multiple frugal install - booting to the wrong one

Forum: HD Install
Topic: multiple frugal install - booting to the wrong one
started by: kawayanan

Posted by kawayanan on June 23 2006,01:19

First, let me describe my setup.

AMD K6-2 450MHz, 160M RAM. Its pretty old, but I mainly use it to ssh to linux servers in the lab I work in and run remote programs (tunneling X). Kind of like a thin client type thing.

hda1 - Windows install
hda5 - big (comparatively) bloated linux install
hda6 - linux swap (512M)
hda7 - DSL 2.4
hda8 - DSL 3.0 RC2 (I see that 3.0.1 is out - will have to play with this tomorrow)
hda9 - ext2 partition for MyDSL, opt, and backup

I got to this point is a round about way. I had a dual boot with Windows and linux. It was a common distro with KDE and all the bells and whistles and my poor old computer was quite slow running it. I was impressed with the DSL live CD when I tried it, and decided to do a frugal install. Since it took so little room, I figured I would leave my old linux install intact in case I needed it for some reason. I resized my linux install partition and made room for a few small partitions (hda7-9). I did a frugal install on hda7 using DSL 2.4. Things went well and I got pretty much what I wanted working (ssh server, static IP, new hostname, etc., MyDSL, opt, and backup on hda9). I was hoping to install DSL 3.0RC2 on hda8 (I have just seen that 3.0.1 is actually out now, but I figured I would explain my problem anyway). I did the frugal install of 3.0RC2 on hda8. I was hoping to be able to test the RC2 while still using the same restore and MyDSL as the DSL 2.4 install (hda7). My problem was that I cannot get it to boot the hda8 install. The grub install clearly points to hda8, but somewhere during the bootup it decides to use hda7 (2.4) anyway. I figured that maybe it had something to do with my backups on hda9, so I moved all the files into some folders hoping that it would then just do a standard boot. I don't know if it still found the backup or what (I didn't have grub running any restore=hda9 options, and the backup was in a folder, not in the root of the partition). I still boot up the hda7 install even after choosing a grub boot menu option pointed at hda8. Any ideas on what's up here? Is there a problem trying to run two different frugal installs? This may not be too urgent since 3.0.1 is out, but it would be nice to be able to test out new versions without loosing the current install.

Aside from that long questions, I have a couple of other quick ones.

1) can I change the default login name to something other than dsl? Since I am spending most of my time ssh'ing to servers, it would be nice to be able to use my normal login.

2) I can create new users, but they seem to be a little differnt than the default dsl user. As dsl, I can ssh to a server and run x programs. If I try it as a different user, I can ssh just fine but can seem to tunnel X.

3) if I use the dsl boot option "secure", it says I will be prompted for root and user passwords. Would this then mean that after the first login it would ask for password before logging in? I would rather have to have a password to login, and possibly even be able to have multiple user accounts (and not just automatically logging into one).

Thanks everyone for a great little distro!

Kawayanan

Posted by mikshaw on June 23 2006,02:42

There should be no problem using multiple frugal installs...I have 3 installed on the same partition at the moment. The backup has nothing to do with which system is booted...it is read only after the kernel has loaded and the filesystem is mounted. My only guess is that you have something wrong in menu.lst

1) The only way I can think to do this without making a mess is to make sure that the only thing that changes is the user name. Unless you don't mind breaking a lot of DSL's features, you should keep the uid 1001, the gid 50, the home directory /home/dsl, and make sure your user can sudo. Even doing this may cause troubles in, for example, mydsl. User dsl is a fundamental part of DSL's unique features, so i wouldn't recommend changing your default user unless you have no plans to do a lot of DSL-specific tasks.
2) you may need to start the x session as the other user. I don't know much about this, so that's all I'm going to suggest.
3) Secure will prompt for the creation of both root and dsl passwords, but prompting to enter passwords after this depends on the context. In a typical setup the sudo command does not require a password, and user dsl is logged in automatically by means of user root suing to dsl rather than being an interactive processes.
I've changed my frugal system to behave in the "traditional" way, prompting for a user name and password for login, and providing virtual terminals in order to run multiple simultaneous sessions. You can see the process I used here:
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....;t=7936 >

