Porteus Full Installation as main OS on HDD

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(for example when using grub4dos).
kalo86
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Porteus Full Installation as main OS on HDD

Post#1 by kalo86 » 29 Sep 2011, 16:24

Hello dear Community,

I am sorry to ask this question and to open a new topic about the full installation as main OS in my hardisk because I know to be going against the ideas of Porteus.
Since I have a new netbook, which is not so powerfull like a quad-core, I am very happy to be running Porteus on my hdd as the only one operative system, but of course I am running the distro in live mode.

Question: is there a way to install Porteus in full mode? I would like to leave my files on my Desktop, shutdown the system and find again my files at the next reboot without thinking about "changes".

I have to admit that Porteus is the best for me.
Regards,

kalo86

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Re: Porteus Full Installation as main OS on HDD

Post#2 by beny » 29 Sep 2011, 16:36

hi if you have a partition formatted in a linux system,put porteus like you see in the key in the root of disk,and use the boot loader that you like,when you start to use,not in ram way you have a folder named changes and your changes are stored in

title emma
root (hd0,2)
kernel /emma/boot/vmlinuz initrd=/boot/initrd.xz from_dev=/dev/sdd3 from_dir=/emma ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 max_loop=256 vmalloc=512MB rw changes=/emma/
initrd /emma/boot/initrd.xz
this is the entry for a porteus folder into a partition, with grub boot loader,but you can use lilo if you like more.

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Re: Porteus Full Installation as main OS on HDD

Post#3 by kalo86 » 29 Sep 2011, 16:42

Thank you beny, but I don't know how to do the task :(
Can you send me a private message in Italian? I am reading that you are Italian like me :)

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Re: Porteus Full Installation as main OS on HDD

Post#4 by Ahau » 30 Sep 2011, 15:14

I'm sure beny will send you a PM in italian that will help, but for others that may be reading here --

All you need to do is format your partition to a filesystem that is POSIX compatible, such as EXT4. You can do this with the 64-bit Porteus 1.0 live CD using the KDE partition manager (or command line utilities, such as mkfs).

NOTE: This will remove all data from your drive, and make it incompatible with Windows.

Then, install Porteus to the drive just like you normally would -- just use the "install to EXT partition (EXTLINUX)" option when installing. When you boot up, use the first boot option to enter KDE with saved changes, and you will be set.

As beny mentioned, this will still keep your Porteus data in modules on your drive, with changes applied from a "changes" folder -- it is a "frugal" installation, not a "full" installation, but at least you won't have to worry about any .dat containers.

We don't recommend "full" installations of Porteus to hard disks. If that is truly what you are after, you could install Slackware, using the package list for Porteus as a starting point for which slack packages to include in your build. That said, I don't see a good reason for needing a "full" install on a netbook. Running a frugal installation with changes saved to a POSIX compatible filesystem will be pretty seamless, and has the added benefit of "always fresh" mode for easy recovery in case something goes wrong.

Good luck, and let us know if you need any more help! :)
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

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Re: Porteus Full Installation as main OS on HDD

Post#5 by kalo86 » 01 Oct 2011, 04:06

Thank you very much, Ahau, even if I found this procedure by myself.
Beny adviced to me to install Porteus with the lilo bootloader.
Then I decided to be "courious" about the lin_start_here.sh script and I found the install to EXT partition.

The system is very nice, but I am noticing a little delay when booting at the start.
This is maybe explained because Porteus will be reading the /changes folder at every bootstrap. Maybe...? :x

Anyway I am very happy to "find my files on my Desktop", this is the best option for me now.
I am not a new user to Porteus, I started with Linux Troppix Live Cd, then I moved to Slax, then Slax-Remix, and finally now to Porteus! I never decided to install Linux as the main OS on my hdd because I have been always accustomed to run a live distro, with zero problem and no different situations at the next boot.
Today Porteus is very stable, I notice its fast actions and the easy way with the modules. I confess that I have created one my personal repository, I created modules and only lately I understand the powerfull of this way on Porteus.
So, I will check with Slackware if I can run a full installation starting with a Porteus configuration, maybe it's usefull.

Thanks to this great Community, :beer:

kalo86

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Re: Porteus Full Installation as main OS on HDD

Post#6 by Ahau » 03 Oct 2011, 14:31

That's great, kalo86!

Yes, your booting will slow down a little bit when you are using the changes cheatcode due to the time required to read the files from disk and apply them to the live filesystem in AUFS. This will vary depending on your hardware and filesystem, as well as how many changes you have in your changes file. This takes about 2-5 seconds longer for me, when booting from a flash drive.

You might be able to speed it up a little by converting your changes folder into a module, and placing the module in your /porteus/modules folder, i.e.:

Code: Select all

cd /mnt/sdXY/porteus  #where sdXY is the device on which porteus is installed
cp -r changes oldchanges  #save a backup
dir2xzm changes zzz-Oct3-2011-changes.xzm  #create the module
mv zzz-Oct3-2011-changes.xzm /mnt/sdXY/porteus/modules/  #move the new module to your modules folder
rm -r changes/*  #clean out your changes folder
Please take a look at our online documentation, here. Suggestions are welcome!

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