Hello all.. I wanted to share with everyone a discussion in chat I had with Zephyr.. This is it
Hello Zephyr..! I am well and thank you for asking.. I am working nearly 7 days a week and although it is good to be working again it exhausts me.. I am doing more physical work now than I have ever done.. I am all right but it takes just about all my time..
The real issue with VSIDO is not so much lack of time or effort, it is/was with Debian
About 6 months ago I lost a HD that basically took me out for about a week.. No big deal, I just let VSIDO builds get away from me.. that week turned into a month and when I did try to start with the rebuilds Debian had so much crap that they were including (GCC 5,6,7,8) it caused the ISO to balloon to 400 MB more than when I was up to date.. It pissed me off, but I have started from ground zero before and was happy to do that.. that is about the time that my work started 6-7 days a week plus all my responsibilities here taking care of my invalid mother..
Needless to say I have not had the time, I do want to and will get back to rebuilding VSIDO again but I need some time to do that.. when I do get that time, rest assured, VSIDO will rock once again
Apologies to all in not talking about this sooner but in some ways I actually did need a break
Thanks for understanding
Cheers!
Hello Vger, haven't been on FB since yesterday but happy you posted here! (come by every day) :D
Know how things can be with priorities, certainly, hope you do well and get a break to rest. Have stepped away from things I have enjoyed in the past to simply put priorities and family in a true perspective. When I do get back to other things I enjoy is just more appreciated! :)
Things at Devuan has been great, growing pains are expected and not critical of the dev's/VUA's! But it is much like working and using Debian Wheezy. Right now using Devuan CROWZ 4.19 Beowulf/Ceres and everything simply just works nicely including slim as display manager.
If you ever think moving over you can be assured will be happy to assist you in any form, know Ozi would do the same! :)
Take care and avoid the nasty weather, not sure what state you reside but it's gonna be nasty up north! :(
...and hello to all the folks in the VSIDO forum! 8)
cheers
zephyr
good to know.
hope it's all going well for you.
Greetings PackRat: Thank you, been doing great and winter is my favorite time of year. Don't recieve the cold blast quite as severe as the folks in the north but can stay below freezing for extended periods and winds quite brutal at times. Being retired, pick and chose when to got out, going to bed and getting up when I want has ruined me! :-[
VSIDO is my only favorite Debian now, ventured into using VOID and very impressed with it! Devuan has been a really good choice for me! :P
Take care out in the weather!
cheers
zephyr
Thanks for the update. Appreciate it.
blaze/
Hi, Boss! Good to read you're ok and kicking.
Glad to see Vsido will be rocking once again. I feel your pain about how Debian is evolving. One of the reasons that made me hop to Void some time ago (It seems that Void is a somewhat popular choice amongst Vsido lovers these days).
@Snap: VOID is a unique distribution, have it installed for about 5 months with Ob.
cheers
zephyr
Good to see you are still around VastOne. Hopefully soon Debian Sid will settle down after the freeze for Buster and then that be a good time for VSIDO to rise like a phoenix.
An update for those interested...
I finally got some time off and the energy to start a complete rebuild process .. I got really amped and psyched to do it..
The first step is setting up VirtualBox.. Keep in mind this build machine is kept to the current levels so that it can be the same as the builds..
Most of you know me as a problem solver.. If there is an issue, I will track down a solution before raising my hand to ask for help
I spent all day yesterday trying to get VB installed on the latest kernel (4.19,0-3) and the latest Debian SID.. and failed.
More than that what I found disturbed me even more.. It seems both the devs of VB and the devs of Debian seem to want to be blaming each other instead of solving it
I am actually exhausted in trying to get such a simple thing to work...
Update, I did get it all sorted out but still it was a mind numbing headache, now I'll wait for the energy surge again
Quote from: VastOne on March 09, 2019, 07:49:57 PM
Update, I did get it all sorted out but still it was a mind numbing headache, now I'll wait for the energy surge again
Hopefully it comes back quick. I been jones'n...
