The most famous of them are SLAX and Puppy.
Unfortunately, SLAX project is no longer active as such. Initiative for further development of Live pocket-size system based on Slackware now came to another team. They call their baby Porte
us. Yes, that is name (Proteus) from Greek mythology. But it also reminded me name from Alexandre Dumas' books when I made review for first pre-release version 0.9.Porteus team announced that version 1.0 of their system is now ready. Of course, this system review should make its way to my blog.
ISO image of Porteus 1.0 is quite small, well below 300Mb. Of course, it can be burned to CD and ran from there. And also you can put Porteus onto USB drive and run from there. I wanted to use second option. Documentation says that I need to copy files from iso-image when it is mounted as loop device or via archive manager. Then script has to change Master Boot Record on the drive.
Unfortunately, Linux-oriented script is not marked as executable, and I could not make it executable. Same issue as in previous (pre-release) version of Porteus. I also tried to run this script as sudo bash lin_start_here.sh, but only got error message
./syslinux/bootsyslinux.sh: Permission denied.
Porteus boot menu offers you multiple options. Main of them lead to Porteus with 2 different Desktop Environments, namely KDE and LXDE. KDE is default one and it boots if you don't use your keyboard for 10 seconds. Let's start with this one.
Porteus 1.0 features KDE version 3.5.12 in 32-bit version. This is Trinity - same version from Pearson Computing as in Trinity Kubuntu.
Once booted, you are presented with single desktop system. It was very strange because usually KDE starts in multi-desktop configuration.
Default wallpaper for KDE (and LXDE too, but more on that later) is in dark grey colours, somewhat gloomy. Luckily, there are three alternative desktop wallpapers included. Not the biggest selection, but bearing in mind size of the distro - that is enough.
If you used to double-click window title to maximize its size or bring it back to normal size, you will need to re-learn in Porteus. Or re-configure standard behaviour. Because Porteus by default shades the window by double-clicking its title, leaving only title itself visible. Unexpected, urgh?
Taskbar panel is transparent in Porteus KDE by default. Having "underwater" wallpaper with transparent panel has its own charm - you can see it on the screenshot above.
Right after start, you can find several icons for running tasks on the taskbar. I'll tell you more about couple of them.
First of all, this is network connections management tool. Double-clicking it brings up the WiCD window. Magically, my network was already listed there. Or not magically? Actually, not, because drivers for my Broadcom 4311 WiFi card were already included into SLAX, and it would be quite logical to see them working in Porteus. All I had to do is to configure connection (add security code) and click "Connect". And it's working!
Another icon on the taskbar panel is in form of USA flag. Guess? Of course, this is keyboard layout switch tool. There are several layouts already activated in default system. Unfortunately, Russian is not among them. But it can be easily cured in configuration utility. This is standard tool from KDE3, nothing new and wonderful. As usual, layout switching option is also available, but combination Ctrl-Shift does not work. KDE3 always has this issue. There was a cure for this in SLAX (to do with configuration files), but I did not try to apply it in Porteus. I can leave it for you if you like...
Of course, taskbar is not the only thing which deserves attention in Porteus. There are lots of applications included.
I'll mention quickly that there are several games for your leisure time.
If you are interested in graphics, then Porteus includes several viewers. Other than that, KolourPaint is the only graphics editor.
Internet tools selection is quite big: IRC tool, messengers, FTP clients - all categories are here with at least one application. Browsers are represented by Firefox (version 4.0.1) and Konqueror.
Konqueror is also file manager. I tried to use it, but was not completely satisfied by its look. Icons on the left panel are slightly blurred for whatever reason.
If we get to multimedia packages, then you can find that KPlayer is default video player and Audiacious is default audio player. Of course K3B is also listed. There are no more players, but there are some other multimedia tools for configuration, ripping etc.
Office applications are represented by KOffice with version 1.6.3 - rather old, but that is what you get with KDE3. KWrite and Kate are also available for simpler text editing.
There are also many other applications in menu. Many of them are KDE-native.
If existing list is not enough, and you want to have more applications, then you can extend your system by downloading more modules. Porteus 1.0 uses new file type for modules, compared to SLAX. It is .xzm. Own Porteus site already gives you a selection of applications in xzm format in Download section. SLAX modules can also be used after conversion, as described in documentation. I'll come to that point later. There is also a tool which allows to work with modules: unpack, activate, convert, merge etc.
Of course, like in SLAX, MP3 music files and YouTube videos worked in Porteus Out Of The Box. Combined with Network connection, set of applications included, this fact proves that Porteus is definitely a system intended for pocket use: plug-and-go!
