Porteous Settings Centre won't open.{SOLVED}

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AndyInMokum
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Porteous Settings Centre won't open.{SOLVED}

Post#1 by AndyInMokum » 17 Jul 2013, 22:21

Hi from Amsterdam

I'm in the process of installing and configuring the 32bit KDE version. I finally got it installed through the terminal. I had big problems installing using the GUI. Now I'd like to setup a sav.dat and change the porteus.cfg file. The Porteous Settings Centre won't open. It tries, hangs, flickers once in the task bar and then crashes. Any help would be much appreciated. On the last leg of the installation and I'm looking forward to getting to grips with Porteous. Many thanks.
Last edited by AndyInMokum on 20 Jul 2013, 21:00, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Porteous Settings Centre won't open.

Post#2 by francois » 18 Jul 2013, 00:43

Wecome to porteus forum. :)

This is really not usual. Did you check md5sum before installing. I imagine that you installed the system on usb? What filesystem did you used to format your media? Are you working 32 or 64 bit? What version of the porteus os did you choose? From what os are you installing porteus? Are you lan experienced user with linux?
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Re: Porteous Settings Centre won't open.

Post#3 by AndyInMokum » 18 Jul 2013, 10:37

francois wrote:Wecome to porteus forum. :)

This is really not usual. Did you check md5sum before installing. I imagine that you installed the system on usb? What filesystem did you used to format your media? Are you working 32 or 64 bit? What version of the porteus os did you choose? From what os are you installing porteus? Are you lan experienced user with linux?
Hi François

Equipment

Fujitsu AMILO LI 3710 Notebook Processor: Intel Pentium Dual Core Procesor T4200 : 2.0 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 1 MB On-Die L2 Cache
Graphics Adapter: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) 4500MHD
RAM: 4GB
Porteous 2.1 32bit KDE desktop
Storage media: ScanDisk 16GB thumb drive
File System: FAT32

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly. I didn't run a check md5sum, I forgot :bad: . No, I'm not an experienced Linux user. I've been using it for about 3 months, with LMDE Cinnamon and Debian 7 on a VM for practice on the above machine and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS PPC Gnome Classic that, I installed and configured onto an old Mac G4 PowerBook. This is why I chose Porteous; its a challenge and a good way for me to learn. I'm using LibreOffice Writer in Porteus to write this. The system works, I just can't finish the installation because of this accessing .cfg problem.

I rebooted Porteous and the Porteus Settings Centre opened up. That issue has resolved itself. I'm then asked to provide a password because I'm logged in as a guest not root No problem, I navigate to Porteus Changes/Edit Porteous .cfg, click on it and nothing happens. I've rebooted several times and logged in as root and the problem is repeated.

I hope the additional info helps. Again many thanks for the assistance. I'm really enjoying my Linux experience. I'm very impressed with Porteous and would like to keep it as my portable backup Linux. It is also a good way of showcasing the power and flexibility of Linux to the unbelievers. 8)

Goetjes

AndyInMokum

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Re: Porteous Settings Centre won't open.

Post#4 by brokenman » 18 Jul 2013, 18:20

The default root password is: toor

Inside the porteus settings centre there is a button to edit the porteus.cfg file. If you find this doesn't open the correctly then you will need to open it another way. You can try right clicking on the file and 'open with application' or a better option would be to open a terminal and change to root.

To do this ... open the terminal and type: su followed by the root password. Then open the file in kwrite using: kwrite /mnt/sdxY/boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg

Substitute the xY for the path to your drive containing Porteus. You can get this from the console with: cat /var/log/porteus-livedbg
It will be just under "Porteus data found in".

It would also be helpful to know what trouble you had with the installer. We'd like to make Porteus as easy to install as possible.
How do i become super user?
Wear your underpants on the outside and put on a cape.

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Re: Porteous Settings Centre won't open.

Post#5 by AndyInMokum » 19 Jul 2013, 09:31

brokenman wrote:The default root password is: toor

Inside the porteus settings centre there is a button to edit the porteus.cfg file. If you find this doesn't open the correctly then you will need to open it another way. You can try right clicking on the file and 'open with application' or a better option would be to open a terminal and change to root.

To do this ... open the terminal and type: su followed by the root password. Then open the file in kwrite using: kwrite /mnt/sdxY/boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg

Substitute the xY for the path to your drive containing Porteus. You can get this from the console with: cat /var/log/porteus-livedbg
It will be just under "Porteus data found in".

It would also be helpful to know what trouble you had with the installer. We'd like to make Porteus as easy to install as possible.
Hi François

Porteus-v2.1
RAZOR
Kernel: 3.9.4-porteus


I'm sorry I didn't get back to you yesterday. It was a very busy day. I think I may have found the source of the problem. It appears that when I make the .dat file to the root of my Thumb Drive (FAT32) it doesn't make the file or, the file is unreadable. The progress box says it is converting and making the file. Then within 2 or 3 seconds it says it has completed and that I need to change the .cfg files bla bla. When I check the root of the thumb drive via the file manager there is no .dat file. It does showup it I try to recreate a .dat using the Porteus save File Manager, albeit greyed out. I thought that the process was a little too quick. Opening kwrite to double check using kwrite /mnt/sdxY(sdb1)/boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg from the terminal opens a blank kwrite page. If I click on the open tab, it goes into meltdown and crashes.