@Vger: Great news, sometimes have to drink my coffee black with a little whiskey... to jump start me! :P
cheers
zephyr
@v-ger that awesome news ! Great to hear you are recovering and getting things sorted out for yourself! :)
Best of luck!
ozi
Have some coffee, chill with a soap opera and get back at it when you feel for it. :)
I actually have it all figured out and will release new ISO's tonight after I get off work
There's some good news.
Yep ! +1 :)
Thanks everyone... I do appreciate the encouragement
Ran into issues on the test installs.. No drives are mounting so I have nothing to install to and I cannot determine yet if it is a VBox issue or a debian. I also do not have network and believe that will be easier to resolve..
I worked almost 11 hours today and I am exhausted and I am going to call it a day.. Sorry for the delay
Anyone want to throw ideas at me on how to solve both, I will listen to everything... I am rusty and not ashamed to admit it
Niters
The network issue was internal here at the homestead and resolved...
The drives not mounting is a V-Box issue and I need to find out what that is.. The April 2018 ISO's are doing the same thing
Will upload later tonight no matter what
More updates..
This appears to be a Debian issue with fstab after all.. For whatever reasons the fstab that has always been created correctly is now a blank file or incomplete to say the least..
I am back to frustration levels on extreme high alert and need to trace if it is Debian or something in the build script that has not changed.. IOW it will take a while
Open to a discussion on what it could possibly be
I did trace an error message to the installer.. the last message I got running the installer as root was 'msdos disk labels do not support partition names' and doing a quick search Redhat had the same issue with their installer years ago (https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=729599)
More to work with now and it also explains why both installers failed.. It is by all accounts a gparted issue but I am no closer to a solution.. I am sure there is an update to the installer I need to focus on that may fix this and I should have time this weekend to do just that
Progress is slow but it is happening
Success but at a price
(https://imgur.com/DrzuOb2l.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/DrzuOb2.png)
Was able to install after I completely wiped both drives on the V-Box setup
So in order to install VSIDO you have to destroy everything?
Nahhhhh
There has to be a better solution...
I believe there will be an update to the installer that has this resolved and I will dig into that this weekend
Nothing new with the installer development at all.. I am stuck back at square one as to why or how this is possible or to fix
'I threw my hands in the air and said show me something'
Rihanna - Stay
This is the complete error when trying to install.. Note that it is a call from python 2.7 to the python parted partition script
File "/usr/share/linstaller/linstaller/modules/partdisks/front/glade/__init__.py", line 2643, in manual_frame_creator
elif name and part.name:
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/parted/partition.py", line 135, in get_name
return self.getPedPartition().get_name()
_ped.PartitionException: msdos disk labels do not support partition names.
Two things that stick out to me:
python2.7
Is python3 now required for the partitioning tool called by the script? That would deprecate the whole installer wouldn't it?
msdos disk labels do not support partition names.
Maybe missing some dependency like mtools?
Are you using a msdos partition table? Maybe try with a gpt partition table and see if that works; although that's not really recommended for legacy BIOS setups.
On the python questions, I have no idea.. seems backwards compatibility has taken a backseat in the Debian world and seems more a question for the developers of the installer
mtools is stock installed in VSIDO
I am not sure on the gpt question, if I understand it all you would have to wipe everything to go to a gpt partition table so if you have to do the same with an msdos table, why would you? As to if I am missing a msdos partition table, these machines and V-Box setup have always had the exact same msdos partition tables from the beginning...
The solution (create a msdos partition table while in LiveCD) seems as if that is the issue, but how is that possible if there always was a partition table and the April 2018 ISO's no doubt see the partitions and partition table
??? ??? ???
Quoteseems backwards compatibility has taken a backseat in the Debian world
Python world. Some good scripts and tools don't work with python3. Sucks because 2 versions of python is a lot of bloat and cause issues with the system alternatives symlinks.