I had small issue with KDE-native tool KNetAttach, which is intended to mount network drives. It simply did not work for my external network drive. I decided to try manual mounting, of course.
Porteus 1.0 does not have sudo command in default configuration. But there is >su. Password is toor, and it is named on different places, like login screen (which you don't see when booting Live system without save-file by the way)
Mounting from CLI (command mount) worked fine, except for the fact that Russian charset was not recognised. Same issue with mounting of NTFS partition in Konqueror - Russian characters are shown as hieroglyphs. Subsequently, I'd like to notice that Samba package is already included in system by default.
Despite filename issue, all the files from local drive worked perfectly, both audio and video. Of course, issue with filenames also was inherited to file tags.
Another bug (or call it issue) which I found with Porteus 1.0 on my laptop is lack of scrolling function on touchpad edges. I like this feature, like I believe most of laptop users, and would definitely miss it if decided to use Porteus as my default system.
As I mentioned above, Porteus 1.0 has 2 desktop environments: KDE and LXDE. I have already written about KDE version above, now it is time to turn to LXDE direction.
Once booted in LXDE, I saw not very many changes from KDE desktop. Yes, general layout is slightly different. Icon in the left-bottom corner is different. But...
LXDe version contains lots of applications from KDE. That's confusing. For exampe "Other" section of menu includes KDE configuration activities, which are not relevant to LXDE at all. One of them is Keyboard Layout, just to give you flavour.
Talking about Keyboard layouts, I could never find a place in Porteus 1.0 LXDE to configure layouts. If you know the place, please tell me. The difference in keyboard layouts though exists between KDE and LXDE versions. Former does have Russian layout in default set. But I could not find a way to switch layouts, other than clicking on the flag. Same as in previous version of Porteus.
LXDE version only gives you one desktop wallpaper available. Even those wallpapers which are available in KDE, are not available in LXDE.
I often work with KDE, as this is my favourite desktop environment. But I rarely use LXDE. To be honest, this is my less-preferred option among "Big 4" (GNOME, KDE, XFCE, LXDE). I used Porteus as opportunity to investigate more about this DE. I was nicely surprised when I saw lots of configuration options for desktop appearance. Probably all they are also available in KDE, but not so concentrated and organized.
Of course, LXDE version of Porteus also picked up my WiFi card driver and activated it. Same WiCD screen as in KDE, and I am connected again.
First of all, I tried to browse network from PCMan File Manager. Yes, LXDE does not have Konqueror, even though it has lots of other KDE-native tools, as I wrote above. My attempts to browse not mounted network folder from PCMan File Manager crashed it.
Of course, mounting with mount command worked just fine, but Russian characters were not shown in the file names in terminal again. As opposite to KDE, where Konqueror failed to work with Cyrillic characters, PCMan showed everything OK.
Same applied to automatic mounting of local NTFS partition. Everything was OK for PCMan, but Russian characters were still not working in terminal (Midnight Commander).
Unfortunately, even having this windy way for persistence finished, I could not make it work. At least, WiFi network configuration was not saved and I had to re-enter security key in WiCD each time I booted again.
Maybe I did something wrong, or maybe system is not fully ready yet... Who knows...
In order to use packages from "old brother" SLAX, you need to convert them. You can do it either via special conversion tool, or select Activate option in right click menu on the file. Conversion itself takes significant time.
As a result, you would expect new item to appear in the menu.
I tried to convert package with Google Chrome (v.8), but was not much lucky. Conversion process worked for few minutes and seems to complete the task. But I did not find anything new in menu. Attempt to call google-chrome from the terminal only gave me an error about missing library.
That's why I was wondering whether Porteus could overcome this issue. Obviously, Puppy developers did overcome it, and did very similar way: by creating a persistence file which has its own (ext2?) structure.
Unfortunately, my experiments told me that my hope was not right. After few system reboots with persistence activated, I managed to lock the only non-root user in the system (guest). For whatever reason, folder /home/guest got corrupted or locked, and Porteus only agreed to log me in as root.
Before posting this review, I re-read my first post about Porteus.
Are there many changes since then? Yes, there are some. For example, Porteus have now fully migrated away from .lzm to .xzm. Performance issue was resolved.
But are these only changes? Maybe, maybe not. These additions added some more headache to developers and users (is it fully compatible with existing .lzm modules?), and other issues still remain. Most important of them from my perspective is issue with save file stability.
But generally speaking, system got some progress since version 0.9.
And that make me hope that next releases will be even better.
Do you want to try Porteus yourself? You can get your own CD with this distribution usng service from Buy Linux CDs site.
