Knoppix V6.7.0

[kl522]

It is not surprising that when people re-master, expecially the very first one, they end up having an image bigger than the original. There can be many reasons to it, one of them is due to the commands used, 'create_compressed_fs'. The command has additional switches which selects better compression scheme ( at the expense of MUCH slower compression time ).

If one really wants to remaster for the last time, like what K Klaus does when he releases his liveCD, he probably selects '-L -1' or '-L -2', which incorporates 7zip compression. 7zip compression is famous for able to produce higher compression ratio but at the expense of MUCH longer compression time. Squashfs has its equivalent, and does it with EVEN higher compression ratio.

[utu]

@ kl522

Thanks. I'll give that a try.

My initial try is just to re-do my cd.
More than half the time is spent in 'preparing the workspace'.
only about one-quarter spent in sub-optimum compression.

One quarter spent in copious, unused print-out, I haven't found
out how to cut down on yet. This in the rsync area and what follows.

Thanks for your hints.

[utu]

@ kl522

ps
I now have the gigabyte wherewithal and enough background to delve into your 'Remaster your flash installation'.
I hope to be able to report some success with your approach sometime in the near future.
Cheers.

[utu]

@ Capricorny

Regarding your script as shown in post #54:
Are your case descriptors missing a left paren on purpose?
Missing relative to Forester's script, that is.
Thanks.

[kl522]

@ kl522
More than half the time is spent in 'preparing the workspace'.

Something I haven't tried it myself but I think it might be possible to shorten the time by changing the 'dd' command to a 'sparse file'. It allows the time to be shortened to almost nothing, at the expense of risking into having not enough disk space in the subsequent use. This can be mitigated by doing disk space calculation prior to starting.

Example of sparse file :-

$ dd of=sparse_file bs=1024 count=0 seek=1000K

This will create a 1G file in below 1 second.

[utu]

@ kl522

Incredible. My 15 Gb file takes 10 MINUTES to build as it is.
Are we on the same page here?

[utu]

@ kl522

Is this the replacement you are suggesting?

# sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=${workdir}/knoppix-remaster-data.img bs=1M count=$psize
$dd of=sparse_file bs=1024 count=0 seek=1000K

[kl522]

@ kl522

Is this the replacement you are suggesting?

# sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=${workdir}/knoppix-remaster-data.img bs=1M count=$psize
$dd of=sparse_file bs=1024 count=0 seek=1000K

Change it to :-

dd of=${workdir}/knoppix-remaster-data.img bs=1M count=0 seek=$psize

That will use back the same arithmatic, creating the required workspace in a couple of seconds.

Cheers.

[utu]

Using the following input,
./rem_05.sh /media/sdc1 15M /media/sdc1/KNOPPIX670&

and the single line of modification, shown here:
"create workspace") # Setup workspace as loop image
workdir=$1; shift;
psize=$1; shift;
# sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=${workdir}/knoppix-remaster-data.img bs=1M count=$psize
$dd of=sparse_file bs=1024 count=0 seek=${wrkspc_sz} # replace line above per kl522
sudo losetup /dev/loop7 ${workdir}/knoppix-remaster-data.img
sudo mkfs.ext3 /dev/loop7
sudo losetup -d /dev/loop7
purge_or_create /tmp/knx-remaster-data;
sudo mount ${workdir}/knoppix-remaster-data.img /tmp/knx-remaster-data -o loop=/dev/loop7 ;
;;

We get a 'command not found' error for the new line, and nothing produced
except an empty KNOPPIX file at the end.

1. Also, I don't see how sparse_file and {workdir} ever get together; and
2. Shouldn't the case descriptors have a left-parenthesis?

[utu]

It also looks to me like sparse_files or sparse-files are elements
that require ntfs-3g driver(s). Having started with a cd version
of Knoppix, my synaptic doesn't show ntfs-3g as an option.