an observation, and question

an observation, and question

[Gregory Nowak]

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Hash: SHA1

Hi all.

A couple of days ago, I grabbed the debian stable netinst cd-rom image,
and attempted to install debian on to a machine using that image. The
machine is old, a Pentium running at 133 MHz, with 64 megs of ram,
with no dvd drive, just a cd-rom drive.

The installation went on for over 24 hours, and I powered off the box
at that point, before it completed. Part of that time was spent
idling overnight, waiting at the popularity contest
question. Downloading standard packages, and updates, is also a
contributing factor here. All that aside, while
things would probably have gone faster if I had used a dvd, or had my
own debian mirror locally, I think the major bottle neck here is the
age, and abilities of the machine in question.

I recall someone on here saying that the only distro that person could
install on his old laptop is slackware. This then begs the question,
is slackware the only distro that can still be installed on older
hardware in a reasonable amount of time, (say 3-5 hours from start to
finish), or are there others? Thanks
for any feedback.

Greg


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Re: an observation, and question

[Alex Snow]

As far as I know, slackware is one of the fiew (if not the only) distro 
that'll install easily on old hardware.  I'm not sure how it'll work on 
an original pentium machine as I got rid of all mine a couple years ago, 
but I recently installed slackware 13 on a p2/233 with 512mb ram in 
around 3 hours (this was using the 2 cds, as this machine doesn't have a 
dvd-rom drive).


On Tue, Apr 06, 2010 at 12:49:04PM -0700, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Hi all.
> 
> A couple of days ago, I grabbed the debian stable netinst cd-rom image,
> and attempted to install debian on to a machine using that image. The
> machine is old, a Pentium running at 133 MHz, with 64 megs of ram,
> with no dvd drive, just a cd-rom drive.
> 
> The installation went on for over 24 hours, and I powered off the box
> at that point, before it completed. Part of that time was spent
> idling overnight, waiting at the popularity contest
> question. Downloading standard packages, and updates, is also a
> contributing factor here. All that aside, while
> things would probably have gone faster if I had used a dvd, or had my
> own debian mirror locally, I think the major bottle neck here is the
> age, and abilities of the machine in question.
> 
> I recall someone on here saying that the only distro that person could
> install on his old laptop is slackware. This then begs the question,
> is slackware the only distro that can still be installed on older
> hardware in a reasonable amount of time, (say 3-5 hours from start to
> finish), or are there others? Thanks
> for any feedback.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
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> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
> 
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-- 
Oh, I've seen copies [of Linux Journal] around the terminal room at The Labs.
	-- Dennis Ritchie

Re: an observation, and question

[Joseph C. Lininger]

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Gentoo will run on older hardware without any problems. You might have
difficulties owing to the from source build system, slow package builds
and that. However, if you've got a pre-built tarball or you use binary
packages there's no real reason it shouldn't work. Both the minimal and
full install CD's are still small enough they fit on a regular CD, not
requiring a DVD. Things are slightly easier in this situation if you
have a Pentium MMX or better, but even something as low as a 486 will
actually work provided you haven't loaded so much stuff on it that it
can't support it as far as RAM goes.
- -- 
Yes means no and no means yes. Delete all files [Y]?
Joseph C. Lininger, <jbahm@pcdesk.net>
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Re: an observation, and question

[John G. Heim]

I install debian on machines comperable to the one you have all the time. 
For instance, I have a little computer that is intended for you to build 
your own wireless router. And I have a laptop with a 150 Mhz processor and 
54 Mb of RAM.

I think the trick is to install just the base system. During a debian 
install, a page comes up where you check off which groups of packages you 
want to install. You can uncheck everything, even the base packages and then 
your install will take only about 300 Mb of disk space. Even with a dialup 
connection it doesn't take 24 hours to download 300 Mb.