Useful links:
Review by Prashanth
Distrowatch page
Official forum
KDE
Porteus 1.0 features KDE version 3.5.12 in 32-bit version. This is Trinity - same version from Pearson Computing as in Trinity Kubuntu.
Once booted, you are presented with single desktop system. It was very strange because usually KDE starts in multi-desktop configuration.
Default wallpaper for KDE (and LXDE too, but more on that later) is in dark grey colours, somewhat gloomy. Luckily, there are three alternative desktop wallpapers included. Not the biggest selection, but bearing in mind size of the distro - that is enough.
If you used to double-click window title to maximize its size or bring it back to normal size, you will need to re-learn in Porteus. Or re-configure standard behaviour. Because Porteus by default shades the window by double-clicking its title, leaving only title itself visible. Unexpected, urgh?
Taskbar panel is transparent in Porteus KDE by default. Having "underwater" wallpaper with transparent panel has its own charm - you can see it on the screenshot above.
Right after start, you can find several icons for running tasks on the taskbar. I'll tell you more about couple of them.
First of all, this is network connections management tool. Double-clicking it brings up the WiCD window. Magically, my network was already listed there. Or not magically? Actually, not, because drivers for my Broadcom 4311 WiFi card were already included into SLAX, and it would be quite logical to see them working in Porteus. All I had to do is to configure connection (add security code) and click "Connect". And it's working!
Another icon on the taskbar panel is in form of USA flag. Guess? Of course, this is keyboard layout switch tool. There are several layouts already activated in default system. Unfortunately, Russian is not among them. But it can be easily cured in configuration utility. This is standard tool from KDE3, nothing new and wonderful. As usual, layout switching option is also available, but combination Ctrl-Shift does not work. KDE3 always has this issue. There was a cure for this in SLAX (to do with configuration files), but I did not try to apply it in Porteus. I can leave it for you if you like...
Of course, taskbar is not the only thing which deserves attention in Porteus. There are lots of applications included.
I'll mention quickly that there are several games for your leisure time.
If you are interested in graphics, then Porteus includes several viewers. Other than that, KolourPaint is the only graphics editor.
Internet tools selection is quite big: IRC tool, messengers, FTP clients - all categories are here with at least one application. Browsers are represented by Firefox (version 4.0.1) and Konqueror.
Konqueror is also file manager. I tried to use it, but was not completely satisfied by its look. Icons on the left panel are slightly blurred for whatever reason.
If we get to multimedia packages, then you can find that KPlayer is default video player and Audiacious is default audio player. Of course K3B is also listed. There are no more players, but there are some other multimedia tools for configuration, ripping etc.
Office applications are represented by KOffice with version 1.6.3 - rather old, but that is what you get with KDE3. KWrite and Kate are also available for simpler text editing.
There are also many other applications in menu. Many of them are KDE-native.
If existing list is not enough, and you want to have more applications, then you can extend your system by downloading more modules. Porteus 1.0 uses new file type for modules, compared to SLAX. It is .xzm. Own Porteus site already gives you a selection of applications in xzm format in Download section. SLAX modules can also be used after conversion, as described in documentation. I'll come to that point later. There is also a tool which allows to work with modules: unpack, activate, convert, merge etc.
Of course, like in SLAX, MP3 music files and YouTube videos worked in Porteus Out Of The Box. Combined with Network connection, set of applications included, this fact proves that Porteus is definitely a system intended for pocket use: plug-and-go!
I had small issue with KDE-native tool KNetAttach, which is intended to mount network drives. It simply did not work for my external network drive. I decided to try manual mounting, of course.
Porteus 1.0 does not have sudo command in default configuration. But there is >su. Password is toor, and it is named on different places, like login screen (which you don't see when booting Live system without save-file by the way)
Mounting from CLI (command mount) worked fine, except for the fact that Russian charset was not recognised. Same issue with mounting of NTFS partition in Konqueror - Russian characters are shown as hieroglyphs. Subsequently, I'd like to notice that Samba package is already included in system by default.
Despite filename issue, all the files from local drive worked perfectly, both audio and video. Of course, issue with filenames also was inherited to file tags.
Another bug (or call it issue) which I found with Porteus 1.0 on my laptop is lack of scrolling function on touchpad edges. I like this feature, like I believe most of laptop users, and would definitely miss it if decided to use Porteus as my default system.
LXDE
As I mentioned above, Porteus 1.0 has 2 desktop environments: KDE and LXDE. I have already written about KDE version above, now it is time to turn to LXDE direction.
Once booted in LXDE, I saw not very many changes from KDE desktop. Yes, general layout is slightly different. Icon in the left-bottom corner is different. But...
