Remastersys 3.0.0 for debian wheezy needs testing

[fragadelic]

wdm isn't supported by the debian live scripts so there is no way you can get an autologin live setup.  Use a different login manager like lightdm.

As for your issue, I don't see where it is mounted.  You have to be very careful with Virtual Box as there have been many issues lately with it.  I used to recommend using VB but I no longer do.

Remastersys makes no changes - you probably ran out of space.  I don't believe 7GB is anywhere near enough to create a proper remaster.

Also, do not use guest additions as they are known to cause problems with remasters on Ubuntu and it would appear on Debian as well.

[fragadelic]

I see the nfs mount and that should be unmounted when remastering.  Why is it mounted in /var?  This is one of the folders that have to be copied to a temp area and then cleaned up.

/home will not be present on a dist mode remaster.

You should never have any external network mounts mounted when remastering anyway.  I used to have a warning about that in the gui but removed it as it should kind of go without saying.

Anything mounted under /mnt or /media is ok though.

[fragadelic]

I've never used remastersys before now. I have no problems creating the iso. However, once I boot from the created iso, I cannot log in. I've tried usernames root, darrel, live and testuser. root and darrel each have an 8 character alphanumeric password. What username should I be using in the live CD session? What I'm remastering is a Wheezy e17 install in VirtualBox. When I extract the squash filesystem from the created iso and unsquash it, I don't see a home folder at all. Is that normal?

In addition, after I've run the remastersys dist from the yad GUI, the VirtualBox guest I'm remastering has suddenly changed. Time seems to revert to UTC instead of local. It's off by five hours, and I'm in US Central timezone. The mouse pointer integration between the host and the guest is suddenly lost. That's not critical. The critical problem is that the shared folder between the guest and the host is no longer synchronized. The best way I can describe it is that viewing the host's folder from the guest doesn't show any contents whatsoever. If I copy something from the guest to the shared folder, it shows as copied from the guest side. If I look at the contents of the shared folder from the host, the files the guest supposedly copied don't exist. They do on the guest side, but not on the host side. I've yet to figure out "where they're going". This happens every time I run remastersys on the guest.

If I reinstall VirtualBox guest additions on the guest side, from the VirtualBox menu (Devices > Install Guest Additions), then reboot the guest, the time, mouse pointer integration and shared folder contents are all returned to a normal, functioning state. I've never seen behavior like this from VirtualBox, and am at a loss to discover what is causing it.

The latest remastersys.log is attached, along with the groups and passwd lists. This was run from yesterday's version of remastersys.

I want to clear some things up to make sure you don't take this stuff the wrong way.

Let me know if you mounted things in /var/lib/nfs or if it was the system that did it?

If you can put the iso up somewhere I'd like to take a look and see what went wrong to see if it is something I need to add to remastersys or if there is something you need to do differently.  I know for a fact that wdm won't work cause it isn't in the debian live startup scripts to setup.
The following are the only ones that live will setup.

Code:

/lib/live/config/0080-gdm      /lib/live/config/0130-nodm
/lib/live/config/0100-kdm      /lib/live/config/0140-slim
/lib/live/config/0110-lightdm /lib/live/config/0120-lxdm

I was looking at your log and it appears as though you did get things slimmed down pretty small as I just remembered that I do the log stuff after the run so it probably did complete.

I need to know if the guest additions cause problems.

Putting up your iso somewhere so I can download it wold be the best as I can then take it apart and do a lot of troubleshooting to save us both time.

[bennisixx]

Congratulations! Everything works perfect! Thank you again, this is amazing.

One last detail. No shutdown/reboot in live mode. Just logout, and that just auto logs you back in. Small detail.

Thanks again!

[fragadelic]

Congratulations! Everything works perfect! Thank you again, this is amazing.

One last detail. No shutdown/reboot in live mode. Just logout, and that just auto logs you back in. Small detail.

Thanks again!

What desktop are you running?  I put a fix in for polkit persmissions for everything over and above the normal permissions as I needed that for XFCE.

[bennisixx]

Mate 1.4 wheezy repo

[darreljohnston]

Let me know if you mounted things in /var/lib/nfs or if it was the system that did it?