You will end up with an install that doesn't even have thinkgs like the more 
or tail commands but as you need these things, you can install them.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 2:49 PM
Subject: an observation, and question


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Hi all.
>
> A couple of days ago, I grabbed the debian stable netinst cd-rom image,
> and attempted to install debian on to a machine using that image. The
> machine is old, a Pentium running at 133 MHz, with 64 megs of ram,
> with no dvd drive, just a cd-rom drive.
>
> The installation went on for over 24 hours, and I powered off the box
> at that point, before it completed. Part of that time was spent
> idling overnight, waiting at the popularity contest
> question. Downloading standard packages, and updates, is also a
> contributing factor here. All that aside, while
> things would probably have gone faster if I had used a dvd, or had my
> own debian mirror locally, I think the major bottle neck here is the
> age, and abilities of the machine in question.
>
> I recall someone on here saying that the only distro that person could
> install on his old laptop is slackware. This then begs the question,
> is slackware the only distro that can still be installed on older
> hardware in a reasonable amount of time, (say 3-5 hours from start to
> finish), or are there others? Thanks
> for any feedback.
>
> Greg
>
>
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
> skype: gregn1
> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
>
> - --
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> iEYEARECAAYFAku7kDAACgkQ7s9z/XlyUyDGeACgqm4SMF44C1uCsm34IhFmXNg2
> BJkAnRCwtbySVB0QRmIqK04V87q7kqMm
> =eKmF
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> 

Re: an observation, and question

[Gregory Nowak]

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Hash: SHA1

On Wed, Apr 07, 2010 at 09:49:13AM -0500, John G. Heim wrote:
> For instance, I have a little computer that is intended for you to build  
> your own wireless router.

Yes, a Soakris (spelling) machine if I remember right. One of those is
on my own wish list.

> I think the trick is to install just the base system. During a debian  
> install, a page comes up where you check off which groups of packages you 
> want to install. You can uncheck everything, even the base packages and 
> then your install will take only about 300 Mb of disk space. Even with a 
> dialup connection it doesn't take 24 hours to download 300 Mb.

Hmmm, I don't remember such a page. When I installed it, it was a
simple text interface, 1 for yes, 2 for no, and numbers on other pages
for configuration options, such as partitioning disks and so forth. I
don't recall seeing a page with checkboxes of any sort during the
install. I got the iso I used from:
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0.4/i386/iso-cd/debian-504-i386-netinst.iso

Greg


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Re: an observation, and question

[Tyler Littlefield]

I'm not sure what install you did, but I know it exists, right before you download packages. it's a big list of packages with webserver, database server, etc, and you can run down and uncheck everything.
		Thanks,
Tyler Littlefield
	http://tds-solutions.net
	Twitter: sorressean

On Apr 7, 2010, at 2:02 PM, Gregory Nowak wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Wed, Apr 07, 2010 at 09:49:13AM -0500, John G. Heim wrote:
>> For instance, I have a little computer that is intended for you to build  
>> your own wireless router.
> 
> Yes, a Soakris (spelling) machine if I remember right. One of those is
> on my own wish list.
> 
>> I think the trick is to install just the base system. During a debian  
>> install, a page comes up where you check off which groups of packages you 
>> want to install. You can uncheck everything, even the base packages and 
>> then your install will take only about 300 Mb of disk space. Even with a 
>> dialup connection it doesn't take 24 hours to download 300 Mb.
> 
> Hmmm, I don't remember such a page. When I installed it, it was a
> simple text interface, 1 for yes, 2 for no, and numbers on other pages
> for configuration options, such as partitioning disks and so forth. I
> don't recall seeing a page with checkboxes of any sort during the
> install. I got the iso I used from:
> http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0.4/i386/iso-cd/debian-504-i386-netinst.iso
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
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Re: an observation, and question

[Gaijin]

On Wed, Apr 07, 2010 at 02:36:10PM -0600, Tyler Littlefield wrote:
> I'm not sure what install you did, but I know it exists, right before you download packages. it's a big list of packages with webserver, database server, etc, and you can run down and uncheck everything.

	If you want to see that menu again, type "tasksel" on the 
command line.

				Michael

Re: an observation, and question

[John G. Heim]

Huh... I can't explain that.  Maybe they got rid of it in the newer 
installers. That would strike me as strange though.

---- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 3:02 PM
Subject: Re: an observation, and question


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Wed, Apr 07, 2010 at 09:49:13AM -0500, John G. Heim wrote:
>> For instance, I have a little computer that is intended for you to build
>> your own wireless router.
>
> Yes, a Soakris (spelling) machine if I remember right. One of those is
> on my own wish list.
>
>> I think the trick is to install just the base system. During a debian
>> install, a page comes up where you check off which groups of packages you
>> want to install. You can uncheck everything, even the base packages and
>> then your install will take only about 300 Mb of disk space. Even with a
>> dialup connection it doesn't take 24 hours to download 300 Mb.
>
> Hmmm, I don't remember such a page. When I installed it, it was a
> simple text interface, 1 for yes, 2 for no, and numbers on other pages
> for configuration options, such as partitioning disks and so forth. I
> don't recall seeing a page with checkboxes of any sort during the
> install. I got the iso I used from:
> http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0.4/i386/iso-cd/debian-504-i386-netinst.iso
>
> Greg
>
>
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
> skype: gregn1
> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
>
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>
> iEYEARECAAYFAku85OMACgkQ7s9z/XlyUyD2mACgzB8UK5UU87R8qnUi9JpW89+7
> LVIAn39Edg1WTRwuXkeD6QRTltqm+8au
> =pexo
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> 

Re: an observation, and question

[John G. Heim]

>
>> I think the trick is to install just the base system. During a debian
>> install, a page comes up where you check off which groups of packages you
>> want to install. You can uncheck everything, even the base packages and
>> then your install will take only about 300 Mb of disk space. Even with a
>> dialup connection it doesn't take 24 hours to download 300 Mb.
>
> Hmmm, I don't remember such a page. When I installed it, it was a
> simple text interface, 1 for yes, 2 for no, and numbers on other pages
> for configuration options, such as partitioning disks and so forth. I
> don't recall seeing a page with checkboxes of any sort during the
> install. I got the iso I used from:
> http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0.4/i386/iso-cd/debian-504-i386-netinst.iso
>


Oh, that's right. You don't get a curses interface any more. So maybe the 
choice list I was talking about is gone. Oh, that kinda sucks though.

Of course, it wasn't actually checkboxes like in a GUI. It was the curses 
left & right bracket kind of check box. Like when you're selecting 
synthesizers when configuring a kernel for speakup.

Anyway, so its probably gone. You mightconsider doing a lenny install. Or 
else just do your own install with the linux commands. Its been 2 or 3 years 
since I've done that and every time I have to do it I google it. But there's 
enough keywords in the steps below to find a more detailed howto.The steps 
are something like this:

1. Boot via grml
2. partition & format the hard drive
3. mount the new filesystems
4. run debbootstrap
5. chroot to the new root file system
6. install grub
7.  install a kernel
8. reboot

You didn't say in your original post how big your hard drive is or what kind 
of internet connection you have. I'm just assuming that it took a really 
long time for the install because it has a slow connection. But it is 
probably more likely that the install just hung ffor some reason. You might 
consider just trying again.

Re: an observation, and question

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Wed, Apr 07, 2010 at 04:20:45PM -0500, John G. Heim wrote:
> Of course, it wasn't actually checkboxes like in a GUI. It was the curses 
> left & right bracket kind of check box. Like when you're selecting  
> synthesizers when configuring a kernel for speakup.

Yes, exactly, that's what I meant by checkboxes. What you described
seemed familiar to me, which prompted me to think back why that is
so. What you're describing was in fact the case for the netinst cds
that Shane put together. On those disks, it was possible to go down
the list of package configurations, and uncheck what you didn't
want. That's not the case anymore in the iso I used recently.

>
> Anyway, so its probably gone. You mightconsider doing a lenny install. Or 

This was a Lenny install.

> else just do your own install with the linux commands. Its been 2 or 3 
> years since I've done that and every time I have to do it I google it. 
> But there's enough keywords in the steps below to find a more detailed 
> howto.The steps are something like this:

Yeah, that's a possibility.

> You didn't say in your original post how big your hard drive is or what 
> kind of internet connection you have. I'm just assuming that it took a 
> really long time for the install because it has a slow connection. But it 
> is probably more likely that the install just hung ffor some reason. You 
> might consider just trying again.

The hard drive is 6.4G. The internet connection is adsl, 1.5 mbps down, 896
kbps up, though it syncs at around 990 kbps down, 864 kbps up. The
only hang was like I mentioned, when it was waiting at the popularity
contest prompt over night. Other than that, the hd was whirring the
whole time. This is an older drive of course, so you can hear it when
it's working.