LXDe version contains lots of applications from KDE. That's confusing. For exampe "Other" section of menu includes KDE configuration activities, which are not relevant to LXDE at all. One of them is Keyboard Layout, just to give you flavour.
Talking about Keyboard layouts, I could never find a place in Porteus 1.0 LXDE to configure layouts. If you know the place, please tell me. The difference in keyboard layouts though exists between KDE and LXDE versions. Former does have Russian layout in default set. But I could not find a way to switch layouts, other than clicking on the flag. Same as in previous version of Porteus.
LXDE version only gives you one desktop wallpaper available. Even those wallpapers which are available in KDE, are not available in LXDE.
I often work with KDE, as this is my favourite desktop environment. But I rarely use LXDE. To be honest, this is my less-preferred option among "Big 4" (GNOME, KDE, XFCE, LXDE). I used Porteus as opportunity to investigate more about this DE. I was nicely surprised when I saw lots of configuration options for desktop appearance. Probably all they are also available in KDE, but not so concentrated and organized.
Of course, LXDE version of Porteus also picked up my WiFi card driver and activated it. Same WiCD screen as in KDE, and I am connected again.
First of all, I tried to browse network from PCMan File Manager. Yes, LXDE does not have Konqueror, even though it has lots of other KDE-native tools, as I wrote above. My attempts to browse not mounted network folder from PCMan File Manager crashed it.
Of course, mounting with mount command worked just fine, but Russian characters were not shown in the file names in terminal again. As opposite to KDE, where Konqueror failed to work with Cyrillic characters, PCMan showed everything OK.
Same applied to automatic mounting of local NTFS partition. Everything was OK for PCMan, but Russian characters were still not working in terminal (Midnight Commander).
Persistence
Porteus can save changes, i.e. work in persistent mode. You need to go through quite simple procedure to create special file, if you want to create persistence file on FAT or NTFS partition. Once set up, you need to manually activate persistence file via cheat code during the boot. It is nice to have persistence option, but I would prefer it to work in Puppy mode, i.e. autodetect the file.Unfortunately, even having this windy way for persistence finished, I could not make it work. At least, WiFi network configuration was not saved and I had to re-enter security key in WiCD each time I booted again.
Maybe I did something wrong, or maybe system is not fully ready yet... Who knows...
Compatibility
I mentioned few lines above that Porteus 1.0 brings in new file format for modules which you can add to your system. It uses format .xzm, opposed to .lzm in SLAX. It potentially gives Porteus users great advantage, because SLAX repository has huge number of available packages, which Porteus itself has comparatively small number.In order to use packages from "old brother" SLAX, you need to convert them. You can do it either via special conversion tool, or select Activate option in right click menu on the file. Conversion itself takes significant time.
As a result, you would expect new item to appear in the menu.
I tried to convert package with Google Chrome (v.8), but was not much lucky. Conversion process worked for few minutes and seems to complete the task. But I did not find anything new in menu. Attempt to call google-chrome from the terminal only gave me an error about missing library.
Stability
I had to drop my experiments with SLAX when I understood that persistence offered by this system on FAT32 partitions (or USB stick) is very vulnerable thing. System itself crashed a lot trying to save changes, and took all the previous changes to unusable state after such crashes.That's why I was wondering whether Porteus could overcome this issue. Obviously, Puppy developers did overcome it, and did very similar way: by creating a persistence file which has its own (ext2?) structure.
Unfortunately, my experiments told me that my hope was not right. After few system reboots with persistence activated, I managed to lock the only non-root user in the system (guest). For whatever reason, folder /home/guest got corrupted or locked, and Porteus only agreed to log me in as root.
Conclusion
Before posting this review, I re-read my first post about Porteus.
Are there many changes since then? Yes, there are some. For example, Porteus have now fully migrated away from .lzm to .xzm. Performance issue was resolved.
But are these only changes? Maybe, maybe not. These additions added some more headache to developers and users (is it fully compatible with existing .lzm modules?), and other issues still remain. Most important of them from my perspective is issue with save file stability.
But generally speaking, system got some progress since version 0.9.
And that make me hope that next releases will be even better.
Do you want to try Porteus yourself? You can get your own CD with this distribution usng service from Buy Linux CDs site.
Useful links:
Review by Prashanth
Distrowatch page
Official forum
Thanks for the review!
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why you had the issue with the lin_start_here.sh script, I've copied it many times from the ISO image without issues. Were you logged in as a gues user when you copied it and tried to chmod it, and what kind of filesystem did you copy it to?
