Live media

[jlittle]

Just checked the btrfs method with Focal. Briefly:

• If there's an existing install using the @ and @home subvolumes, rename them, adjusting the install's /etc/fstab and whatever grub entries boot it (or set up a new one). A backup might be a very good idea.
• Boot into the iso, using toram as discussed, and open a konsole to run

  $ sudo umount -lrf /isodevice
  $ ubiquity -b

• Choose a "manual" install, and choose the partition in question for "/". Do not check the format box.

[Don B. Cilly]

Yes, I'm still at it. :·/
I just have this weird notion that having "compulsory" live-installation media is primitive and restrictive. And I just can't get it out of my head, so...
I've been thinking: if I make a tarball of an existing installation, extract it to an empty partition, and update grub, I have a separate installation of that distro, right? Pretty much a clone.
Except it's configured for my hardware, user, etc.

So if I take a distribution ISO, which is configured for no hardware and temporary users, extract and unsquash that, recompress it, I have an almost agnostic distro, which will be a breeze to install on an empty partition... right? :·/
No DVD, USB, SDcard, grub-adding and such.
After which, setting up users and basics (like fstab etc) would be a breeze to bash-script.

It leaves configuring the hardware. Is there a command/script/incantation that would do that?

[claydoh]

That is close to what Ubuntu does, actually.
Its also why there are so many distros based on it. It is fairly easy to re-master

Hardware detection is mostly done in the kernel by the OS .

I have taken a drive with Kubuntu and mover it to a different machine with a different graphics card and networking etc. As the drivers are almost always in the kernel to begin with, things usually just work. Unless Nvidia is involved if course lol


One of many tools:

https://launchpad.net/respin

I'm having trouble loading official Ubuntu docs on the topic

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...DCustomization


Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

[jglen490]

That is close to what Ubuntu does, actually.
Its also why there are so many distros based on it. It is fairly easy to re-master

Hardware detection is mostly done in the kernel by the OS .

I have taken a drive with Kubuntu and mover it to a different machine with a different graphics card and networking etc. As the drivers are almost always in the kernel to begin with, things usually just work. Unless Nvidia is involved if course lol

One of many tools:

https://launchpad.net/respin

I'm having trouble loading official Ubuntu docs on the topic

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...DCustomization

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

Kinda did the same thing a few weeks ago. My son gave me a new MSI MB with a nice 9th gen i5 for my birthday. So I left everything else in the case ripped out the perfectly good ASRock MB and dropped in the MSI. Connected everything, pushed the power button, and after making sure UEFI was setup right, rebooted and all was good. No hiccups with the new MB - at all - and no need for any reinstall.

And the best part I'm now a power supply away from building another desktop PC with a perfectly good ASRock MB with a 6th gen i5. It's nice to be rich in stuff, 'cause that's all I have - well there are those two young men and their Mama

[Don B. Cilly]

Experimenting... some progress - well, a little anyway.

So, I just unsquashed the squashy stuff from an ISO. Copied all of it to an empty ext4 partition (I just made it) on an old disk.
Updated grub. It saw it. Rebooted. It booted it. Barely. No fstab...
So I made it one. With the proper UUID and all. It booted. Hanged at



Ctrl-Alt-F2 worked. I had no "me" user, no root login allowed... oh well.
So I copied my user and group entries and added them to /etc/passwd and /groups on the new partition.
It said [ OK ] Starting to migrate UID 100 from semi-wrong groups to correct ones... (which it did before too, with no 1000 user).
It went a bit further on. Hung on "Started Update UTMP about System Runlevel Changes...". I let it stew for a while. Maybe it was doing hardware configuration. No disk activity...
Ctrl-Alt-F2 didn't recognise my user.

What I did, I copied the line for my user from /etc/passwd and pasted it into the new system's one. Same for /etc/group.
Is that wrong? and why? :·/

Any suggestions...

[Don B. Cilly]

Now, this is mainly proof-of-concept.
It just shows there is no need for ISOs and external media, unless you have no OS on the machine.
Because if one just copies the relevant parts of the ISO to a partition, it boots (with your existing bootloader).

All one should need is to then pre-configure the new system just enough that is runs (see previous post, page change). After which, one can customise it to one's needs.
And that should be achievable with a very simple script.