Posted by kawayanan on June 23 2006,20:41

Quote (mikshaw @ June 22 2006,22:42)

I am pretty sure that there isn't a problem in the menu.lst. I actually left it the default menu.lst after doing the second frugal install (hda8, install was done from live CD). During boot, I can check the boot options and it is clearly pointed at hda8 but boots off of hda7. I still have no idea what is going on, but I think I will clear everything and install 3.0.1 and see what happens.

Quote (mikshaw @ June 22 2006,22:42)

1) The only way I can think to do this without making a mess is to make sure that the only thing that changes is the user name. Unless you don't mind breaking a lot of DSL's features, you should keep the uid 1001, the gid 50, the home directory /home/dsl, and make sure your user can sudo. Even doing this may cause troubles in, for example, mydsl. User dsl is a fundamental part of DSL's unique features, so i wouldn't recommend changing your default user unless you have no plans to do a lot of DSL-specific tasks.

Thanks for the info. It sounds like I should just leave the dsl account alone :P

Quote (mikshaw @ June 22 2006,22:42)

2) you may need to start the x session as the other user. I don't know much about this, so that's all I'm going to suggest.
3) Secure will prompt for the creation of both root and dsl passwords, but prompting to enter passwords after this depends on the context. In a typical setup the sudo command does not require a password, and user dsl is logged in automatically by means of user root suing to dsl rather than being an interactive processes.
I've changed my frugal system to behave in the "traditional" way, prompting for a user name and password for login, and providing virtual terminals in order to run multiple simultaneous sessions. You can see the process I used here:
< http://damnsmalllinux.org/cgi-bin....;t=7936 >

Thanks, this looks like it might be something I want to try. I am looking into the post you linked to. Thanks for the reply.

Kawayanan

Posted by cbagger01 on June 26 2006,02:07

You may need to specify the location of your DSL frugal KNOPPIX file in the kernel's append line by using the "fromhd" cheatcode.

In other words, it shoud look like this:

dsl mydsl=hda8 restore=hda8 fromhd=/dev/hda8

for your "hda8" installation in your grub menu.

By default, DSL will automatically search for a /KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file located on any data partition.

It probably searches your hda partitions in sequential order until it finds one at /dev/hda7 so you will need to explicitly specify the location for your /dev/hda8 frugal installation.

Posted by kawayanan on June 26 2006,13:39

Quote (cbagger01 @ June 25 2006,22:07)

Ok, that makes sense. I know that there was something pointing to the correct partition in grub, but I don't know if "fromhd" was used. I'll give the fromhd cheat code a try when I get to work. Thanks for your help.

Kawayanan

Posted by Islander on Dec. 12 2006,19:08

Quote (mikshaw @ June 22 2006,22:42)

There should be no problem using multiple frugal installs...I have 3 installed on the same partition at the moment.

Mikshaw, how did you get your bootloader to select between 3 DSL versions on the same partition?

I use Grub - and I've got that working, to choose between Windows, and a couple of Poormans versions of of another 700M distro, but only a SINGLE copy of DSL (301 at the moment) on an Ext2 partition, hdb2. I tried renaming the DSL 'KNOPPIX' image, and played with BOOT_IMAGE=[namelikeDsl301] hoping that I could name another DSL version [namelikeDsl092] etc. But that didn't seem to work. In fact, I can only get DSL loading from hdb2 if use the standard image names, AND using fromhd=/dev/hdb2 - which seems to mean I can only have 1 DSL per partition.

I've searched a lot of threads looking for suggestions, and your post was the closest I found. Would it be possible for you to post how you labelled 3 versions on a single partition? Apologies if it's been posted elsewhere and I didn't find it.

Many thanks,
regards, Islander

Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Dec. 12 2006,20:09

If I remember correctly, you can use the following codes:
knoppix_dir to specify the directory name
knoppix_name to specify the image name

Posted by mikshaw on Dec. 12 2006,21:03

thehats is correct, although I'm using only knoppix_name myself.