For saving persistent changes, you don't need a .dat container if you are using a linux filesystem (you can just save your changes to a directory, set to /porteus/changes by default). If you are using FAT or NTFS, you can create a .dat container and link to it inside your bootloader config file, /boot/porteus.cfg, so that you don't have to enter the cheatcode at each boot. If, for example, you created your .dat container as /mnt/sda1/porteus/save.dat, then you would edit your bootloader to say, 'changes=/mnt/sda1/porteus/save.dat', and it should work without issue. See this link for more info, as well as an explanation as to why this process is not automatic, as it is in puppy: http://porteus.org/info/docs/57-general-information/116-howto-create-a-savedat-container-and-why-you-need-one.html
For Russian characters/layout, please try booting with the cheatcode 'lang=ru_RU' (that is case sensitive) and let me know if that resolves the issue.
Thanks again!
I also gave up on Porteus after problems with persistence -- and the opinion that it is too complicated. Aren't computers supposed to make things easier? Surely, someone can resolve the save.dat file issue and auto load it. Puppy and Ubuntu don't make me 'edit my bootloader.'
ReplyDeleteI really did like the speed, copy2ram, and the lean structure. Hope persistence is improved.
I also wrote the first comment -- sorry for not including my alias, I was writing from my blackberry, which doesn't handle forms very well.
ReplyDeleteI tried using lang=ru_RU to configure russian language/layout, but that didn't work for me--I suspect additional files are necessary. Please try using the "Language Selection Tool" from the "system" submenu in the KDE or LXDE menu. This will download additional files, allow you to choose your language and keyboard layout, and save everything you need to a module that will be placed in your /porteus/modules/ folder for automatic activation on each reboot.
If you let me know the location where you placed your .dat container, and how you referenced it with your cheatcodes/bootloader config, I should be able to help get that up and running for you. Saving files either to a .dat container or a directory on a linux-formatted partition are much more stable than the Slax method of using posixovl (this option was dropped from Porteus because of the issues with file corruption and a general bugginess with newer kernels). It is also quite flexible, because you can put your changes on any partition of any device, and you can have more than one .dat container with a unique name, so that you can save different configurations to different files, or have multiple installations on one partition. I think that working a little more with this system will pay big dividends.
@Anonymous #2, in my opinion, computers are supposed to make things better, not neccessarily easier. Porteus is meant to be user friendly, but not to the point that it cripples functionality, like Ubuntu and Puppy do. Editing a text file is not complicated at all -- you just navigate to the folder and double click the file to open it in a GUI text editor. Since Porteus is a live distro, much of it's flexibility is derived from a good understanding of boot parameters and how to apply them.
In addition to the 'save.dat' document I referenced above, please take a look at these documents to understand better what I mean:
http://porteus.org/info/docs/57-general-information/117-cheatcodes-what-they-are-and-how-to-use-them.html
http://porteus.org/info/docs/57-general-information/118-howto-find-your-way-around-in-the-porteus-file-structure.html
http://porteus.org/faq.html
-Ahau
Dunno, Porteus was OK. A bit drabby, though, as you wrote and a bit of a learning curve. I really liked SLAX until TinyCore and SliTaz picked up the pace with THEIR even smaller pocket oriented distros.
ReplyDeleteKnoppix can be run from a flash drive with persistence. It may be "famous" for it's ability to run from CD/DVD, but it has a user-friendly tool for running from flash drive. Point and click.
ReplyDelete@Ahau:
ReplyDeleteI tried to create .dat file again on my USB drive (FAT filesystem) and add it to .cfg file string, like advised on Porteus page.
When I did it from Porteus (terminal -> su -> kate), .cfg file became corrupted. There were some funny characters.
When I did it from Debian, I could not save changes, "read-only filesystem".
So, I am lost here.
I understand an idea behind multiple profiles etc, but I would still prefer automatic detection of save file, Puppy-style.
I have not tried language tool yet, will do later.
@Anonymous:
ReplyDelete>I really liked SLAX until TinyCore and SliTaz picked up the pace with THEIR even smaller pocket oriented distros.
I tried TCL (though not put anything in the blog). IMHO it looks like guest from early-1990s. I understand that size is important here, but I would prefer little bit more size for better picture quality.
I tried Slitaz too: it did not start at all.
@Anonymous:
ReplyDelete>Knoppix can be run from a flash drive with persistence. It may be "famous" for it's ability to run from CD/DVD, but it has a user-friendly tool for running from flash drive. Point and click.
Maybe I should give Knoppix another go. When I first tried it, it was very bad in terms of multi-language support.
@Ahau:
ReplyDeleteI tried "Language selection tool".
As a result, I have system with half of it in Russian while another is still in English. Even WiCD has buttons "Connect" in English and "Параметры" in Russian.
