x64 ISO with a different installer and need testing

[VastOne]

I have created an ISO with a different installer than the norm. You can get it here

To run the new installer once you have booted to the live-cd run this:

Code Select Expand

sudo /usr/bin/refractainstaller-yad

I would appreciate any testing and feedback

Thanks!

[jedi]

Feedback and input!  It is a wonderful day!  VSIDO has a new installer!  It works exceedingly well, and is pretty intuitive to get it completed.  Takes a few seconds longer to install, but installs just as well none-the-less.
Installed it a couple of different ways, and couldn't get it to puke.  My input says push the go button...

Also, as an aside, does this mean "sudo apt-get purge remastersys"?  It has been a good and faithful part of VSIDO since the beginning...

[VastOne]

^ No... Remastersys is still the backend .. it does the the squashing and ISO creation

All the refracta installer is doing is replacing the Remastersys installer

Thanks for your input.. when I hear from Digit I will let er rip

[PackRat]

Are there some additional steps during the install?

[VastOne]

Additional options

[Digit]

in a hastey bumble i managed to give this a test.  here's a "short" round up of the relevant bits* of how it went.
~ for "tl;dr" installer review, see the bold quote at the end before the PS.


booted nicely

ahhhh.   past three weeks have been on nixos.  so nice to be back in something familiar n cushy. 

everything looks so plush.

gparted to check partitions, formatted an ext4 20gb.

Code Select Expand

sudo /usr/bin/refractainstaller-yad

presented with two options, i wondered how simple the simple install is, and clicked expert.

proceeded through the dialog boxes effortlessly, all looked great.  solid.

only changes made to the installation options dialog were a tick added for: use existing swap; handle formatting/partitioning myself

was nice to see stuff scrolling by in the term.

took a little longer than old installer, but it's still very quick indeed, given how absurdly quick we're talking about for installation of a complete ootb system.
--^ you dont really notice it, unless maybe you have a stopwatch.  twas just a suspicion i had, which VastOne confirmed:  "about a minute slower".

old one seemed to sneeze n it was done. ...if a sneeze lasted as long as an ad-break.

the one issue that might not have been pebkac, locales, somehow couldnt get it to actually be en_GB utf, despite it saying so everywhere i looked (and every config and command i could see mentioned on debian wiki locales page), despite a straight forward "dpkg-reconfigure locales" looking like it worked. conversation in irc suggests if this isnt pebkac (maybe from trimming), it'll get remedy posted and fixed (and what joyous potentials with pre-scripts n post-scripts with this installer). investigations shall continue on that one.  yay, foss in action.   (i'm bilingual with my keyboards anyway, aka "not bothered"(in daily use))

anyhoo.
here's my quick capsule review for the new installer:

the way this installer proceeds is more than ample intuitive.  "expert" sounds far too daunting and ominous for how fluffy n friendly it was.  ... maybe the "sudo as default" might get clicked by a noob, but i dont think there's really anything in it to get snagged on.   besides locale, heh.

PS
and a little personal update of my geekery:
there's been hella disruption in my systems these past couple months.  everything thrown up in the air.  my main workstation that had (and still HAS!(oops)) vsido, had a brief flash in the pan of running a quarantined new velociraptor hd just for windoze7&Elite:Dangerous (shant return to that game until they let us go down to planets), and has remained off since shortly after returning to vsido when then there was lightning galore for days.   thinking of making it a gentoo box again (now that it has such beastly hardware, i want to make the best of it, and dont mind putting in the time for it).  and this laptop...  ssd died (probably) dont wanna talk about it.  reminds me that my cinema external hd died too.  vsido got me out of a jam back when the sharn hit the fan weeks back.  better than system rescue did anyways (though it's going to be given a second chance to see what tricks it might have and what it can do to salvage what it can from my two dying hd).  heh.  low expectations there.
have got a new (old, got cheap on ebay) netbook that came with mint.  from this installation of vsido onto my tester box (has three partitions, the other two are a witch i was working on, and another vsido from a while back), i've realised vsido's perfect for this netbook (sry mint, even mate's a slug).  glad the netbook's gona be vsido ~ once fast sd card arrives.     glad i caught sight of the new installer to tempt me into trying another fresh one.  (the vsido on my workstation is still that first vsido i ever installed!) 


* pebkac edited out.  good grief was there a fair bit of clumsy on my part.  spray a little perseverance n joy-of-it, no bother.  all the more fun. 
  --(exception to "pebkac edit-out"^:  "\" seems not a wise password, even for a quick interim one.  "shadow mode")
           ----(clumsy scatter brain's good at unearthing weird things sometimes.  amen for "have a go, gung-ho!", ~ do you hear me, those of ye reading this who may still be newbie n timid?  come aboard the sid train, vsido station always available, choochoo!)
           ----(doesnt matter if you cock up an install anyways, VSIDO's so quick, you can throw them around and not have to be careful n frail with them)

[PackRat]

Nice review - may be doing a new install myself in about 2-3 weeks.

And this -

----(doesnt matter if you cock up an install anyways, VSIDO's so quick, you can throw them around and not have to be careful n frail with them)

has to go on a T-shirt and made available in the VSIDO store.

[VastOne]

^ Agreed...

I also want a Blaine the Mono from The Dark Tower tee printed



with this

those of ye reading this who may still be newbie n timid?  come aboard the sid train, vsido station always available, choochoo!)

[Snap]

Installed. All smooth here.

By the way, isn't the new easy install option... too easy?     Great for noobs I guess. Though I don't think a rolling distro is the best place for a Linux noob anyway, unless someone is willing to learn fast and the hard way.

