Because it Rocks!

Post here if you are a new Porteus member and you're looking for some help.
Bogomips
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Re: Because it Rocks!

Post#31 by Bogomips » 21 Jul 2015, 15:02

@sean

Have a few minutes to spare, so can elaborate:
  1. Nominate a directory to receive the changes folder or /def/sdxy, which I prefer
  2. Start Porteus with Kernel Parameter (cheatcode) changes=EXIT:/dev/sdxy
  3. After finishing all the tweaks, make a folder on a real filesystem called modules, and copy all the modules activated from all over the place into this folder
  4. Restart without changes= (AF mode)
  5. Remaster iso in GUI
    1. Open bog standard iso of choice
    2. Get rid of anything you don't want from /porteus/base
    3. Replace /porteus/modules with modules folder from real file system (NB if using copy2ram all the modules in this folder will end up in RAM!)
    4. Copy /dev/sdxy/changes to /porteus, ending up with /porteus/changes (very easy in gui)
    5. Save iso image under name of choice
  6. Run tweaked iso using changes=/porteus changes-ro
Willl be interested to see if there is anything else that could be done. :Search:
blue4meridian wrote:finally... using USM to convert the folder to a module.
Seen this in some other of your posts. Why can't you use: dir2xzm folder module.xzm ? Interesting about the app changes.
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Re: Because it Rocks!

Post#32 by donald » 21 Jul 2015, 18:31

@sean
sean wrote: As soon as I booted into "copy2ram" it was apparent that I would be making a "clone" of the default/base product (minus my personal configuration/tweats),
No,the (now in RAM) running porteus (without your tweaks) is only used to handle the
drive cloning task.
step by step:
lets say your source thumbdrive with all your tweaks, ready for cloning is drive A
boot drive A in copy2ram mode.copy2ram because one could now eject the boot device.
means no open Files and nothing is going to be written onto this device.

OK,drive A is running in RAM (without your tweaks) and the drive itself is unmounted but not ejected.

plug in the target thumbdrive B IN a 2nd USB PORT

open a root terminal use fdisk -l to determine which is which

now copy/clone the whole drive A onto drive B.
dd if=/dev/sdx of=/dev/sdy
you must clone the whole device A onto B NOT PARTITIONS!!

Bogomips
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Re: Because it Rocks!

Post#33 by Bogomips » 22 Jul 2015, 21:55

sean wrote:Again, many thanks for your help here, I've seen you help many others with Porteus. Many thumbs up to you !!!!!
Always a pleasure to help, when it is appreciated. :) When I first arrived on the Porteus scene, I struggled for days trying to get a familiar text editor going. This I needed to reduce the hassle in getting the other apps, I needed, going. A while later got a couple of ideas on how to reduce the module's size, after which I offered it to the community. Well, blow me down, this guy comes along and says I've got one that's even smaller and it's available on this link. :bad: :x :evil: Had been struggling for days, not keeping difficulties to myself, but posting on the forum. This could not have gone unnoticed, :twisted: and the offer could have been made then, and been greatly appreciated/ :Rose: (Same on the web. One can ask about and search for an app till blue in the face, finally make it yourself, and it's when you offer it that someone is ever so eager to tell you that one already exists, and where to find it. :bad: =@ :twisted: :evil: Nowadays I do not wait and waste time on querying many sites, nor on long searches. If something does not turn up in a couple of days, just write it myself. In the end it's that much quicker and less hassle, being done to one's own specifications.)

On the other hand there is ztrapl, forever offering modules. Now, following initial difficulties trying to get browser to run java applet, without erroneous interaction, or simply falling over on Porteus, have been running applet from browser in Mint. Interaction is fine on Mint, but sometimes browser keels over, owing to having Nouveau driving Nvidia graphics card. So, decided to try a jre module ztrapl recently put up. Worked fine, and was pleasantly surprised to find that icedtea browser plugin was not needed as module came complete with browser plugin.