I can now switch keyboard layouts without mouse, but only with Alt-Shift combination, although I have "setxkbmap -option grp:ctrl_shift_toggle". Weird... 8-)
Darkduck,
ReplyDeleteit sounds like either your filesystem or your download was corrupted. If you didn't check the md5sum on your ISO, please do, and download it again if it doesn't match the md5 on the server. I actually suspect your flash drive is corrupted, and that is why it was mounted as ro instead of rw (or, maybe you didn't give your restricted user the proper permissions to mount USB flash drives as read-write--try umounting and mounting again as root, and check your mtab and fstab). This would explain your issue with lin_start_here, porteus.cfg, and perhaps language-selection-tool as well.
You might seriously consider reformatting that flash drive. I prefer to put a FAT partition at the front of the drive for sharing files w/windows, then I have an EXT2 partition in the back with both editions of Porteus as well as Slax, Puppy, and SliTaz. That makes saving changes easier (i.e. automatic) in Porteus, and it saves perms and symlinks for any files I keep in my rootcopy.
Cheers!-Ahau
Just a small correction. The character you refer to from the Greek mythology is Proteus and not Porteus (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteus).
ReplyDeleteCheers!
-Georgios
@Ahau: I checked md5 sum for my iso file from within Porteus:
ReplyDeletebash-4.1$ md5sum Porteus-v1.0-i486.iso
9d34ab3b286bc9a770688fc56df805d4 Porteus-v1.0-i486.iso
I verified USB stick and there are no errors. It has (and ever had) only 1 partition: 1GB FAT. I don't need to create additional partition for save file. If I wanted, I could do this with SLAX which was reportedly also stable when changes are saved to EXT2 partition.
I used same stick and other sticks in Debian previously, never had an issue with read-only filesystem.
Somethig exclusive is in Porteus which drives it mad. 8-)
@Georgios:
ReplyDeleteThanks! I amended post a little.
DarkDuck,
ReplyDeleteOk -- I'm not sure what the issue is then. I haven't come across this problem with any other users. As the author of the installation guide, I feel an obligation to keep trying to resolve this, in case others are having the same issue (so, my apologies for being so...persistent--pun intended!). I can't recreate your problem -- files always show up in FAT as 755, so I don't know why you weren't able to edit porteus.cfg from debian or run lin_start_here.sh, unless you weren't using sudo or su. If you have the time and could give me the precise method by which you copied the files from the ISO to the flash drive and attempted to run the script and/or edit porteus.cfg, I would appreciate it, though I understand if your patience for me has run out! I know some distros have had issues with automounting flash drives recently, which is why I suggested you unmount and remount manually as root.
Thanks again for your time and consideration.
@Ahau:
ReplyDeleteI tried to use default archiver in Debian and Mageia to extract the files. I also tried to mount iso image in Mageia using the command on Porteus site. In all the cases lin_start_here.sh script was not executable and I could not change permissions.
This is the same USB I used several times before to make boot images with Unetbootin and dd. They worked just fine.
I am not aware of any issues with USB mounting. At least, have not had any yet.
If you wish, I can give it another go:
1) Format USB stick
2) Copy files in Debian using archiving tool.
3) Run sudo bash lin_start_here.sh
then will tell you the outcome.
If I was going to pick a "pocket version" it would have to be Macpup, an e17 derivative of Puppy Linux. Looks great, Uses the same packages as puppy, has persistence with NTFS files and runs in RAM. Not much more to be said!
ReplyDeletePorteus gives me all the power of slax with support for modern hardware. I keep a folder with Porteus on every windows install. I rename NTLDR to NTLDRXP and install Grub 4 Dos and rename GRUB.EXE to NTLDR. At that point I can set up a menu.lst file that looks like:
ReplyDelete======================================================
timeout 5
default 0
# Boot XP by finding and loading ntldr
title Microsoft Windows XP (Choose Me)
find --set-root /ntldrxp
chainloader /ntldrxp
# Boot 1st CDRom Drive
title Boot from first CD-ROM
kernel /slax/memdisk
initrd /slax/sbootmgr.dsk
# Boot Slax from C:\Slax Folder
title Boot Slax
kernel /slax/vmlinuz ramdisk_size=6666 root=/dev/ram0 rw copy2ram autoexec=xconf;telinit~4
initrd /slax/initrd.gz
======================================================
I have x11vnc and ssh set to run automatically. Any time I want to backup or restore a workstation all I need to do is set default=2 and reboot the computer. I can do all of this remotely.
It is a good thing to have an emergency recovery environment on each computer that takes up less than 300 megs of space.