I have a little redundancy with my system simply because I have multiple copies of the boot directory, and i don't need to do that as long as the kernel/initrd is the same. I just had a different kernel version for 2.1 in there at one time, and the separate boot directories kept things consistent.

This is my current Grub config, now reduced to two versions of DSL since i stopped bothering with v2.1...one for stable and one for RC (needs to be updated since 3.1 final was released). Note the directory name for kernel and initrd files, and the name of the KNOPPIX files.

Code Sample

color white/red black/light-gray
default 0
timeout 15

title Slackware (/dev/hda1)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda1 ro vga=794

title Suse (/dev/hda3)
root (hd0,2)
kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda3 vga=791 splash=verbose desktop hdc=ide-scsi hdclun=0 showopts
initrd (hd0,2)/boot/initrd

title Damn Small Linux 3.0.1 (/dev/hda4)
kernel (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.0/linux24 root=/dev/hda4 knoppix_name=KNOPPIX-3.0 dsl host=bungle home=hda3 mydsl=hda3/home/dsl/mydsl norestore vga=794 syslog dma
initrd (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.0/minirt24.gz

title Damn Small Linux 3.1RC4
kernel (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.1/linux24 root=/dev/hda4 knoppix_name=KNOPPIX-3.1 dsl host=bungle home=hda3 mydsl=hda3/home/dsl/mydsl legacy norestore vga=794 syslog dma
initrd (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.1/minirt24.gz

title DSL 3.0.1 clean
kernel (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.0/linux24 root=/dev/hda4 knoppix_name=KNOPPIX-3.0 dsl norestore base vga=791 dma
initrd (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.0/minirt24.gz

title DSL 3.1RC4 clean
kernel (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.1/linux24 root=/dev/hda4 knoppix_name=KNOPPIX-3.1 dsl norestore base vga=791 dma legacy
initrd (hd0,3)/boot/isolinux-3.1/minirt24.gz

title --- For help press 'c', type: 'help'
root (hd0)
title --- For usage examples, type: 'cat /boot/grub/grub.txt'
root (hd0)

Posted by Islander on Dec. 13 2006,22:40

The Hats, and Mikshaw, thanks for your suggestions.

I used "knoppix_name=dsl301" and "knoppix_name=dsl092" successfully. Well, almost. I can load dsl301 from hdb2, and from USB sda1. [Excellent, and thanks.] I can load dsl092 from USB sda1, but not from hdb2. [I had already generated separate boot[s] and initrd[s] for each of these, using separate folders and pointing Grub to them, in a similar fashion to mikshaw's.] The failure to load dsl092 from hdb2 shows up as a blue text repeat, of the loader at some stage trying to read sda2, 3, 4 ...15, then sdb1, 2, 3 etc, all the way to sdg, I think, then it announces kernel panic.

This is the same symptom that I had up until I started using, in the last few days, dsl 301. I wanted to get dsl092 running on hdb2, and had tried to use "knoppix_dir=something" as The Hats suggested, and in fact as I had used without difficulty for the other distros on the machine. I was familiar with that option, but it just didn't work for me with DSL.

Now that I've reached the same problem despite using 'knoppix_name', I'm wondering if the problem was that dsl092 always would load off CD and USB, but not off hdb2 - which is an ext2 drive on my system. I'm not very familiar with the linux loading sequence, but I remember reading somewhere that isolinux, and syslinux differ, and that one of the differences relates to loading from FAT or Ext2 partitions. I think that might be the reason why I've had difficulty getting dsl092 loading from my Ext2 partition.

DSL 301 seems very happy, and it works with the 'old' "optional" system for apps, (which is why I had wanted to stick with 092), so I think I'll run with 301 now. It is very good, and very fast to load, and pretty easy to use, so why not.

Again, Mikshaw and The Hats, thank you for your pointers - it's more or less working for me now, and I can adapt with more versions when I want to.

regards, Islander