to JWM that I prefer ? What are the necessary files to edit ?

Thank you very much. DSL is the ONLY (non-floppy) Linux that made it past runlevel 3 on this < baby >. Great stuff.

Posted by starcannon on Jan. 18 2006,17:00

Quote

davea0511,Jan. 13 2006,21:36 I wish I knew more about linux so I could understand what you're talking about. How do you create a symbolic link (a symlink is geek-speak for symbolic link, yes?) to the /cdrom directory?

And where do you actually put the dsl file itself so it's persistent? In the /home/dsl or /opt directory? Why do you have to symbolically link it to the /cdrom directory? I haven't read anywhere else that I have to do that.

I've been recently enlightened that symlinking to the /cdrom directory was not neccessarily the best way to go about my install, so I no longer will be recommending it, the 2 methods that have been suggested to me are.
1)make the install partition big enough to hold any dsl packages that i would want to have auto loaded at boot time
or
2)put the dsl packages on the root of my everything else drive.

during frugal install you will be given an opportunity in the wizard to choose your dsl directory location, if you choose method 2 then you'd want to be sure to tell it where your packages are, if you choose method 1 its not an issue as the packages will be right there where they are needed anyway, keep in mind this is only for packages that you would like to load automatically when you boot up.

As for symlinking in generaly DSL makes it very easy, once your into your desktop just open up Emelfm and you will see 2 windwo panes, down the center a bunch of buttons, you can select a file in window pane Left, click Symlink button in the center, and it will put a Symbolic Link to that file in the pane on the Right. couldn't be any easier than that, and its a handy tool sometimes.
Sorry if my first post was confusing but i'm still a noob and stuff i think i figured out is sometimes brought to my attn as not a good idea

anyway hope that clarified and rectified my previous post a bit, and hope i didnt mess up your install.

Rob

Posted by davea0511 on Jan. 18 2006,17:33

Thanks. I ended up reinstalling using grub (since lilo.conf can't easily change boot options), and used mydsl=hda2 where I put my backups and schtuff.

Posted by muskrat on April 22 2006,03:11

Quote

I ended up reinstalling using grub (since lilo.conf can't easily change boot options),

I've noticed that also. I got the frugal install PDF from the website, and I believe it lacks a lot. Yes it'll get you into a frugal HD install.

I spent the day reading all these post on how great the frugal install is, but then they leave you to figure the system out.

Once you've done a frugal install how does one go about editing the system files such as lilo.conf which noramlly wouldn't be a problem but with the frugal install it's a read only file.

Posted by muskrat on April 22 2006,03:14

Oh another side note how is an easy way to track ones posts with this board? I click the track this topic but it doesn't seem to do anything. What's it supposed to do?

Posted by lovdsl on April 22 2006,03:50

in defence of the option..I created three partitions, boot,store,swap,,stuck the cd in the drive typed dsl vga=normal and when dsl loaded I clicked install to hd..hda1,ext2,n yes to grub and rebooted with passwords..downloaded several extensions via firefox to /home/dsl and clicked them and then mydsl one after the other..opened to have a look and then customized the desktop and rebooted..insane..and everything was auto detected and auto saved..I do not have the flexibility of the frugal in update and uncertain install..but I tested all the extensions in a test install first..for a newbie this is fast track to success..with 48 meg ram swap is essential..none the less the effort to understand and achieve a frugal install is worth every effort.. with those mini iso extensions it is brilliant creativity..I hope someone organizes a better install guide..I am looking for a another unit for this purpose..the dx2 was interesting, the p166 rocks, the frugal will likely be excellent, and I just read a thread about dsl as a server and seen the results..mind blowing..however dsl installs remains a matter of personal choice...: ):blues:

Posted by charliez on April 27 2006,19:53

Quote (lovdsl @ April 21 2006,23:50)

and I just read a thread about dsl as a server and seen the results..mind blowing.....

Was that thread on these forums? Link?

Posted by lovdsl on April 27 2006,21:45

Yes

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