I tested it with a different build of Porteus with RAZOR desktop. The GUI install for USB worked as described. Again the Portius save File Mangager says it is creating .dat file in the chosen location, (root of the thumb drive) and shows up greyed out. When I open the Portius Settings Centre and navigate to Portius Changes/Edit Porteus .cfg this time it opens up with no problem. However I cannot find any reference to the saved .dat file. See Below:

Fig 1

PROMPT 0
TIMEOUT 90
UI vesamenu.c32
DEFAULT razor
MENU BACKGROUND porteus.png
MENU TITLE Porteus-2.1 32bit

MENU WIDTH 30
MENU MARGIN 2
MENU ROWS 10
MENU HELPMSGROW 17
MENU TIMEOUTROW 28
MENU TABMSGROW 15
MENU CMDLINEROW 22
MENU HSHIFT 4
MENU VSHIFT 5

menu color screen 37;40 #00000000 #00000000 none
menu color border 30;44 #00000000 #00000000 none
menu color title 1;36;44 #ffA32F2F #30003f07 none
menu color unsel 37;44 #ff111B78 #003f7fbf none
menu color hotkey 1;37;44 #ff8037b7 #00000000 none
menu color sel 7;37;40 #ffffffff #00000000 none
menu color hotsel 1;7;37;40 #ffaf67f7 #003f7fbf none
menu color scrollbar 30;44 #00000000 #00000000 none

menu color tabmsg 31;40 #ffA32222 #00000000 none
menu color cmdmark 1;36;40 #ffff0000 #00000000 none
menu color cmdline 37;40 #ffffffff #ff000000 none
menu color pwdborder 30;47 #ffff0000 #00000000 std
menu color pwdheader 31;47 #ffff0000 #00000000 std
menu color pwdentry 30;47 #ffff0000 #00000000 std
menu color timeout_msg 37;40 #ff809aef #00000000 none
menu color timeout 1;37;40 #ffb72f9f #00000000 none
menu color help 37;40 #ff666C85 #00000000 none
menu color msg07 37;40 #90ffffff #00000000 std


LABEL razor
MENU LABEL Graphics mode (razor)
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.xz changes=/porteus zram=60% timezone=Europe/Amsterdam kmap=uk
TEXT HELP
Run Porteus the best way we can.
Try to autoconfigure graphics
card and use the maximum
allowed resolution
ENDTEXT

LABEL fresh
MENU LABEL Always Fresh
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.xz nomagic base_only norootcopy zram=60% timezone=Europe/Amsterdam kmap=uk
TEXT HELP
Normally Porteus saves all changes
to the /porteus/changes/ directory
on the boot media (if writable)
and restores them next boot.
Use this option to start a fresh
system, changes are not read from
or written to any device
ENDTEXT

LABEL copy2ram
MENU LABEL Copy To RAM
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.xz copy2ram zram=60% timezone=Europe/Amsterdam kmap=uk
TEXT HELP
Run Porteus the same as above,
but first copy all data to RAM
to get a huge speed increase
(needs >768MB)
ENDTEXT

LABEL text
MENU LABEL Text mode
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.xz 3 zram=60% timezone=Europe/Amsterdam kmap=uk
TEXT HELP
Run Porteus in text mode and
start the command prompt only
ENDTEXT

LABEL pxe-boot
MENU LABEL Porteus as PXE server
KERNEL vmlinuz
APPEND initrd=initrd.xz pxe zram=60% timezone=Europe/Amsterdam kmap=uk
TEXT HELP
Run Porteus as usual, but also
initialize a PXE server.
This will allow you to boot Porteus
on other computers over a network
ENDTEXT

MENU SEPARATOR

LABEL plop
MENU LABEL PLoP BootManager
KERNEL plpbt
TEXT HELP
Run the plop boot manager.
This utility provides handy
boot-USB options for machines
with vintage/defective BIOS
ENDTEXT

LABEL hd
MENU LABEL Boot from the first hd
COM32 chain.c32
APPEND hd0 1
TEXT HELP
Don't start Porteus at all, but
rather run any operating system
installed on the first partition
of the hard drive
ENDTEXT

It maybe my inexperience with Linux and the solution is there, (can't see the tree because the forest is in the way) lol!
As for the trying to install Porteous 2 to a USB stick problems. This was from the official down site, http://www.porteus.org/. I was using the XFCE version. The iso was unpacked to the Desktop. I was logged in as 'root' and the usb stick was freshly formatted to FAT32. The Porteus installer was opened and the instructions followed. When I get to the final checks, I check the boxes and click next. The progress box opens for a nano second and then closes. The task completed message appears. The first time I did this, I thought to myself this Porteus is ridiculously fast. Of course nothing had happened and there was no Bootable USB stick. I tried several times after rebooting the result was the same bar one time it worked. I tried to repeat this with no success. The terminal install worked with no problems.