DarkDuck,
ReplyDeleteI think I may have found the problem with lin_start_here.sh, and I have to apologize, because if this is the issue, then it is my fault that your install didn't work properly -- back in April, we discovered that a change in the udisks package (as of version 1.0.2 or greader) makes it such that any FAT or NTFS device will be mounted with all files being non-executable. This affects flash drives that are automounted by your desktop environment, and would appear to affect Debian Wheezy (or newer) and Mageia 1 (or newer).
I wrote a note for the install guide to address this, *however*, that note apparently did not make it into the final draft of the install guide. This is the text present in that note:
"*NOTE* Some modern linux distributions, such as Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, etc, use 'udisk' to automount usb drives from within KDE/Gnome/LXDE, etc. In versions higher than 1.0.2, udisk will not automount these drives with executable permissions (attempting to run the script will result in an error stating that permissions have been denied), and you must mount your device manually as root in order to execute the script. For example:
mkdir /tmp/media
mount /dev/sdXY /tmp/media
/tmp/media/boot/lin_start_here.sh
(where sdXY is the device and partition to which you are installing Porteus)"
If you wouldn't mind, please try the following:
1) delete all of the porteus files (/boot and /porteus) from your flash drive -- you may reformat if you wish.
2)unmount your flash drive, and remount it manually as root.
3) copy the /porteus and /boot files back to the flash drive from the ISO (using the debian archiver or by mounting the ISO on a loop)
4) check that the lin_start_here script in /mnt/yourdevice/boot/ is executable (checking .../boot/tools/bootsyslinux.sh might also be a good idea, but I think as long as you get one you get all of them)
5) run the the lin_start_here.sh script as root
Hopefully that will work...and then you should be able to edit the porteus.cfg from inside porteus once you create a .dat container -- I still don't know why that file came up corrupted for you...
Thanks again for your patience -- I feel really bad about this mistake in our documentation and will resolve the issue as soon as I get confirmation that this was in fact the problem.
@Athenroy:
ReplyDeletePuppy has so many puppets that it can only compete with Ubuntu in number of derivatives. 8-) (bearing in mind that LuPu is Ubuntu derivative to some extent).
I am happy that MacPuppy is best for you.
@Elder Geek:
ReplyDeleteThat is the standard way to install SLAX, Porteus or Puppy onto computer. And it is OK to have rescue mode just under your fingers.
What about having separate USB stick or CD just for this purpose? You can also use this CD for super-secure payment transactions.
@Ahau:
ReplyDeleteI think you're right. Simptoms are very similar to what I see.
I'll do what you wrote here later in the evening and will write here.
(or you want me to write you an e-mail - just e-mail me first then)
@DarkDuck I have not set up Porteus on a stick yet, but I have several sticks with Slax on it. I can't remember all I did, but I have it so it can boot several modes of slax AND The Ultimate Boot CD for Windows. A live USB stick with Slax / Proteus is a real life saver.
ReplyDelete@Ahau:
ReplyDeleteI did as you advised.
root@darkduck-laptop:/# mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt
root@darkduck-laptop:/#
root@darkduck-laptop:/mnt/boot# ./lin_start_here.sh
_.====.._
,:._ ~-_
'\ ~-_
\ \.
,/ ~-_
-..__..-'' PORTEUS ~~--..__
--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==
Welcome to Porteus-v1.0
--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==--==
[1] Check for Porteus update
[2] Read Porteus requirements
[3] Read Porteus installation instructions
[4] Read Porteus cheatcodes
[5] Read about bootloaders
[6] Install Porteus to EXTx partition (extlinux)
[7] Install Porteus to FATx partition (syslinux)
[8] Install Porteus to any partition (lilo)
no graphical - only text menu available
[9] Quit this application
Please choose a menu item ...
7
/mnt/porteus /mnt/boot
-e \e[36mChecking md5sums - wait a while...
[: 41: 2fc88f67f4d67999fee2a929c4bd3f0f: unexpected operator
-e checking md5sum for ../boot/vmlinuz \e[31mfail!
[: 41: eef4c7d9e410d4099171ac083eda0cef: unexpected operator
-e checking md5sum for ../boot/initrd.xz \e[31mfail!
[: 41: bb530ef1b0d9f714ba3ba707525690d1: unexpected operator
-e checking md5sum for ./base/000-kernel.xzm \e[31mfail!
[: 41: daf2b3afdb61e305b1fd3f62a2682e13: unexpected operator
-e checking md5sum for ./base/001-core.xzm \e[31mfail!
