HDinstall (not frugal) persistence problemsForum: HD Install Topic: HDinstall (not frugal) persistence problems started by: Ebo Posted by Ebo on Mar. 20 2007,04:00
Hi, an extreme noob here who's having mucho difficulties getting persistence to work on an HDinstall. I've tried all the Aterminal commands shown in the wiki (and other related forum discussions) to no avail. I also tried reinstalling using frugal but then I couldn't get my wifi card to install (using the same windows driver that works under the HD install), so I'm back to the hdinstall trying to figure out where I'm going wrong. If anyone could point me in the right direction would be much appreciated.My system is an eMachine Eone, celeron 433, 64mb ram, 5GB HD, Netgear MA521 pcmcia wifi, partitions are hda1/boot/1GB, hda2/1GB, hda3/swap/500mb. Posted by mikshaw on Mar. 20 2007,13:57
what is not being persistent?hardware is auto-detected no matter what your install type, which includes fstab. All software should persist, however. Posted by Ebo on Mar. 21 2007,04:57
I can't get any of the wifi settings, mydsl uci adds, or desktop icons to stick around after a reboot. I suspect I haven't got the persistent home and opt configured properly, however I've tried to follow the wiki instructions with no success, such as:added /opt and /etc to .filetool.lst added home=hda1 opt=hda1 to append line in lilo.conf (and when this didn't work added to bootlocal.sh just hoping something would work) Any advise / help would be appreciated. Posted by mikshaw on Mar. 21 2007,17:10
I'm guessing you don't have backup/restore activated. This is necessary in a frugal harddrive install (do you have a frugal install?). If you are using a debian-style install, I don't know...I've never used wireless.uci packages do not remain installed no matter what type of installation you have, since they are not actually installed. Uci and unc packages are both mounted, so you will need to mount them each time you boot. This can be done with the "mydsl=something" boot option, or by adding mydsl-load commands to a startup script. Posted by curaga on Mar. 22 2007,11:01
On HD install everything is persistent, no need for any home= mydsl= boot lines..Well except for .uci's. See the config files in /home/dsl, one of them has a line ICONS=0, change that into ICONS=1 and icons should stay (sorry, I don't remeber it's name) Um Mik, am I right that unc extensions don't work on HD installs? Unionfs is not enabled on them... Posted by Ebo on Mar. 23 2007,04:47
Mikshaw: It looks like I have the backup process working as I can see it in the shutdown and startup scripts about backing up and restoring from /dev/hda1. But it doesn't seem to be helping the persistence of my netcardconfig etc. Funny thing is I can see the driver installed in /etc/ndswrapper but it isn't being put into action after reboot. Curago: I must be doing something wrong then as I've reinstalled many times, including without adding any new boot lines, and persistence of changes such as netcardconfig/iwconfig/ndiswrapper still seem an urban myth to my compy. I'll try the ICONS=1 change to see if it will work. I'm starting to think this old pc is close to the end of its days. Posted by lucky13 on Mar. 23 2007,07:30
The boot options for persistent /home and /opt are for frugal installs, not hard drive installation. The hard drive install sets /home and /opt in your / partition. You can manually change that; many people, though, do just fine with one partition. It won't matter at all if you're thinking of upgradability -- you'll lose any new programs you might add to /usr/... via apt-get or whatever in a hard drive install. With the hard drive install, you don't set up backup (that's for frugal). Explain step by step how you're installing and setting things up. Are you using a hard drive install or frugal? Backups? Are you running as user dsl? Are your partitions, particularly whichever one has your /home directory (however the heck you've actually set it up), mounted read-write or read-only? With all your installing and re-installing, have you cleared out your MBR so you don't have old GRUB/LILO conflicting with your current one? The good news is the problem isn't your "old" computer. It's only doing what you're telling it to do. Posted by Ebo on Mar. 25 2007,05:15
Hey Lucky, I've started from scratch once again, here's what I've done thus far:- fdisk from DOS floppy to remove all partitions, then fdisk /mbr - poor mans install using a linux boot disk and dsl fromusb command to access liveCD on external cd/dvd drive. - cfdisk to create hda1 bootable type 83 partition and hda2 type82 swap partition - mkswap /dev/hda2 then swapon /dev/hda2 - rebooted system then once back to dsl ran the install to hard disk from apps/tools - selected ext2 partition and Lilo and then another reboot. Having gone through the install I ran Ndiswrapper from DSLpanel and it installed successfully with a windowsXP driver from floppy, and I have net access through my pcmcia wifi card (Netgear MA521). I also loaded into /opt amsn-0.94.uci as well as tcltk-8.4.uci which added icons to my desktop. I then did a system reboot and my pcmcia wifi card did not auto load/configure and the aMSN icon went away. I checked in /etc/ndiswrapper and the card driver was still there, and I looked in /opt and the amsn install was also there. So this brings me back to needing to understand what I'm not doing correctly to get these changes or additions to be persistent (if that is the correct terminology for a debian HD install). Thanks in advance for your help Posted by lucky13 on Mar. 25 2007,05:24
UCI files are mounted/umounted like a partition. Use the MyDSL Browser/UCI tool to mount your UCIs and everything should work again. Posted by Ebo on Mar. 25 2007,05:55
I went to the MyDSL browser and load local, selected the missing amsn which recreated the desktop icon. And in the UCI tool it showed this as mounted. Are you saying that I have to do this after each system reboot.