Greg


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Re: an observation, and question

[John G. Heim]

From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>

> The hard drive is 6.4G. The internet connection is adsl, 1.5 mbps down, 
> 896
> kbps up, though it syncs at around 990 kbps down, 864 kbps up. The
> only hang was like I mentioned, when it was waiting at the popularity
> contest prompt over night. Other than that, the hd was whirring the
> whole time. This is an older drive of course, so you can hear it when
> it's working.

Strange. Something else must have been wrong. Defective drive maybe? 
Temporary network outage that caused the installer to get into some kind of 
loop?

I could send you a 13 or 15 Gb disk. I've got 4 drives in the 13 - 15 Gb 
range that I was just going to throw in the trash. I'm not 100% sure any of 
them are good but I'm guessing there is a linux utility for testing a drive.

Re: an observation, and question

[trev.saunders]

Hi,

yeah smartmontools can lookkkk at the SMART error log and run self tests

Trev

Re: an observation, and question

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 09:44:13AM -0500, John G. Heim wrote:
> Strange. Something else must have been wrong. Defective drive maybe?  

I doubt it, since smart tools don't report any immediate drive
problems, and since I noticed no drive/file system problems when I had
win98 on that box recently.

> Temporary network outage that caused the installer to get into some kind 
> of loop?

Maybe, but I doubt that too, since mail arrived to my server box
overnight, and the dsl modem didn't resync that night (it rarely does
anyway). So, if there was a network outage, I doubt it was on my end.

>
> I could send you a 13 or 15 Gb disk. I've got 4 drives in the 13 - 15 Gb  
> range that I was just going to throw in the trash. I'm not 100% sure any 
> of them are good but I'm guessing there is a linux utility for testing a 
> drive.

I've got a few still good older drives sitting here myself, but thanks
for the offer. Besides, I'm 95% sure this machine's bios has the 8g
size limit. As for your other statement, there seems to be a GNU/Linux
utility for pretty much anything these days, and drive testing isn't an
exception. Like I said, there definitely are tools for checking
SMART-enabled drives, and I'd be surprised if there were no utilities
for testing drives without SMART.

Greg


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Re: an observation, and question

[Kerry Hoath]

Just a note on drive size:
Whilst your bios might have an 8-gig limit, it is easy enough to simply clip 
the drive capacity to something small and let linux find the whole drive, or 
set host protected area to 8gb and let linux override it.
Linux accesses the drive using LBA so once the kernel and initrd are loaded 
from the /boot partition which must reside below 8gb the system should be 
fine.
Still, even 2gb is big enough to install Debian if you have /home on nfs or 
similar or data somewhere else on the network.
Did doing an expert install change the parameters re package selection? I 
should try this in a virtual machine sometime see how it flies.
Regards, Kerry.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 2:54 AM
Subject: Re: an observation, and question


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 09:44:13AM -0500, John G. Heim wrote:
>> Strange. Something else must have been wrong. Defective drive maybe?
>
> I doubt it, since smart tools don't report any immediate drive
> problems, and since I noticed no drive/file system problems when I had
> win98 on that box recently.
>
>> Temporary network outage that caused the installer to get into some kind
>> of loop?
>
> Maybe, but I doubt that too, since mail arrived to my server box
> overnight, and the dsl modem didn't resync that night (it rarely does
> anyway). So, if there was a network outage, I doubt it was on my end.
>
>>
>> I could send you a 13 or 15 Gb disk. I've got 4 drives in the 13 - 15 Gb
>> range that I was just going to throw in the trash. I'm not 100% sure any
>> of them are good but I'm guessing there is a linux utility for testing a
>> drive.
>
> I've got a few still good older drives sitting here myself, but thanks
> for the offer. Besides, I'm 95% sure this machine's bios has the 8g
> size limit. As for your other statement, there seems to be a GNU/Linux
> utility for pretty much anything these days, and drive testing isn't an
> exception. Like I said, there definitely are tools for checking
> SMART-enabled drives, and I'd be surprised if there were no utilities
> for testing drives without SMART.
>
> Greg
>
>
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
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Re: an observation, and question

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Fri, Apr 09, 2010 at 06:40:27AM +0800, Kerry Hoath wrote:
> Just a note on drive size:
> Whilst your bios might have an 8-gig limit, it is easy enough to simply 
> clip the drive capacity to something small and let linux find the whole 
> drive, or set host protected area to 8gb and let linux override it.
> Linux accesses the drive using LBA so once the kernel and initrd are 
> loaded from the /boot partition which must reside below 8gb the system 
> should be fine.