[: 41: bd15c3b7aebb3f1e5a490d49296d312b: unexpected operator
-e checking md5sum for ./base/002-xorg.xzm \e[31mfail!
[: 41: 494ac56997d995eb0be1af3bb4bee858: unexpected operator
-e checking md5sum for ./base/003-lxde.xzm \e[31mfail!
[: 41: be6268a95287a4e9aa0b62eceec22289: unexpected operator
-e checking md5sum for ./base/004-kde.xzm \e[31mfail!
[: 41: c47dcad4fdc2df7c9ba16d6acd51ebd0: unexpected operator
-e checking md5sum for ./base/005-kdeapps.xzm \e[31mfail!
[: 41: 8950543bff042c6d4cc48b1ea80bb1e4: unexpected operator
-e checking md5sum for ./base/006-koffice.xzm \e[31mfail!
[: 41: 56f555d51b13ea46877745bd07297261: unexpected operator
-e checking md5sum for ./base/007-devel.xzm \e[31mfail!
[: 41: 52e4f1541450eaf9312a43345110b628: unexpected operator
-e checking md5sum for ./base/008-firefox.xzm \e[31mfail!
-e \e[31mSome md5sums doesn't match or some files from default ISO are missing,
please check above...
-e \e[31mBe aware that vmlinuz, initrd.xz, 000-kernel.xzm and 001-core.xzm
are most important and booting wont be possible when they are missing.
-e \e[36mPress enter to continue or ctrl+c to exit
read: 54: arg count
@Ahau:
ReplyDelete"Contact us" on porteus.org does not work: SMTP Error! Could not connect to SMTP host.
Seems to work ok now. Darckduck, i think you are using ubuntu? This bug with udisk is seen on ubuntu. It mounts as read only, hence mounting the device manually, you were able to execute the script.
ReplyDelete@brokenman:
ReplyDeleteI did not use Ubuntu for Porteus exercises. Only Debian and Mageia.
My main OS which i use daily is Puppy Linux - having never tried slax i decided to give Porteus a go (both 32 & 64 bit versions). I used a manual install into the linux partition on which i have a number of different puppy linux's frugally installed - the install consisted of copying two directories from the porteus.iso and adding a new grub entry. (pretty straight forward)
ReplyDeleteMuch like the Op upon first boot i was surprised to see my B43 wifi detected - however i also suffered the same problem with lack of touch pad scroll (to get scroll to work enter the command: synclient VertEdgeScroll=1 )
When booting from a linux partition Porteus doesn't require a save file to be created like puppy, the changes are just saved to the Porteus directory, which is a nice touch as you don't have to monitor save file space.
Media / music / flash play right off the bat - the default web browser is firefox 4 which is fairly old considering it is up to version 6 or 7 now.
Windows managers - 32bit is Trinity / Lxde and 64bit is KDE / Lxde - to be honest Lxde in both felt like it was tacked on last minute, Trinity/KDE application and setting are still in the menu but are not relevant to lxde - missing menu icons and pretty drab themes.
Trinity / KDE worked ok - but seems to be a strange choice for a small light weight modular and portable OS - i imagine by removing the Trinity / KDE modules from the .iso and switching to GTK apps you could probably trim the .iso down by 100mb.
An alternative for KDE eye candy is Enlightenment 17 - it also lacks the bloat of Trinity / KDE.
Overall i found system resource to be high - maybe i am spoiled with Puppy Linux that uses less than 50mb of ram where as porteus 64bit KDE straight after boot when idle was 380mb and lxde was 180mb booth seem to be unreasonably high for a light weight portable OS in my opinion.
To conclude, i like Porteus, it is a fairly young project so most of the bugs and quibbles can be put down to this - what i would like to see in Porteus future is hopefully a light in .iso size and light on system resources version.
@LinuxLife:
ReplyDeleteThanks for so long and detailed comment. Looks like separate review actually. )))
hi thanks for developing Porteus 1.0, I came from third world country which the average speed from dial up networking only reach average 10kbps could you help me suggest to developer around the world so i can get linux iso image with latest kernel and kde within it basic configuration or minimum kde linux system so later on I can upgrade it slowly one by one or software by software maybe the iso file under 150mb. I estimated download time this iso image file can takes 3-4 hours. thanks for the helps
ReplyDelete@Anonymous:
ReplyDeleteI think SLAX, Nimblex and Porteus are the smallest distributions you can get with KDE. They are all from the same root - enabling of Live version for Slackware.
SLAX was frozen in development for some time, but I recently got news that its author wants to come back and release a new version.
Of course, there are smaller Linux distributions like TCL and DSL. But their hardware support is much worse. And they are definitely not KDE-based.