I hope the additional info helps.

Groetjes


Andy Mitchell

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Re: Porteous Settings Centre won't open.

Post#6 by donald » 19 Jul 2013, 10:20

just a hint:

If you format your usb-stick with a linux-filesystem (e.g. ext2)
you do not need a save.dat at all.

well,by using the XFCE-2.0-Final-version(32bit), I never had any
Problems to install on an usb-stick.Except the 4Gb-verbatim-stick
which will never boot no matter what I do.

AndyInMokum
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Re: Porteous Settings Centre won't open.

Post#7 by AndyInMokum » 19 Jul 2013, 11:37

donald wrote:just a hint:

If you format your usb-stick with a linux-filesystem (e.g. ext2)
you do not need a save.dat at all.

well,by using the XFCE-2.0-Final-version(32bit), I never had any
Problems to install on an usb-stick.Except the 4Gb-verbatim-stick
which will never boot no matter what I do.
Hi Donald

Thanks for the advice. I would use a Linux file system but I want to be able to use it in a cross platform environment. I had a similar problem with a 16Gb Verbatum stick. I was playing around with Slacko Puppy Linux and I couldn't get the damn thing to mount. It just wasn't going have any of it. I thought I was going mad until I changed it to a 16Gb ScanDisk and everything worked. I think Porteus 2 will be fantastic once I can figure out these irritating problems. I really want to be able to run the KDE version with Opera.

Thanks again.

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Re: Porteous Settings Centre won't open.

Post#8 by donald » 20 Jul 2013, 07:23

@AndyInMokum

At first I can confirm that the Porteus-Installer don't give me
a bootable usb-stick.

What definitly worked is this: (tested 5min, ago)
boot your KDE-Live-CD, click application/utilities/archiving tool,
open your stored KDE-iso and extract the two Folders boot/porteus
out of the iso on to your usb-stick. If done open the File-manager,
go to your usb into the boot-folder and doubleclick
the Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com
In my case the cli-box appeared asking for the root-PW (toor) and everything
was done,,,and I have a bootable KDE-usb-stick.
After rebooting the Porteus-settings center opened without any errors,
also creating a save.dat-file and editing the porteus.cfg worked as expected.

Used files:
Porteus-KDE4-v2.1-rc2-i486.iso (32bit)
md5sum: 67405a63464bc82e42a19d80ab2057d6
onto a 2Gb usb-stick, Fat32, save.dat-file was created into the
"your usb-stick" /porteus folder

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Re: Porteous Settings Centre won't open.

Post#9 by donald » 20 Jul 2013, 09:10

@brokenman
brokenman wrote:It would also be helpful to know what trouble you had with the installer. We'd like to make Porteus as easy to install as possible.
when it comes to the Installation-process a progress-window appears,finaly the massage-box
"all done" you can reboot now appeared.click OK, reboot, but the usb isn't bootable
---plop-message "no operating system found"
EDIT:
I'm only remembering the massages...The point is that there are no "error"-messages
during the Installation-process,so you think everything is OK, but in fact the usb
is not bootable.

AndyInMokum
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Re: Porteous Settings Centre won't open.

Post#10 by AndyInMokum » 20 Jul 2013, 20:58

donald wrote:@AndyInMokum

At first I can confirm that the Porteus-Installer don't give me
a bootable usb-stick.

What definitly worked is this: (tested 5min, ago)
boot your KDE-Live-CD, click application/utilities/archiving tool,
open your stored KDE-iso and extract the two Folders boot/porteus
out of the iso on to your usb-stick. If done open the File-manager,
go to your usb into the boot-folder and doubleclick
the Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com
In my case the cli-box appeared asking for the root-PW (toor) and everything
was done,,,and I have a bootable KDE-usb-stick.
After rebooting the Porteus-settings center opened without any errors,
also creating a save.dat-file and editing the porteus.cfg worked as expected.

Used files:
Porteus-KDE4-v2.1-rc2-i486.iso (32bit)
md5sum: 67405a63464bc82e42a19d80ab2057d6
onto a 2Gb usb-stick, Fat32, save.dat-file was created into the
"your usb-stick" /porteus folder
Hi Donald

Thanks for getting back to me. Please excuse my apparent stupidity. I got myself thoroughly confused. That's what happens when you're tired and working with 4 different machines. My trusty Debian Minty, the Mac G4 Ubuntu, PowerBook, (Macbuntu), Porteus and the wife's Windows 7. You get a "brain fart". I kind of abandoned the KDE idea and tried Porteus with XFCE because you seemed happy with it. I went with the Opera and LibreOffice combo. In short, it installed and configured like a dream and I love it. I think I'm going to stick with it. I will give the KDE version another go on a spare thumb drive as and when.
Porteus 2.1 is really fantastic. Next week it goes on a 32GB Sony USB3 stick and I'll be set. Many thanks for the help and the suggestions.

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Re: Porteous Settings Centre won't open.{SOLVED}

Post#11 by donald » 21 Jul 2013, 07:37

@AndyInMokum

You're welcome :wink:

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