| === emmaHupUSA is now known as em | ||
| whitepowder | i'm trying to put together a recovery usb stick. It has 2 partitions (fat16 2gb and btrfs 14gb) I've got syslinux, freedos, grub4dos, and my preseed configs on it. I need to be able to install 12.04.4 from this, configured pretty much entirely automatically. I'd like to keep the preseed in the fat16 part, so it can be changed from a windows box if needed. Ideas? So far im having problems with iso being rejected by d-i, | 00:48 |
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| whitepowder | CLosest i had this to working was using the hd-media installer from 12.04 but that gave problems since 12.04.4 uses a newer kernel and it complained modules didnt match. Is there a place to get the hd-media installer for 12.04.4? | 00:48 |
| whitepowder | I probably should note that im using kubuntu but that doesnt really matter i suppose | 00:49 |
| whitepowder | Ideally, i could put packages (a partial local mirror) on the second partition and the installer find them there. Could i then use net-install image? Sorry to be so annoying but i really need to get this recovery disk going so i can get home from visiting family | 00:51 |
| melodie | whitepow1er why fat16 and not fat32? | 01:08 |
| whitepow1er | melodie: its 2gb partition, easier to work with from other os if keep it fat16 | 01:09 |
| melodie | the main goal for btrfs in usb stick, is what? | 01:09 |
| whitepow1er | melodie: the second partition could be any fs (ext[234] or btrfs), just used btrfs as the guide i was initially working off of used it. That partition is to store packages, our programs, configs etc that need to be installed | 01:10 |
| melodie | whitepow1er because the first thing I understood from your demand is "recovery usb stick" | 01:11 |
| melodie | when I create usb boots, I use either the usb-creator-gtk tool to get a working usb stick with persistency, on Fat32 which allows adding files that can be accessed from other os'es (windows, mac, linux whatever) | 01:12 |
| melodie | or | 01:12 |
| whitepow1er | melodie: my end goal is a usb stick that can be stuck in the machine and either booted from as a read-only minimal live system (no GUI and works now) or installing a system using preseed to avoid the user having to be smart | 01:12 |
| whitepow1er | been having some issues trying to get hd-media working, what i've gathered from google is that it has been broke since 11.x | 01:13 |
| melodie | if you got such a big usb stick why not do a simple fat32/grub2/iso multiboot thing? | 01:14 |
| melodie | I have done that recently with a tutorial found at the ubuntu-fr.org wiki, I have 3 isos booted from the grub2 stanza | 01:14 |
| melodie | I can add other iso images and do the dame | 01:14 |
| melodie | same | 01:14 |
| melodie | it boots iso images | 01:14 |
| whitepow1er | I cant directly use grub2 from usb stick, i've only been able to get things to boot from syslinux, tho i supposei could chainload grub2 | 01:14 |
| whitepow1er | im not sure how i'd provide the preseed file to the installer then, since it'd be quite a pain to have to remaster the iso every time it needs small changes | 01:15 |
| melodie | why can't you? If I could (and I just followed a simple tutorial) what is the isse you would meet with? | 01:15 |
| whitepow1er | melodie: im going to assume bios bug but never have been able to get grub2 to work from usb stick on this machine (same stick worked on others), whereas syslinux just works | 01:16 |
| melodie | I haven't played with preceed files so far, but I suppose it could be changed directly with file-roller | 01:16 |
| melodie | you might want to try | 01:16 |
| melodie | whitepow1er oh yes, bios bugs happen | 01:16 |
| melodie | have you also tried to boot it using a plop boot manager cd? | 01:17 |
| whitepow1er | I dont have an optical drive | 01:17 |
| melodie | so another stick maybe? | 01:17 |
| melodie | plop holds in a floppy, so even a very small usb stick could be used | 01:17 |
| whitepow1er | I've got an idea but idk if its any more useful than the hd-media stuff i've been fighting with all day | 01:17 |
| whitepow1er | booting the net-install image and putting a partial local mirror on the 2nd partition of the usb stick, then point at it as the mirror | 01:18 |
| melodie | whitepow1er you use 12.04, right? | 01:20 |
| melodie | and isolinux | 01:20 |
| whitepow1er | syslinux yea | 01:20 |
| melodie | or syslinux | 01:20 |
| melodie | you can use the initrd.lz and vmlinux instead of hd-media | 01:21 |
| melodie | the ones from your iso image | 01:21 |
| melodie | and use the content of the txt.cfg to create your syslinux.cfg | 01:21 |
| whitepow1er | tried those from install/ in the iso, get 'Incorrect CD-ROM' error | 01:21 |
| melodie | have you extracted them and copied them to the / of the usb stick? | 01:22 |
| melodie | they usually need to be "close to the surface" | 01:22 |
| melodie | on a primary partition that is | 01:22 |
| whitepow1er | Yes to /boot on part 0 of the stick. Now, If i use the hd-media install from 12.04 (couldnt find 12.04.4) i can get a little further, in that it recognizes the iso but fails because different kernel version in the 12.04.4 iso | 01:23 |
