Shortest summary is:
I am trying to get a drive image-for want of better semantics- that will be a plug in-power it up-and it goes to a working desktop with net if possible- needing near to zero human input. There are obviously non trivial parts of the process. Yet- let me explain how the query came about. A friend came over earlier this week bearing the HD from his Gateway P133 Win98 old system. In an attempt to copy files onto backup media- the drive was accidentally installed as primary master. Which of course resulted in a failed attempt by windows to boot hardware it lacked information about. Which caused a query. How can a Livedistro be replicated onto a HD? The simple elegance of a pre-imaged drive that on initial boot acts identical to Knoppix etc for autodetection and bringing up a functional net connected if possible browser. Think it over a moment as to what is and NOT involved. The two prime factors desired here are an ultimate "it just works" function level. And having it do so absent other than trivial human interaction wherever possible.
Sounds a bit non-trivial at first but is it really that hard? Here's my current "missing links" list.
What is the best tutorial for remastering Live distros in overview?
What is recommended for scripting automatic local identification thru IP or whatever. IF there was a comparatively painless way to automate the "where am I in the world?" issue- several set up queries in the dialog go away.
Can anyone direct me to an explanation of how/why an installed from Live distro seems to lack the auto detect on startup properties ?
And yes- I have been asking around about some parts of this a while. and Google etc seem not to be yielding good enough to use data.
On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 5:31 PM, Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
Can anyone direct me to an explanation of how/why an installed from Live distro seems to lack the auto detect on startup properties ?
This issue is yet another example of free software only working as well as it needs to to satisfy the needs of whoever has the expertise to improve it.
I was pleasantly surprised at the autorecognition ability of slax. Have you tried Slax, instead of knoppix?
On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 6:58 AM, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 5:31 PM, Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
Can anyone direct me to an explanation of how/why an installed from Live distro seems to lack the auto detect on startup properties ?
This issue is yet another example of free software only working as well as it needs to to satisfy the needs of whoever has the expertise to improve it.
I was pleasantly surprised at the autorecognition ability of slax. Have you tried Slax, instead of knoppix?
Ubuntu has some pretty good stuff coming up at the end of the month: * the new X configuration is based on HAL and should autodetect a lot of stuff * a USB image creation GUI to transfer a read only LiveCD .iso to a writable usb stick (it seems Fedora's had one for some time, but will hopefully be useful for more than just one release)
At least with Ubuntu, debian-installer is what the LiveCD uses, so no "extra" autodetect will be available. I don't pretend to know how Knoppix or Slax installs. The primary problem with autodetection is that it can take forever to run through the rules. There is an ever increasing amount of hardware out there, and so Linux has an increasing amount of drivers. Unfortunately, this means that while computers are also getting faster, any given computer will boot slower and slower as the number of kernel modules grow over time.
The other difficulty is that some devices cannot be detected. For example, some very old monitors don't support communicating device information like resolution and dot clocks. These are also the most prone to damage if you drive them wrong! And some monitors that do communicate are wrong. Another example is serial connected wacom tablets, common in TabletPCs. The best you can do is discover the laptop model and enable wacom based on that.
Justin Dugger
--- On Mon, 10/13/08, Justin Dugger jldugger@ubuntu.com wrote:
On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 6:58 AM, David Nicol davidnicol@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 5:31 PM, Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
Can anyone direct me to an explanation of how/why an installed from Live distro seems to lack the auto detect on startup properties ?
This issue is yet another example of free software only working as well as it needs to satisfy the needs of whoever has the expertise to improve it.
I was pleasantly surprised at the autorecognition ability of slax. Have you tried Slax, instead of knoppix?
Ubuntu has some pretty good stuff coming up at the end of the month:
So /after/ ITEC then? :-(
- the new X configuration is based on HAL
and should autodetect a lot of stuff
- a USB image creation GUI to transfer a
read only LiveCD .iso to a writable usb stick (it seems Fedora's had one for some time, but will hopefully be useful for more than just one release)
On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 1:55 PM, Leo Mauler webgiant@yahoo.com wrote:
--- On Mon, 10/13/08, Justin Dugger jldugger@ubuntu.com wrote:
Ubuntu has some pretty good stuff coming up at the end of the month:
So /after/ ITEC then? :-(
The Ubuntu schedule is published well in advance, and currently slated for the 31st. Sorry if that conflicts with your trade show. You could hand out betas if you really wanted to. But it's not like you'll see anyone else handing out Free software, brand new or six months old.
Justin Dugger
--- On Mon, 10/13/08, Justin Dugger jldugger@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 1:55 PM, Leo Mauler webgiant@yahoo.com wrote:
--- On Mon, 10/13/08, Justin Dugger
jldugger@ubuntu.com wrote:
Ubuntu has some pretty good stuff coming up at the end of the month:
So /after/ ITEC then? :-(
The Ubuntu schedule is published well in advance,
I know, it was just one of those "waah waah waaaaa" moments... ;-)
and currently slated for the 31st. Sorry if that conflicts with your trade show. You could hand out betas if you really wanted to. But it's not like you'll see anyone else handing out Free software, brand new or six months old.
The big reason I dropped all other distros in favor of Debian/Ubuntu was due to the very easy deb package managers and the nifty automatic updates. Handing out an Ubuntu LiveCD means that you know they'll have the most current stuff the instant the most current stuff becomes available, even if the major update occurs a few weeks after the show.
On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 3:38 PM, Justin Dugger jldugger@gmail.com wrote:
So /after/ ITEC then? :-(
The Ubuntu schedule is published well in advance, and currently slated for the 31st. Sorry if that conflicts with your trade show. You could hand out betas if you really wanted to. But it's not like you'll see anyone else handing out Free software, brand new or six months old.
We never want to hand out Ubuntu *.10 at ITEC, precisely because it's a new release that will have bugs that couldn't be caught in beta, due to the lack of any beta-testers with the exact combinations of hardware and software that triggers those bugs. When we give CDs to people, I like to give a mature release that's already had six months of bug fixes. That way their first exposure to Linux won't be full of FAIL.
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David Nicol -
Justin Dugger -
Justin Dugger -
Leo Mauler -
Monty J. Harder -
Oren Beck