Once this is achieved - and the concept proved - maybe it will be enough to interest a developer to make a simple graphical installer for it :·)

[jglen490]

... to make a simple graphical installer for it

and then put it on a USB device for those who don't have an OS, or the machine died horribly, or ...
And anyway, have a nice GUI assisting the user with configuring the hardware and installing the OS and installing the software and ...
And we'll call it a Live Media Installer thingy ...
Oh, wait, it's been done already ...


But I agree totally!

[Don B. Cilly]

A little more progress... but it's... rough going.
If I chroot to it, I can do things. Like add users etc.

I tried apt full-upgrade. I mean, in theory, it's a good try. No internet access... well, no DNS.
If I copy my /etc/resolv.conf to it, it gets it. It gave some errors and warnings... like "cannot create /dev/null: Permission denied"... I'm supposed to be root... but it did it.
No luck. Stuck in the same place at boot.

So I changed tack. There is a text-based installer called subiquity.
It installs - with warnings, errors and all, but it "runs". Except, it doesn't. It tells me that "/proc does NOT have required attr: mount".
I tried copying my /etc/mtab to it, but... oh, I'll keep trying until I get bored I guess :·)

[GreyGeek]

I don't understand exactly what you are trying to do, but, it looks sort of familiar to the OEM install method.
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Ub...aller_Overview

[Don B. Cilly]

What I am trying to do is to get rid of the pesky external media and/or grub-mounting to install a Linux distro on a computer that already has one (or more).
Not an unheard-of case... ;·)

But I see. I could make an "OEM" install and compress that.
So someone would just have to get that tarball, uncompress it to a partition, boot it, and configure it at first run.
Sounds really promising. Thanks :·)

[Don B. Cilly]

Bingo! That works. Perfectly. Thanks, GG :·)

I now have a 1.6 GB tarball that one can extract to an empty partition and... just boot. Uncompressed it comes to some 4G.
If you use grub, update grub, it will find it. If you use REFInd, it will just find it at the next boot.
At first boot, it will run Ubiquity and let you configure it. Perfect.

So, not only do you get the Desenex Burger... rid of the need for the USB/burner-software/BIOS-config/slowness absurdity, but... added benefit:
One could "publish" his "own" distro-flavour. :·)
Say I make an OEM-install of Neon, put my theme, wallpaper, system monitor, preset apps, twists, tweaks and crockery.
One just unpacks it, boots it, sees how he likes it...

Of course, one could pack it full of nastyware, pits and traps. So you couldn't really "publish" it out there at large. But hey, it's a possibility :·)

[oshunluvr]

Who uses external media? Set grub up to boot an ISO with a generic name, download and rename X.iso to generic.iso and install, repeat ad nauseam. You can even do it from the grub prompt if so inclined.

How automated do you think the process could be? The developers are programmers not mind readers.

A warning if you leave a partition mounted? Why is that a problem?

Looks to me like more time was spent avoiding an established process than following the process would have been. How many times a day are you doing installations?

[Don B. Cilly]

Well, I definitely try to avoid them whenever possible

And I do set up grub. I even made a little script (it works - for some ISOs) to just right-click on a newly downloaded one, add it to grub, and boot it. You even helped me with it...

But I do believe this is a little step forward.
Want to try some obscure distro - of which you will not be able to add the ISO to grub?
Get the OEM-packaged version. Just extract it and run it.

Of course you can run in it a VM. But,
want to see how it runs on bare metal? Get the OEM-packaged version. Just extract it and run it.

Want to show your Windows-addicted cousin how nice KDE is?
Give him a pre-packaged (as .zip) one with all your personal bells'n'whistles, and tell him how to boot it from the Windows boot manager.



This is - as I've said - basically proof-of-concept, but I believe it has possibilities

[oshunluvr]

True. Some ISO's don't boot from grub because they're not built to. On the other hand I don't use those types of distros.

[jglen490]

You are doing what you're supposed to do, and that is figure out Linux your own way. That's part of the freedom of Linux, or maybe it's Frank Sinatra, or something ...

Anyway, I'm free of the agony of re-inventing the wheel. Some kind soul has already invented the Live/Installer thing, and it works quite well. Doesn't take much time, either. In the amount of time this thread has taken, even accounting for a few sleep cycles, it's possible to have downloaded, burned, and installed several Kubuntus on several machines.

But, dig into it, learn things, come out smarter