| melodie | whitepow1er I have been using Ubuntu builder since months, with the ubuntu mini remix iso, and this is very fast to make an iso : the program is no longer developed but I continue using it, and hopefully, a buddy who is interested will take on to continue it | 01:24 |
| melodie | just a few minutes are necessary each time, to make a new one | 01:24 |
| melodie | I haven't used the products on else than fat32 sticks though, so I don't know how it would go there | 01:25 |
| whitepow1er | im pretty sure there wouldnt be much difference from fat16 to fat32 honestly | 01:25 |
| whitepow1er | besides supporting large file system and files | 01:25 |
| melodie | all I know about fat16 is that I have seen it on cards for numeric cameras | 01:25 |
| melodie | else than that I didn't know it could support large files | 01:26 |
| melodie | Fat32 : aren't iso files large files? | 01:26 |
| whitepow1er | 2gb is the limit | 01:26 |
| melodie | ok I see | 01:26 |
| melodie | and what is the limit for fat16? | 01:26 |
| whitepow1er | fat16 is 2gb file size limit, im not sure what fat32 is | 01:26 |
| melodie | ok | 01:27 |
| melodie | 4 GB minus one octet | 01:27 |
| melodie | http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAT32#Limitations_de_FAT32 | 01:27 |
| melodie | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_of_the_FAT_file_system#Size_limits | 01:28 |
| whitepow1er | i wasnt sure, never got around to adding fat32 support to my kernel, barely used fat at all besides in the boot loader | 01:29 |
| melodie | what method do you use for remastering? | 01:29 |
| melodie | just curious | 01:30 |
| whitepow1er | trying to avoid remastering, honestly | 01:31 |
| melodie | too much work? | 01:31 |
| melodie | I mean you have been doing it manually, sort of From Scratch method or so? | 01:32 |
| whitepow1er | i was trying to get the hd-media installer stuff working, so i could just use a plain old -alternate iso and a preseed config | 01:32 |
| melodie | kubuntu made lighter? | 01:33 |
| melodie | you also said you used kde? | 01:34 |
| whitepow1er | Ideally, updating the stick to a newer ubuntu then would just require replacing the iso image, editing syslinux.cfg to point to the new iso and if something big changed, editing the preseed file | 01:34 |
| melodie | yes, that sounds nice | 01:34 |
| melodie | I'll have to have a look at these preceed files more closely | 01:35 |
| melodie | how do you point to your preceed file? do you change it inside the iso? | 01:35 |
| whitepow1er | melodie: preseed automates the installation, from what ive gathered from irc and google, you have to use the alternate cd for fully unattended | 01:35 |
| melodie | I don't really know what is "unattended" as in "Checking for unattended upgrades" shutdown message. :? | 01:36 |
| whitepow1er | melodie: append initrd=boot/kubuntu32/initrd.gz preseed/file=/hd-media/preseed/ninja.seed file=/iso/kubuntu-12.04.4-alternate-i386.iso | 01:37 |
| whitepow1er | melodie: Unattended means without user having to answer questions, its all in the preseed file | 01:37 |
| melodie | no questions... he does not have to choose from a list of packages: is that so? | 01:38 |
| melodie | as in the Ubuntu server, you have to choose from lists of meta packages or lists of packages: is that what it is about? | 01:38 |
| whitepow1er | melodie: Language, host name, pretty much anything that the installer would ask can be put into preseed file | 01:39 |
| whitepow1er | As little or as much settings as needed | 01:39 |
| melodie | ok... | 01:39 |
| whitepow1er | https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/installation-guide/i386/preseed-intro.html | 01:39 |
| melodie | thanks, I'll add this to a few pages I need to read | 01:39 |
| melodie | whitepow1er what about the users you were mentioning just before? are you also doing this to hand over you usb stick to some people who will just use it? | 01:43 |
| whitepow1er | melodie: Just to the owner of the computer im dealing with | 01:43 |
| whitepow1er | maybe in the future other friends/family too, when they have more complicated set ups | 01:44 |
| melodie | will he have to install from that stick? | 01:44 |
| melodie | or just use in read only mode? | 01:45 |
| whitepow1er | install from stick, just without all the questions and partitioning and stuff. It's kinda like the recovery disk come with windows computer | 01:45 |
| whitepow1er | erase computer (except /home) and reinstall things | 01:45 |
| melodie | except home | 01:46 |
| melodie | I was thinking about obi, the method provided by sudodu, but this erases the disk fully | 01:46 |
| melodie | and 9w whatever it is | 01:47 |
| melodie | https://help.ubuntu.com/community/OBI | 01:50 |
| melodie | ok, good night. whitepow1er good luck! | 01:54 |
| === whitepow1er is now known as whitepowder | ||
| dholbach | good morning | 06:31 |
| === iulian_ is now known as iulian | ||
| === TheMuso` is now known as TheMuso | ||
| === ara is now known as Guest7746 | ||
| === shadeslayer_ is now known as shadeslayer | ||
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