Now, in the real world there are entities like government departments, trying to make life easier for themselves by complicating ours. They no longer send out forms for us to fill in, but instead assume we all have computers and internet. Form, normally in pdf format, has to be downloaded from a website, and the squares filled in after printing out said form. (Worst instance met, being salmon-red UK passport application form.) Once again needing to fill out yet another form, had been casting around all week for an app able to edit a pdf form. As a test, tried reading in the salmon-red form, which got garbled, and in openoffice some fields got overlaid and turned lime-green. Finally couple of days ago, noticed ztrapl had put up a Master PDF Editor, and this passed the test, reproducing faithfully all the squares needing filling in. So now it's just a matter of editing my latest form, printing it out and signing it, instead of print out, followed by laborious filling in of squares manually.

So, on my part a big thumbs up :good: to ztrapl (who I suspect is not above making modules when noticing someone needs one).
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Re: Because it Rocks!

Post#34 by sean » 23 Jul 2015, 20:10

Reporting, after a couple of days working with this Portueus USB duplication "thing" (obviously not a problem :-), and an up and down internet ISP connection :-(

First, as I've mentioned here many times, I'm no computer guru, far from it. Life for me with computers has been heavily assisted by people such as this Porteus community, and the internet as a whole. And I sure ain't no youngster either.

All of the ideas and assistance given, by everyone is deeply appreciated!!! I hope no one of you is offended in any way when I mention Clonezilla turned out to be the best choice for me. So far it is working wonderfully.

@Bogomips, your suggestion was, I have to admit, beyond my present skill level. And then after yours' another suggestion came in with a command line formula I was somewhat familiar with. I went immediately to attempting Donald's suggestion. Please, no disrespect intended, I shall continue to follow your posts, and compliment you on the fine work you are doing for Porteus.

@donald, as soon as I started reading your correction of my thinking on the "dd" command, I knew what was I did wrong :-) However, I spent hours trying to get that to work for me, and although the result said the copy was made, I could never see any directories or files on the target drive. All attempts at a boot resulted in "Missing Operating System". The only way I could see used space was with "gparted" which showed a partition that was not useable. After several hours trying this I gave up and tried Clonezilla. To you also, no disrespect intended, and I shall also continue to follow your many fine posts.

@Ed_P, not being able to see the file "Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com", caused me to be unable to execute that command. However, thanks for watching out for me, you happen also to be in my "Read what these fella's have to say, group" :-)

***** (for attention please :-), I always use ext3, and if I am reformatting a used USB thumb drive I request a "msdos partition table". I mention this because, "for me" Donald's "dd" suggestion seems really simple, I wish that had worked for me, and I will continue to try that method.

Thanks EVERYONE, I hope you don't mind if I need to pick on you again,

Sean

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Re: Because it Rocks!

Post#35 by Ed_P » 24 Jul 2015, 01:15

sean wrote:@Ed_P, not being able to see the file "Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com", caused me to be unable to execute that command.
Yes, that would cause that. :)

It should be in your system's /boot folder. Or you can mount the Porteus ISO and find it in the boot folder there. The Bare Essentials Setup in this posting describes how to mount an ISO file. http://forum.porteus.org/viewtopic.php? ... 94&p=28729

But happy to hear that you found a way that works for you. :good:
Ed

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Re: Because it Rocks!

Post#36 by sean » 24 Jul 2015, 02:35

@Ed_P,

I apologize everybody, I'm simply missing something here, it's me I'm sure, you know that :-) and I will figure it all out.

I have in the past used your suggestion successfuly, many times, Ed, copying the .iso with the "dd" command and then running Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com. Just can't get it to work with "dd if=/dev/sdc of=/dev/sdd", where "sdc" would be a working personally configured Porteus USB flash drive and "sdd" is a blank formatted USB flash drive.

Thanks for the reply and understanding Ed, I hope Bogomips and Donald, or you, are not upset with me, I know you all spent some considerable time formulating unique replys to my question. And I'm sure I will revisit this thread in order to better understand.

I'd still like to know what others use for a partition table & file system on flash drives they use for Porteus. In the past ext4 has been a favorite here. I simply chose to stick with ext3 because it's what I've always used with Linux (It's what grandma always did :-)

However, does anyone here use any special "partition table" when using "gparted"? Thanks all,

Sean

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Re: Because it Rocks!

Post#37 by Bogomips » 24 Jul 2015, 11:51

Not to worry Sean, cos in trying to solve your problem one is also trying out solutions, which could be of future use, as well as learning from the others experience. 8)
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