Yes, I was though thinking in terms of wanting to run an os in the
future which gets drive geometry from the bios, and doesn't care about
anything else.

> Did doing an expert install change the parameters re package
 selection?

I haven't gotten around to trying it yet.

> I 
> should try this in a virtual machine sometime see how it flies.

I was actually toying with that idea, doing exactly what I did before,
to see if it was in fact the age of the hardware which caused the
install to go on for such a long time, or some other factor. I think I
still might do that. Thanks.

Greg


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Re: an observation, and question

[Igor Gueths]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Hi Greg and all. Regarding virtualization, what is the consensus on the best
method for getting good output from a textmode installer? I did try Qemu in
- -curses mode, and unless I'm missing some configuration that needs to be done
beforehand, I found a lot of capability missing, such as cursor tracking. This
made it fairly difficult to navigate the Centos installer for example. My next
option I figured was Virtualbox, but so far as I can tell, it doesn't have an
Ncurses mode at all. Ideas?
On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 04:08:52PM -0700, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> On Fri, Apr 09, 2010 at 06:40:27AM +0800, Kerry Hoath wrote:
> > Just a note on drive size:
> > Whilst your bios might have an 8-gig limit, it is easy enough to simply 
> > clip the drive capacity to something small and let linux find the whole 
> > drive, or set host protected area to 8gb and let linux override it.
> > Linux accesses the drive using LBA so once the kernel and initrd are 
> > loaded from the /boot partition which must reside below 8gb the system 
> > should be fine.
> 
> Yes, I was though thinking in terms of wanting to run an os in the
> future which gets drive geometry from the bios, and doesn't care about
> anything else.
> 
> > Did doing an expert install change the parameters re package
>  selection?
> 
> I haven't gotten around to trying it yet.
> 
> > I 
> > should try this in a virtual machine sometime see how it flies.
> 
> I was actually toying with that idea, doing exactly what I did before,
> to see if it was in fact the age of the hardware which caused the
> install to go on for such a long time, or some other factor. I think I
> still might do that. Thanks.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
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virtualization, was: Re: an observation, and question

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

It depends on what guest you want to virtualize on what host. For
virtualizing a GNU/Linux guest on a GNU/Linux host, I personally use
user-mode Linux, though there are/were a few folks with screenreaders
(using orca on GNU/Linux) on the virtualbox-users list, who do the
same under virtualbox. I could get into running windows guests on
windows hosts, for which I use a couple of solutions (virtualbox being
one of them), depending on which version of windows I want to virtualize, but
that's not a topic for this list.

As for your observation regarding virtualbox, though it is handy to
get to use the GUI (NVDA does very well here on a windows host), it is
still possible to make full use of virtualbox via the command line,
once you take the time to learn the various options that need to be
passed to the various virtualbox programs, primarily VBoxManage. Hth.

Greg


On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 07:42:22PM -0400, Igor Gueths wrote:
> Hi Greg and all. Regarding virtualization, what is the consensus on the best
> method for getting good output from a textmode installer? I did try Qemu in
> -curses mode, and unless I'm missing some configuration that needs to be done
> beforehand, I found a lot of capability missing, such as cursor tracking. This
> made it fairly difficult to navigate the Centos installer for example. My next
> option I figured was Virtualbox, but so far as I can tell, it doesn't have an
> Ncurses mode at all. Ideas?


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Re: virtualization, was: Re: an observation, and question

[trev.saunders]

Hi,

I think he was discusing install OS's into vm's.  Personally the only thing I've installed into qemu/kvm is debian whitch went fine with -curses then using fb=false at the boot prompt.  virtualbox doesn't have an equivelent of -curses  but with some work you can do a serial console, but I although I'd like to learn I don't now how to install an os that way.  As a result since use virtualbox on a server, I used qemu to install the vm and then typically run it with virtualbox.

