Include a very tiny savefile?

New features which should be implemented in Porteus; suggestions are welcome. All questions or problems with testing releases (alpha, beta, or rc) should go in their relevant thread here, rather than the Bug Reports section.
rych
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Include a very tiny savefile?

Post#16 by rych » 27 Mar 2025, 12:06

Thank you ncmprhnsbl: these days of UEFI booting, installers aren't needed, it's just copying files, and so the question shifts to archive format and granularity which users must pull from the mirrors when updating/installing Porteus.
ncmprhnsbl wrote:
27 Mar 2025, 04:49
distributing boot EFI and porteus folders depending on your partition layout
There isn't actually any freedom for the 1st partition though which must always be FAT32 containing 2 folders: /EFI and /boot, right?
ncmprhnsbl wrote:
27 Mar 2025, 04:49
vmlinuz to /boot/syslinux
May I suggest a revolutionary change for the default path of vmlinuz & initrd to be inside

Code: Select all

/boot/porteus
because vmlinuz & initrd aren't specific to syslinux (where they are listed along syslinux components) and can be used with other boot loaders, e.g. grub? For example, my /boot directory contains these subfolders:

Code: Select all

grub
porteus
porteux
Boot menu entries in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg refer to /boot/porteus/vmlinuz, /boot/porteus/initrd and same for porteux

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ncmprhnsbl
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Include a very tiny savefile?

Post#17 by ncmprhnsbl » 27 Mar 2025, 23:58

rych wrote:
27 Mar 2025, 12:06
There isn't actually any freedom for the 1st partition though which must always be FAT32 containing 2 folders: /EFI and /boot, right?
if using UEFI (or wanting that capability) and our syslinux bootloader afaia, yes.
if using other bootloaders, the FAT32 seems universal, but the contents /EFI and /boot/syslinux would be unnecessary, apart from initrd and vmlinuz which can be *nearly* anywhere provided the bootloader config is pointed at them.
rych wrote:
27 Mar 2025, 12:06
May I suggest a revolutionary change for the default path of vmlinuz & initrd to be inside
yeah? i guess we could.. but i think i'm more interested in expanding the installation documentation with examples of alternative bootloader setups.
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nanZor
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Include a very tiny savefile?

Post#18 by nanZor » 30 Mar 2025, 00:46

Yeah we can do that. But one of the things that makes me love the Porteus family is the mount-n-copy technique. No knowledge of DD, nor having to hunt down any iso-burners, or iso-mounters (ventoy etc) necessary. But decades of "burning" iso's, only to have the end user with a read-only stick stymies them. :)

So sad, nearly every "review" be it via the 'tube, or in text, fires up a read-only instance on a stick or VM, moves windows around, has funky music backgrounds, but the op/reviewer has clearly never actually used it in real terms daily. They *never* cover how simple the installation is with mount-n-copy, they never go there. Maybe one or two from 13 years ago. Or just a quick revival of a vintage machine that gets tossed after the video.

What's funnier is that in modern windows 10 or 11, when you highlight the iso, the Mount or Burn icon is right there. 99% will choose to read-only burn (internally or with 3rd party) because that's what most are taught.

Anyway, I'm not complaining - I *love* the mount-n-copy technique. One would think that no knowledge of DD or "burning" would be a huge positive, especially for first-timers. They just don't know any better.
That's a UNIX book - cool. -Garth

nanZor
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Include a very tiny savefile?

Post#19 by nanZor » 30 Mar 2025, 01:19

Guess what? I finally found a real-world example of an install on the 'tube using the copy method! Instead of background music, someone is actually talking about installation, creating a savefile, and checking for persistence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKv4CVAy2Us

My only criticism would be that I could tell that the op just yanked the drive out of the windows machine, rather than "ejecting" it nicely first.
That's a UNIX book - cool. -Garth

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