The system did it, but I'm still trying to figure out what process needs that mount. I didn't really look at it until you pointed it out. Looks like there are three remote procedure call daemons running. One is /sbin/rpc.statd by user statd. Another is /usr/sbin/rpc.idmapd by user root. The third is /sbin/rpcbind by user root. I'm wondering if these are "leftovers" from the Debian netinstall. I just finished a plain-Jane vanilla wheezy netinstall and the rpc_pipefs mount already exists right after installation. It's coming from mtab. There is no fstab entry for it. Trying to do

umount /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs

as user root gives me "device is busy" message. Looking at open files:

lsof | grep pipefs

shows me the rpc.idmap process is using /var/lib/nfs/rpc_pipefs/nfs. I haven't looked any further than that yet. Regarding the guest VM's time, I've installed the ntp daemon in the new LXDE VM, and have not installed guest additions.

If you can put the iso up somewhere I'd like to take a look and see what went wrong to see if it is something I need to add to remastersys or if there is something you need to do differently.  I know for a fact that wdm won't work cause it isn't in the debian live startup scripts to setup.
The following are the only ones that live will setup.

Code:

/lib/live/config/0080-gdm      /lib/live/config/0130-nodm
/lib/live/config/0100-kdm      /lib/live/config/0140-slim
/lib/live/config/0110-lightdm /lib/live/config/0120-lxdm

I was looking at your log and it appears as though you did get things slimmed down pretty small as I just remembered that I do the log stuff after the run so it probably did complete.

I need to know if the guest additions cause problems.

Putting up your iso somewhere so I can download it wold be the best as I can then take it apart and do a lot of troubleshooting to save us both time.

In the e17 VM, I installed lightdm and, when asked, set it as the default display manager. I then uninstalled all the virtualbox packages. On next reboot, I could not get to the lightdm login screen. The xsessions were borked. startx would not execute. The installation was getting a little long in the tooth, anyway. The created iso was coming out at 695MB, just small enough to fit on a CD. Sorry, but I already deleted the generated iso.

I just want to get through the first hurdle with the plain LXDE installation I have now. Then I'll reinstall guest additions and go from there. The Debian netinstall chose xdm by default. I guess that one won't work, either? And, if I understand this correctly, I should be getting an autologin when booting from the created iso?

[fragadelic]

Yes the live will autologin the live user.

Check what you have in /etc/default/rpcbind.  You can actually delete that file as it isn't needed on a normal system.


Also try increasing the hd size of the vm.  I would recommend something around 10GB.

[darreljohnston]

fragadelic,

Well I'm going to have to make another attempt. I installed wheezy from a testing snapshot iso. Bad idea. The repo sources seem to be incomplete. Instead of trying to straighten things out, I'll reinstall from the real debian-6.0.3 netinstall image. That will take a lot less time. Then I'll be pretty close to where I was when I first started.

I already resized the VM hd. I forgot to say that. I made it 20GB.    /etc/default/rpcbind is non-existent as a file or folder. Not from the snapshot install, anyway. I might as well get this right. I also forgot to say, I really like the screen customization options you've included. Your project is really looking up.

[darreljohnston]

debian-6.0.3 netinstall Scratch that. Wrong iso. I used debian-wheezy-DI-b1-i386-netinst. Now I'm getting somewhere! 



I forgot to install ntp package before remastering. Clock in the VM was set back 5 hours again. After installing ntp package in the VM, the daemon autostarted and the clock went back to local time.

Before doing the next remaster, I'll install the guest additions. I'm also going to keep a copy of this first successful one and the next one. Is there anything you want from those?

The iso size has grown. It's now 879MB.    Are there any docs in /usr/share/doc directory that must stay there?

[fragadelic]

All of the licensing documents must remain.  I don't need anything if it is working for you.  Post back if the remaster is fine after adding guest additions or with any issues you have.

[RickBrock]

Sorry for sounding thick (as I am about to) but what must i do to be able to help you?
do i need to install a Debian Wheezy OS? if so, which one?
then do i install the remastersys.deb in post 1?
then what.... etc.....

It sounds like a project i can do tonight... maybe...

Rick

[fragadelic]

you can either grab a Debian squeeze and install it, change the repos to wheezy and dist upgrade or grab a snapshot iso of wheezy and install that.  You will need the remastersys package form the first post and the yad package for the arch you are using if you want the gui.  Also install the suggested packages for remastersys to get the gui fully working.

[RickBrock]

is 'arch' the chip architecture? like Intel / AMD etc?
I'm not sure i know how to do that yet... so i will learn tonight... i hope.

[fragadelic]

Arch is the chip architecture but not intel/amd - rather i386/ amd64(32 bit or 64 bit)

[kikiburo2]

OK, i have tested last remastersys package on live hardware.
All works perfect.
fragadelic, thank you, great tool.