Posted by lucky13 on Mar. 25 2007,07:08
UCIs have to be mounted. You can check to see if those are available as DSLs or tar.gzs that will load "normally" -- I think I remember seeing tcl/tk 8.3 as a DSL extension. Whether you find a more acceptable extension, use the MyDSL browser to mount, do it on a command line, or by script is up to you. It's your computer. ----------------- #!/bin/bash # Ebo just wants to mount his UCIs... mydsl-load /opt/amsn-0.94.uci mydsl-load /opt/tcltk-8.4.uci # while you're at it, add symlink for wish (unless you have # the /opt... path in your $PATH ln -s /opt/tcltk-8.4/bin/wish /usr/bin/wish -------------------- Name it to a file, chmod 755 it, and throw it in your .xinitrc or something. Or set an icon and/or menu entry for it. Or just set menu entries to load each UCI (either with the command alone or executed in aterm so you see and know it's done) -- use whichever window manager's menu as a guide. EDITED: hats is right. And you may as well add a symlink if you're going to set up tcltk in /opt. Posted by lucky13 on Mar. 25 2007,07:23
fluxbox menu entries...[exec] (LOAD amsn.uci) {mydsl-load /opt/amsn-0.94.uci} [exec] (mount amsn.uci) {sudo mount /opt/amsn-0.94.uci} [exec] (UNmount amsn.uci) {sudo umount /opt/amsn-0.94.uci} [exec] (LOAD tcltk-uci) {mydsl-load /opt/tcltk-8.4.uci} [exec] (mount tcltk-uci) {sudo mount /opt/tcltk-8.4.uci} [exec] (UNmount tcltk-uci) {sudo umount /opt/tcltk-8.4.uci} JWM... <Program label="LOAD amsn">mydsl-load /opt/tcltk-8.4.uci </Program> <Program label="mount amsn">sudo mount /opt/tcltk-8.4.uci </Program> <Program label="UNmount amsn">sudo umount /opt/tcltk-8.4.uci </Program> <Program label="LOAD tcltk"> mydsl-load /opt/tcltk-8.4.uci</Program> <Program label="mount tcltk"> sudo mount /opt/tcltk-8.4.uci</Program> <Program label="UNmount tcltk"> sudo umount /opt/tcltk-8.4.uci</Program> Etc. EDITED: hats is right. Left in mount/umount entries since that's one of the benefits of using UCIs. Posted by ^thehatsrule^ on Mar. 25 2007,18:06
1. Isn't using mydsl-load better?2. If you want to keep the uci's contents, all you have to do is a. copy the /opt/program to /opt/program2 (probably want to use cp -a) b. unload the uci c. copy back /opt/program2 to /opt/program I believe this is explained in the wiki if you need more info. Posted by lucky13 on Mar. 25 2007,20:12
Uh huh, much. Thanks for catching that. I should've paid closer attention, or maybe tried something else (like sleeping). Edited changes to both posts. EDIT: And those commands can just be added to bootlocal.sh, too, can't they? Posted by Ebo on Mar. 26 2007,02:14
Thanks to you all, its going to take me awhile to fully absorb all this but I think I'm back on track.Ebo |