Remaster from HD install:a metohd that works!

[nelsongs]

sakiZ,
Since you´re going to try it again I would like you to try the new version I produced to fix some minor problems the previous one had and to better address the minor differences between the 3.7 and the 3.8.1 versions of knoppix. This new script can be downloaded at http://www.ngsys.eti.br/remasters/kn...ster_en-1.2.sh. Please feel free to contact me at any time reporting bugs or suggestions for improvement.

knopix4me, thank you very much for your words. I really appreciated you´ve tested it and had some kind of sucess. That problem with the firefox browser and its extensions I´ve never faced before because I didn´t use them. Now I´m using them for trying to figure out what happened. I have fixed some minor bugs in the previous version as I stated here above and if you consider to run a new testing, please download the new version.
One thing that I noticed after remastering with this new version is that firefox shows itself as if it is in a "read only" state, not allowing you to do anything with it while working on the CD. On the other hand when you happen to install it on HD (now via an icon created by the script) it´s there fully, with all the extensions running smoothly. I´m still investigating this and any help from you or from whoever wants to help is welcome.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Best regards.

PS: I´ve changed something in terms of the place where to keep the "important" files and directories that are preserved, so it´s advisable to start a new remastering from a new installed system instead of an already remastered one, at list for the first time.

[knopx4me]

nelsongs

Thanks alot for making the time to update the scripts. I will run it again and report back.

[sakiZ]

Ok,

I switched the process to a Linux formatted drive on /mnt/hdb2.

I ran both the 1.0 and 1.2 scripts. Did not get the complete iso file yet.

In both scripts, at a certain point when it is generating the compressed file I get an error message saying "No Such File or Directory".

In the 1.2 version the line number is 480. I think it is referring to the /master/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX file.

After the error message there is a blizzard of messages that scroll by.

The 1.0 version generated an ISO but it was only 5.5 megs.

sakiZ

[nelsongs]

sakiZ,
It seems like you don't have enough RAM+SWAP combination or the create_compressed_fs command is missing in your /usr/bin directory. Please, check it. Regarding the RAM+SWAP combination, maybe this is one thing I forgot to mention previously. The script works well provided you have at least 1GB of combined RAM+SWAP. That means if you have, say, 256MB of RAM you'll need approx. 750MB of space on the SWAP partition (or a SWAP file). And, as far as I know, this is the minimum requirement for remastering from the CD with a chrooted environment too. I've read of some people stating that they suceeded having less than this, but all the guys here in Brazil who reported this same kind of problem you're facing were lacking this 1GB combined RAM+SWAP. As soon as they corrected this (usually increasing their SWAP partition or desabling it and creating a SWAP file instead) they got sucess in remastering. Please, try to check this and give another chance to the script, I granted it works and very fine. Thanks for replying.
Cheers!

[nelsongs]

sakiZ,
After I sent the previous post I realized that in the scenario you described problably all the procedures the script does before trying to compress the system to the KNOPPIX file using the create_compressed_fs command were preserved and went well, so, you can try this small script that follows in order to try creating the compressed KNOPPIX file and the final iso image that you can burn using k3b, for instance. Please, copy it on a text editor and save wherever you have enough rights to with the name you want. I suggest mknewiso.sh. Then you make it executable with chmod +x mknewiso.sh and set its owner to root with chown root.root mknewiso.sh. Then run it as su or using sudo this way: sudo ./mknewiso /mnt/hdb2/source /mnt/hdb2/master /mnt/hdb2/sakiZ.iso sakiZ.
If it's ok it will produce the iso KNOPPIX file at /mnt/hdb2/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX and the iso image at /mnt/hdb2/sakiZ.iso, which you can then burn to a CD. If it crashes or generate again a very small iso file then it's confirmed you're running in shortage of combined RAM+SWAP.
Here's the script:
#!/bin/bash
#mknewiso src_dir dest_dir iso_name vol_id
#Creates the compressed KNOPPIX file and then the iso image

if ls "$1" >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
mkisofs -R -hide-rr-moved -cache-inodes -pad "$1" | nice -5 /usr/bin/create_compressed_fs - 65536 > "$2"/KNOPPIX/KNOPPIX
else
echo "Use: ./mknewiso src_dir dest_dir iso_name vol_id"
echo '"'
echo "Creates the compressed KNOPPIX file then the iso image"
fi

volid=$4
if volid=""
then volid="Knoppix"
fi

if ls "$2" >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
if ls "$2"/KNOPPIX/boot.cat >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
#Problably old knoppix versions
cd "$2"
mkisofs -pad -r -l -J -v -V "$4" -b KNOPPIX/boot.img -c KNOPPIX/boot.cat -hide-rr-moved -o "$3" "$2"
elif ls "$2"/boot/isolinux/boot.cat >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
#New Knoppix versions
cd "$2"
mkisofs -r -l -J -v -no-emul-boot -pad -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -hide-rr-moved -V "$4" -b boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin -c boot/isolinux/boot.cat -o "$3" "$2"
else
echo "Unknown folder structure"
fi
else
echo "Use: ./mknewiso src_dir dest_dir iso_name vol_id"
echo '"'
echo "Creates a remastered Knoppix ISO image"
fi

[sakiZ]

Configuration:

/dev/hdb2: My Linux formatted drive is 3.1. It's empty when I start this remaster. It's my alternate drive/partition where I normally keep a mirror of my install. But for this project, I am temporarily using it for the remaster.

Memory: 768 megs.

Swapfile: Currently 350 megs. It was plenty before I started this.

So, I plan to create a swap partition of about 1.5 megs.


Then, I'll retry this.

Thanks for all your input and help.

sakiZ

[sakiZ]

I successfully created a swap partition of 1.7 gigs.

(I like the idea I can activate the swap partition when I need it with swapon /dev/hda10.)

I still got a 5.5 meg iso file using the 1.0 script. No iso file gets generated with the 1.2 script.

I think the problem is my 3.1 gig Linux area on the alternate drive to do this is also too small.

This means, sigh, I will need to buy an bigger HD to actually do this remaster.

Well, I needed to create a bigger swap area anyway for my attempts to run Photoshop under wine.

sakiZ

[nelsongs]

sakiZ,
It's a pitty you still couldn't finish one complete remastering. Anyway, I found out one small bug (two words that remained in portuguese) on version 1.2, although they don't mess up anything it's good to have it corrected., so you can download it again from the same place.
Cheers.

[sakiZ]

If I can find an even slightly larger alternate 2nd hard drive, I pick one up.

Then I'll start in again.

sakiZ

[nelsongs]

Knopx4me,
Since the first time you tried the script you did it on the kanotix and it failed I decided to download kanotix-2005-02 and see the differences between it and knoppix. I found out they are almost the same, regarding structure of couse. They differ mainly on the use od Grub and squashfs by kanotix. So I adapted the same script, in its last incarnation (1.2), to remaster both distros. It's available at:http://www.ngsys.eti.br/remasters/ka...ster_en-1.2.sh. I still didn't solve that problem with firefox not loading the extensions when you run it from the CD, but I realized it behaves normally with all the extensions loaded and running when you install the remastered copy on HD.
Cheers!