[jedi]

So having installed using the new Refracta method many multiple times, I have been under the impression that all was well.  This includes installing it to metal.  The last several weeks however, I have reverted to the bad habit of doing my testing solely on VirtualBox.  This may seem a small thing but when thought about, it is quite different than a metal install.  First and foremost is the fact that over the years I've maybe installed with a CD twice.  One of those times was last night.  It installed perfectly.  Until I rebooted.  No Grub.  The entire install proceeded as usual with NO errors, yet on reboot Grub was definitely not there.  I created the CD using Xfburn.  All my previous metal installs have been done using a LiveUSB image created with 'dd'.

The reason I even mention the CD install, is because the only reason I tried it was due to troubles using the usual LiveUSB method.  Having not had a fresh install on my laptop since the days of remastersys I decided on the 7th Mar,  to rebuild my main laptop.  Using the 02Mar ISO downloaded from the server, I installed it ('dd' to USB) and upon reboot was met with a blinking cursor right after post.  No Grub!  The install went perfectly well with no errors of any kind.  It just did not install Grub.  Thus, no  working system for my laptop!  (I have plenty of saved ISO's going back years so I'm not in any kind of bind or anything.)

For the new user this could obviously present some pretty serious questions.  My question is, I'm aware that several of you generously donate your personal time testing this great distro, and I'm just wondering what your methodology is.  Do you install to metal?  VirtualBox?  A secondary partition, or hard-drive?  I have done it any of those ways in the past, but have recently become complacent in relying on VirtualBox.  VirtualBox will install directly from the ISO image, without the need of creating a CD or using 'dd' to create a LiveUSB.  I know we have some pretty faithful guys (maybe gals too?) that test VSIDO pretty regularly.

For the record, I have gone as far back as the 08Feb ISO and am getting the same results on my hardware. (metal)  It does not install Grub.  Is this a 'squashfs' Debian created issue because of the 'aufs' switch, or is this related to Refracta?  Am I just dropping the ball testing?  Having tested all of the recent ISO's in VM's, I had not seen this issue.  For wiw, I will now also test every ISO on metal rather than relying simply on VirtualBox.

If any of the following could post here and let me know if they're also seeing this I would be very appreciative;  lwfitz, PackRat, Digit, Snap, or any others that may have done some testing and are seeing the same (or different for that matter) results.

Thank-You...

[PackRat]

I only install to metal and have never had this issue with VSIDO. I have had Debian fail when it gets to the install grub part at the end - in fact, it's the only time a Debian install has failed on me.

I assume you're installing grub to the MBR of your drive. How was that drive set up prior to the install to metal? You may just need to run gparted (your preferred partition editor) and create a new partition table for your drive. Anything else on that drive?

If you're not installing grub on the MBR, then you may just be making the wrong selection for a grub install and it's just failing. I dual boot Win7 - VSIDO on my desktop and noticed that the installation of grub was not as intuitive as before to install to sdb (Win 7 used the MBR on sda).

[jedi]

All of those are excellent points.  I have tried it a multitude of ways the past few days.  I have done it using my tried and true usual way, with just a '/' and a '/home' to a freshly formatted drive with an msdos table.  The past couple of days after discovering this issue, I've also used 'parted' from the cli and created a gpt drive and several partioning schemes.  Each failed.  Also using parted from the cli to do my usual method of '/' and '/home' with the same results...

Also, yes, I'm installing Grub to the MBR every time which is always on /dev/sda.

Same results every time when using gparted as well.

[VastOne]

FYI, this is not a Refracta or Remastersys issue (and I am not certain yet it is an issue at all).  Grub is being installed..  I have watched the entire process from terminal and have seen everything installed and even chrooted into the new system before rebooting.  I have built on the same build using remastersys and have seen the same problem with it too

This is a live-boot issue which is what is not seeing aufs.  This was limited to kernel 3.18 (first to remove aufs) but the issue has somehow made it's way down into 3.16 via an update to something. There may also be a grub line edit that could resolve this that I would apply to the grub from the install

I have not seen any grub updates lately, I have not seen any live-boot updates and I am scratching my head trying to figure out how this has creeped in

There is a fix for live-boot that I have been waiting on to make it into debian repos.. they are moving at a snails pace now.  The refracta developer fsmithred is also aware of these issues and is looking into it for future releases of refracta ... it is in no way an issue with his app, he is just preparing for it

I plan on manually applying the patch later tonight to see if that does resolve all of these issues

[jedi]

OK, I'm back up and running with no patch, and using the 02Mar ISO.  I'll hold off on posting what I did as I concur with VastOne that this may be a non-issue.  Soon as I wake up later today, I promise...

[zephyr]

I am using the 2 March2015 VSIDO with the refracta installer, there were zero issues on my end with this install.  I do however pre-partition the drive with 3 partitions /home/files/swap, don't think I need more. I have been using Linux Debian for a year and a half, don't know when I am not considered a noob, but everyday I solve a mystery, and it's always right out front of me, that is the enjoyment to me of Linux. If you are going to use it, learn it, make it a passion. I say support the noob, eventually with a little patience and direction, you will have a helpful, useful, loyal user and have helped someone along the path. I read this forum, and others constantly, I learn a lot, and a lot over my head still, it is a matter of time. But, back to this recent issue, looks good, works as advertised. It to me installed quicker than before, I believe the time (pause)between the install and when you enter the user info at the end was shorter. It was a clean boot-up. Hope this helps, - Thanks zephyr