Do you planning to add wheezy repository in future?

[fragadelic]

Yes as soon as I'm ready to release this version.

[kikiburo2]

just a question. If i add to /etc/remastersys/remastersys.conf "sudo" group, will new user become sudo by default?

[fragadelic]

Nope.  sudo is not used on a normal debian system.

You'll have to add something to setup sudo afterwards.

[kikiburo2]

something like a script with "adduser user sudo"?
Ok, thanks 

[fragadelic]

Yes or you could actually edit /etc/remastersys/remastersys-installer.conf and add sudo to the DEFAULTGROUPS so that when it is setup, they will already be a part of the group sudo.

Not sure why I didn't think of that earlier - lol.  Stuck in Ubuntu land even though I've been exclusively using and developing on wheezy for weeks now.

I put the config file there so folks could add whatever groups they wanted to the default list of groups the new user is added to.

[fragadelic]

Another tip to get the iso size smaller - use bleachbit before remastering.

Also add "-comp xz" to the squahsfs options after "-b 1M" and it will use lzma2 compression.

[fragadelic]

I just uploaded 2 new packages remastersys and remastersys-gui

The gui is now split off so folks can install just the base package if they have a server or if they don't want the menu items to show up.

I also made the squashfs file build in 1 step now so it takes less time.

[bennisixx]

Just for the heck it, I wanted to ask if this version might also work on an Ubuntu based distro, I hate ubiquity. If not, I thought I'd ask. I'm working on wheezy and a Ubuntu based systems

[geaplanet]

I know it said someone before, but I have no clear the solution. In backup mode, when I boot the livecd, I get a lot of error messages about fstab doesn't exist. In the livecd I can see that there isn't /etc/fstab, but there is a /etc/fstab.d/live instead.

Is it normal? After all the livecd runs.


And other thing, in backup mode I think that it doesn't save all files in /etc/X11, I have special configurations for diferent PCs in that directory and one more file in  /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/synaptic for touchpad in laptops. But any of that files there are in the remaster.

[geaplanet]

Remastersys Installer doen't install GRUB correctly when I restart the system. Could it be the fstab file lost problem related to this?

[fragadelic]

Just for the heck it, I wanted to ask if this version might also work on an Ubuntu based distro, I hate ubiquity. If not, I thought I'd ask. I'm working on wheezy and a Ubuntu based systems

You cannot use this version on ubuntu.

[fragadelic]

Remastersys Installer doen't install GRUB correctly when I restart the system. Could it be the fstab file lost problem related to this?

fstab on live is useless as it only pertains to the installed system.  Some of the xorg file will be left out and this is why - lets say your old pc dies and you get a new one, if the old xorg stuff stayed and you got a different video setup, the live system would not work.

What is you issue with grub?  If you put some stuff in your grub setup but didn't put it in the proper place for the system to use it as default then it certainly won't show up.  Explain more about your issue and I can answer better.

[geaplanet]

I understand why to delete xorg.conf, but do not understand why deleting other files in backup mode.
I use the same CD to install it on 10 different computers. Some of them have special xorg.conf but Xorg autodetection does not work well with them. For example, I have a file called / etc/X11/TRIDENT and in the /etc/rc.local I have a line to make a cp / etc/X11/TRIDENT / etc/X11/xorg.conf when I need.

In my opinion, in backup mode, remastersys should delete only what is necessary to build the livecd and no more. 

The problem with grub is not installed properly, that is, when I restart the computer only the word GRUB loading and sometimes only one point at the top left with black screen. I made the test twice: from livecd to usb key and from a system installed to another usb key.

I like this alternative install mode, although more than install is a transfer mode. I usually use something like this, look at this: http://gruvi.galpon.org/minino/2011/ficheros/traspasa_a

CD/DVDs are increasingly being used less and is more convenient to transfer full system from hd to usb or from usb to usb directly. Without having to mess anything with squashfs or kernels. 

[fragadelic]

No other files are removed.  Check /usr/bin/remastersys and you will see that only this command relates to that folder "rm -rf $WORKDIR/dummysys/etc/X11/xorg.conf*"


In backup mode, that is exactly what remastersys does.  Please take a look at the script before you make baseless accusations like this.

I have made numerous remasters and installs and never had a grub issue.  The grub code has been there since Squeeze came out.  Nothing has changed.  Something is strange with your system.

As far as transferring, you do know that you can use the live installer directly from the menu on an installed system to transfer to another drive or usb without having to make an iso right?