Morphix release

**Alextreme** · 02-12-2003, 06:56 PM

Hey prp,

i'm busy with the latest release, that (hopefully) will be ready tomorrow with a new installer, having those files would be nice but i could use someone trying it out scsi-style

Have you tried installing knoppix with it btw?

**Alextreme** · 02-13-2003, 10:37 AM

Well, uploading Morphix 0.3 as i'm typing this, throwing it directly into the Morphix/ folder. Would be greatful to get some more feedback, especially for the installer (as i've only tested it on my own pc, don't be surprised if it gobbles up the cat

)

I'll upload the seperate base/mainmodules tomorrow, or when i feel like it. Have fun, for the people new to morphix check www.morphix.org or download directly from ftp://dl.xs4all.nl/pub/mirror/drupal/Morphix

changelog:
13-02-2003 (version 0.3 base, light, heavy, game)
base:
- fresh kernel, minor bugs (wokay, forgot most things that i changed, sorry

)

all main modules:
- morphix gtk installer (harddisk install for all!

)
- console installer available for light+game as backup
- added alt-f2, f3 etc rootconsoles
- added generic minimodule support (ALL-tag)
- put back /etc/skel support, added defaults for all modules in mainmod/etc/skel
- added that it doesn't automagically reboot (must add icewm-reboot though)
- fixed minor loadmod/init bugs (+ automount support?)
- added ssh

light:
- new default theme+background
- xchat 2, number of minor updates

heavy:
- new default metacity theme
- added wine, you never know...
- xchat 2

game:
- fixed that it actually could work with nvidia (or any other card, for that matter)
- new default theme+background
- added pingus, gxmame

**prpatel** · 02-13-2003, 10:37 AM

Alex,

I look forward to the new release. I will be happy to try the new Morphix/installerinstaller against SCSI. This time I will move the lilo.conf and fstab to another box to send to you. Let me know if there are any other files installed to the hd that you'd like to see.

And No, I haven't tried knoppix, I don't need 90% of the stuff in it.

thanks again for your efforts!

-Pratik

PS: which time zone are you in? I havent spotted you online on MSN messenger, I had some q's about how you are putting morphix together... please IM me on MSN messenger... my MSN id is kitsaws@yahoo.com... BTW I am in London, UK.

**Alextreme** · 02-13-2003, 03:09 PM

Well, i'm mostly online during the evenings, but i'm almost never on MSN. If i remember to i'll boot it up this evening, but you are always free to ask me on IRC, there is a #knoppix channel on freenode.net that i'm idling on (and you can always mail me

)

Now about 0.3, Light works okay but there are a few issues with Heavy:

- the GTK Morphixinstaller and Knoppix.net/Morphix.org links on the desktop have fanished, to start the installer: sudo /morphix/gtkinstaller/morphixinstaller

- openoffice doesn't start up, rm ~/.sver-something to boot.

I'll upload a fixed version tomorrow, it works okay except for these issues. Game remains untested as of now

**archtron** · 02-13-2003, 05:44 PM

Hi Alex,
Morphix HeavyGUI 0.3 is gnome 2.2 or 2.0???
Detect Radeon video cards?
HeavyGUI include xine?

**prpatel** · 02-13-2003, 06:31 PM

While I was hacking at Morphix-base today, two neurons fired off at the same time, and I had a great idea... I actually tried this, so it does work

***** The only thing new here is the way to 'remaster' the build AND TEST the build before rolling it out (using chroot and apt-get)

***** Note that the _base_ is changed, not a module itself

***** Apologies to Alex for hacking his fine work and his docs

***** This can NOT be done if you have booted from a Knoppix/Morphix CD.. it has to be done while running Linux from HD
Here it is - CUSTOM MORPHIX/KNOPPIX MAKER

- Unpack MorphixBase-UK-0.2.iso
> mount -o loop MorphixBase-UK-0.2.iso /mnt/virtualcd1
> cp -R /mnt/virtualcd1/* /tmp/boot-img

- Start with the base ISO image (base/Morphix), uncompress + copied to a temp dir, let's say /tmp/CustomMorphix
> extract_compressed_fs /tmp/boot-img/base/morphix > /tmp/CustomMorphix
> mount -t proc proc /tmp/CustomMorphix/proc
> cd /tmp/CustomMorphix/
> chroot ./

- Now that we are in the chroot 'jail' we can run most commands
just as if we were inside a 'live' morphix environment

- to customize the environment, run the normal commands while in the chroot environment
> apt-get update
> apt-get install vim
> apt-get install emacs
> ETC
- test while in the chroot environment
> emacs file.txt
> vi file.txt
> ETC

- to get out of the chroot environment
> exit
> CNTRL-D

- make sure you do this before proceeding
> umount /tmp/CustomMorphix/proc

- now we simply need to repack the base ISO image as a compressed iso9660 fs
> mkisofs -R -U -V "MyMorphix" -P ""MyMorphix" " -hide-rr-moved -cache-inodes -no-bak -pad /tmp/CustomMorphix| nice -5 create_compressed_fs - 65536 > /tmp/boot-img/base/morphix

-now we create the bootable Morphix/Knoppix CD image
> cd /tmp
> mkisofs -pad -l -r -J -v -V "MyMorphix"-b base/boot.img -c base/boot.cat -hide-rr-moved -o mymorphix.iso boot-img

- write mymorphix.iso to CD, run and enjoy.

I understand the benefit in the 'modular' way that Morphix does things, using a MainMod and MiniMod(s), and I believe this is a good thing. I thought I would post my work so far so others can better understand how Morphix/Knoppix work...

-Pratik

**Alextreme** · 02-13-2003, 10:39 PM

prp,

Heh, i didn't have apt-get in base for nothing, it's derived from my knopBase and is 'live' enough to build on (that was the point of knopBase

). It's whole purpose was to give people the possibility to build their own knoppix-based distro, and, although i'd rather see a new main-module, everyone is free to build on base for their own hideous creations

Why keep the modular system then, you may ask? Beacuse i was working on two remastered versions, and realised that i was doing double work updating it. Morphix needs getting used to, but it saves work in the long run. For the ones still baffeled at all this morphix-mumblejumble:

http://am.xs4all.nl/phpwiki/index.php/WtfIsMorphix

So prp, don't be sorry, i'm sorry i didn't point it out clear enough! :P

archtron,

Heavy 0.3 includes Gnome2.2 (0.2 did aswell though).
It should detect Radeon, but i don't have one to test it out on. As a rule of thumb: If knoppix works on it, then morphix will work. If it doesn't work on knoppix, let me know and i might make a mini-module to fix things for you (made msmouse-minimodule for people with usb-problems)
and yes, Heavy also includes xine

**archtron** · 02-14-2003, 05:15 PM

Hello Alex,
Using Knoppix I made a file xf86config for my Radeon VE but I don't know how initiating it in each session. If you could do a module for Morphix to initiate with that file instead of vesa. The section "Monitor" is for my monitor, could to be more generic.
Thanx for all

**Alextreme** · 02-15-2003, 12:44 AM

Hey archtron,

Well, i've uploaded a minimodule generator script to hopefully help in letting you fix problems yourself

http://am.xs4all.nl/morphix/minimod-gen.pl

note that for this to work properly, you need to have the adapted cloop-utils installed from http://am.xs4all.nl/morphix/debs . Also, you need to run it as root (it uses mkisofs to build a compressed loop module)

It's still pretty immature and mostly untested (you can only define what file gets copied where on loading), but it's a nice starting point. I'll probably include a simple menu-adding tool, linking options instead of only copying, and hopefully slowly working towards generating more complicated modules (like from .deb, now that will be a challenge

)