QuoteI understand it all you would have to wipe everything to go to a gpt partition table so if you have to do the same with an msdos table, why would you?
gpt is required fro UEFI boot/patitions. It can be used with legacy BIOS but isn't recommended. Never seen a clear explanation why; data loss maybe.
For those interested, this is the link to the Test ISO's that error out at the gparted phase of an installation of VSIDO (http://www.nixnut.com/vsido/test/.index.php)
Tried to get through disk management step without pre-partitioning, with pre-partitioning, new msdos table, enabling the root account.
Hangs at that step every time. And this is all older hardware.
It only worked for me in V-Box by completely removing the drives in gparted and recreating them in gparted.. Once I did BOTH and only both then they both showed up
It kept failing if I did only one drive so if you are not in a V-Box make sure you have only what drive you want to use installed
This is the Ugly Stick approach to an install until this issue is resolved
Thanks RatMan for the feedback and help
I have little time to investigate what's the difference between partition label and partition name (since msdos disks obviously do support labels, so wtf!?) together with what changed in Debian that suddenly made this an issue.
So I've just taken a blunt approach and made the installer check if labels are supported, before trying to populate the UI with them.
See here: https://gitlab.com/Cofi/trios-installer/commit/90310e899dab429d5c62a95a10e92898225ae434
So the biggest potential "issue" if I got it wrong is that the labels won't show in the UI when they are actually supported.
If I get some time later today I'll go through the install fully (by mistake I booted into a VM I need/cannot format the disk), and burn the ISO on the flash and check it out on the metal... Right now it doesn't get stuck on the partition list screen.
With that said, until I get to it, I suggest testing in a VM only, just in case :) Also, as usual, the fix is in the "testing" branch, so make sure you build the installer from it :)
Thank you filip.. When I get home later tonight I will install and confirm the fix
I no longer understand debians need to just change shit for the sake of change ... ??? >:( ::)
First round of testing on V-Box a complete success ...
By Midnight CST there should be new ISO's
Thank you filip!!!
I have uploaded the working x64 to the Test directory..
I am (re)building the uEFI (not working) for testing and will upload it to testing when it is done
Tried this; the partition screen shows all drives and partitions now.
Tried an install a couple times, the installer lets me define the partitions and file systems, but doesn't commit the changes. Right now, I'll chalk it up to old hardware wearing out. It was showing some odd behavior when I was installing Archlabs. Wiped drives were still showing as ext4 was a common one.
Quote from: filip on March 20, 2019, 12:24:59 PM
I have little time to investigate what's the difference between partition label and partition name (since msdos disks obviously do support labels, so wtf!?) together with what changed in Debian that suddenly made this an issue.
So I've just taken a blunt approach and made the installer check if labels are supported, before trying to populate the UI with them.
See here: https://gitlab.com/Cofi/trios-installer/commit/90310e899dab429d5c62a95a10e92898225ae434
So the biggest potential "issue" if I got it wrong is that the labels won't show in the UI when they are actually supported.
If I get some time later today I'll go through the install fully (by mistake I booted into a VM I need/cannot format the disk), and burn the ISO on the flash and check it out on the metal... Right now it doesn't get stuck on the partition list screen.
With that said, until I get to it, I suggest testing in a VM only, just in case :) Also, as usual, the fix is in the "testing" branch, so make sure you build the installer from it :)
Hey filip .. I have found an issue with the grub install section that I think is related to this that we solved
The only known issues I am aware of is that grub stalls during the install with the following message
WARNING: Device /dev/sda1 not initialized in udev database even after waiting 1000000 microsecondsI think it is an installer issue related to what @filip fixed in locating the drives, I think the grub part of the installer also cannot find the drives but does the install fine anyway
THat message can be seen of you run the installer from terminal
I do not see this message on a normal grub install or update to grub, it is only from within the installer