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Topic: Extensions problem after frugal install

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lesliek

Group: Members
Posts: 91
Joined: Feb. 2006

Posted: Mar. 05 2006,03:44

With much help from people in these forums, I set up for someone else an old computer to use DSL (v 2.2b) via a live cd. All now works satisfactorily on that computer and I've given it to the intended user.

DSL so impressed me that I thought I'd like to have it on a computer of my own. I scrounged from friends an old laptop with: 64MB of RAM; an internal modem, floppy and 4GB hard disks; a USB 1.0 port; and a CD-ROM drive which I haven't been able to get working. I'm not even sure why my friends still had the computer, since they hadn't used it in years.

My inability to get CD-ROM drive working and the computer's inability to be set to boot from a USB drive meant that I had to use a boot floppy and a USB drive to get the equivalent of using a live cd. My experience with the earlier computer made it easy for me to set that up and I was astonished to find how easy it also was to get the computer's internal modem (by happy chance, a Lucent winmodem) going under DSL.

I then decided to do a frugal install. That worked, subject to a problem I've read much about in these forums since encountering it, the fact that I can't get my Opera .uci file to start automatically at bootup.

In doing the frugal install, I followed the "clivesay" document. I may have misunderstood that document, but, when asked to enter boot time options, all I did was to nominate my "catch-all" partition, hda3, as the place to keep my home and opt directories. I did not include the equivalent of an option I'd used with the floppy-USB arrangement, namely, mydsl=hda3. However, later in the process, I did nominate hda3 as the partition for mydsl.

When I boot up now, I do see a message that my settings are being restored from my backup partition (also hda3) and I also see a message that my mydsl things are being searched for (I don't have the words exactly right), followed by "done". What I don't see is what I used to see during boot up when using the floppy-USB drive combination, namely, a reference to Opera loading up. Nor is it loaded when the desktop comes up. I have to load it manually each time by using the mlfm file manager.

Since the message that the file manager gives when I use it to load Opera is that /mnt/hda3/opera850.uci has been successfully mounted, I added a line to /mnt/hda3/opt/bootlocal.sh, telling it to mount that file (I just added "mount /mnt/hda3/opera850.uci"), but that didn't work.

Many tentative suggestions apart from the one I tried were given in posts I searched through, but, as they related to very much earlier versions of DSL and there was talk in the relevant threads of proposed changes to this aspect of using a frugal install, I didn't try them.

Is there a simple answer to my problem with the current version of DSL?

mikshaw

Group: Members
Posts: 4856
Joined: July 2004

Posted: Mar. 05 2006,03:51

Is hda3 being checked for mydsl extensions, and are the extensions on hda3?

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roberts

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Posts: 4983
Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: Mar. 05 2006,04:14

I would not recommend to mix extensions with home and opt in any circumstance.

Using the setup that you have choosen, persistent home and opt. Both home and opt are now redirected mounts via bind. This is very complex. Now you are attempting to mount a file on the real device which is also redirected via bind mount.

Using a frugal setup it is simple to add extensions to /cdrom, the writeable base directory of the system. You can even use the optional directory under /cdrom or other directories. Much flexibility offered. Then you don't even need a mydsl= boot option.

Of course you could use a separate partition, say hda4, and then you would need the mydsl=hda4 partition.

Edited by roberts on Mar. 05 2006,04:15

lesliek

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Posts: 91
Joined: Feb. 2006

Posted: Mar. 05 2006,05:27

Thanks to both mikshaw and roberts for their replies.

mikshaw, the sole extension I'm concerned with right now, opera850.uci, is on hda3. As to whether hda3 is being checked for extensions, I don't know how to determine that independently. All I can say is that, when I was asked during the running of frugal_install.sh for the partition where MyDSL was to be found, I answered hda3, in accordance with the suggestion to do so in the clivesay document.

roberts, I infer from what you say that subsequent events have overtaken the clivesay document. That document recommended setting up "Seconda[r]y linux (type 83) for the persistent /home, /opt, mydsl extensions, backup/restore, etc ...". It also said, "Type hda9 [hda3, in my case] and press <enter> to assign the MyDSL partition". That's what I did.

I gather that I could just boot up with the floppy-USB drive combination in place again, keep the three hda partitions I've already set up, hda1 (as boot, with filesystem ext2), hda2 (as swap) and hda3 (with filesystem ext2) and then re-run the frugal-install.sh file.

If I can do that, should I be answering "no" when I'm asked "Do you wish to specify a different partition for myDSL (y/..)?"? If I do that, I gather that that would mean that I would have opera850.uci in hda1 at the end of the running of the script.

At that point, I gather I could move opera850.uci from hda1 to the directory /mnt/cdrom. Is that right?

If I do that, is that all I need to do to keep Opera available permanently or is there anything else I should also be doing?

I apologise for asking these questions in this babyish form, but I simply don't have the technical knowledge to understand the underlying basis of your reply.

Thanks again,

Leslie

roberts

Group: Members
Posts: 4983
Joined: Oct. 2003

Posted: Mar. 05 2006,05:58

I don't know how to comment on this.
There are literally dozens of ways to install and use DSL.

You will find that I am consistent in my answers to try to promote DSL as a frugal and nomadic installation.

If extensions are stored in /home/dsl then typically they would be included in the backup. Since extensions are large static entities this would not be desireable.

Now, the persistent home and opt are like having a hybrid. Part frugal and part hard drive installed. Not very nomadic. Yet, I do not dictate how users might wish to use the system. Personally I don't run a traditionally hard drive install. I do run one system with this hybrid type system. And being consistent with instructions to users across as many install options as possible would dictate maintaining a separation of the extensions from home and opt. While the pdf doc in question may suggest this, it is not something that I, as the developer, would promote. Sorry to have to admit this, but much of the docs, written by users, including the Wiki is not sanctioned by me. Looking at this doc, I also see a backup is being done as well, as the persistent home and doc and extensions, confusing even to me. Now this may work for non UCI type extensions, I don't really know. But UCI are mounts and the setup as described would imply multiple mounts from the same device onto a redirected bind mount. Again, something, I would never think to even attempt. Now, maybe I have confused you even more. Sorry, if true.

Bottom line, DSL has a very unique environment with the frugal concept so therefore I try to maintain consistent ways of using it. Keep extensions separate from home and opt is my mantra.

7 replies since Mar. 05 2006,03:44

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