HTH
Trev

Re: virtualization, was: Re: an observation, and question

[Igor Gueths]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Hi Greg. Yeah, VBoxManage is a really nice tool, wouldn't have been able to get
my XP vm configured the way I wanted it otherwise. I am assuming that if you are
using UML to virtualize Linux guests on Linux hosts, that as far as the
installers go, they need to have some sort of remote installation functionality,
SSH or otherwise? What I am basically going for is a solution where I can grab
pretty much any distro that has a textmode installer i.e., Centos, Debian, Arch,
etc, get it installed, and render it bootable so I could play with it. While
Qemu works fairly well for this in my experience, I found that it was not really
optimal for navigating Ncurses-based textmode installers, so I didn't know if
there was a better way of doing it that I hadn't come across yet.
On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 05:15:26PM -0700, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> It depends on what guest you want to virtualize on what host. For
> virtualizing a GNU/Linux guest on a GNU/Linux host, I personally use
> user-mode Linux, though there are/were a few folks with screenreaders
> (using orca on GNU/Linux) on the virtualbox-users list, who do the
> same under virtualbox. I could get into running windows guests on
> windows hosts, for which I use a couple of solutions (virtualbox being
> one of them), depending on which version of windows I want to virtualize, but
> that's not a topic for this list.
> 
> As for your observation regarding virtualbox, though it is handy to
> get to use the GUI (NVDA does very well here on a windows host), it is
> still possible to make full use of virtualbox via the command line,
> once you take the time to learn the various options that need to be
> passed to the various virtualbox programs, primarily VBoxManage. Hth.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
> On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 07:42:22PM -0400, Igor Gueths wrote:
> > Hi Greg and all. Regarding virtualization, what is the consensus on the best
> > method for getting good output from a textmode installer? I did try Qemu in
> > -curses mode, and unless I'm missing some configuration that needs to be done
> > beforehand, I found a lot of capability missing, such as cursor tracking. This
> > made it fairly difficult to navigate the Centos installer for example. My next
> > option I figured was Virtualbox, but so far as I can tell, it doesn't have an
> > Ncurses mode at all. Ideas?
> 
> 
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
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> 
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Re: virtualization, was: Re: an observation, and question

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Igor and all,

On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 09:32:34PM -0400, Igor Gueths wrote:
> I am assuming that if you are
> using UML to virtualize Linux guests on Linux hosts, that as far as the
> installers go, they need to have some sort of remote installation functionality,
> SSH or otherwise?

With uml, you can't just take an iso image, and do an install like you
would with physical hardware, or in something like virtualbox. When
installing debian inside a uml machine, I used rootstrap, which could
be modified for other distros according to the rootstrap docs. I did
once install slackware inside a uml, but I think it was something like
6 years ago or so. I do remember that it took me quite a few hours,
and some hit and miss trials before I got the installer to install
into a uml machine all the way through to the end. That's all I can
recall though, given how long ago it was, and because I played with it
only one time, but did manage to get slackware installed into a uml
like I said, from what I can recall. To answer your question,
rootstrap gets input from, and writes output to your controlling
terminal, so you can use it over ssh, or in front of a physical
keyboard if you'd like. I personally like to deal with an installed
system inside of a uml machine via ssh, though there are ways to map
uml consoles to your own physical system's consoles, and not only.

> What I am basically going for is a solution where I can grab
> pretty much any distro that has a textmode installer i.e., Centos, Debian, Arch,
> etc, get it installed, and render it bootable so I could play with
> it.

I would personally use virtualbox under a windows host for such a
scenario. In case someone is wondering why I'd do it under a windows
host, there are a couple of reasons. First, the debian packages for
virtualbox require x. You could just use the self-extracting version,
provided you agree to the PUEL license, to get a headless system
without needing x, but going that route means the software isn't
installed through your distro's package management, and getting it off
later could be a pain. The final reason is that under windows, NVDA
does a good job dealing with the GUI, as I already mentioned. In fact,
whenever I want to use the GUI to do something, rather than the
command line, I shutdown my copy of wineyes, and bring up nvda. There
is no such option for now under orca as far as I know, you're limited
to using VBoxManage for everything, like it or not. 

That's just my own preference, and I do realize others may choose to
do things differently for their own probably as good reasons.

Greg


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Re: virtualization, was: Re: an observation, and question

[Igor Gueths]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512

Hi Greg.
On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 11:07:48PM -0700, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
> 
> Igor and all,
> 
> On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 09:32:34PM -0400, Igor Gueths wrote:
> > I am assuming that if you are
> > using UML to virtualize Linux guests on Linux hosts, that as far as the
> > installers go, they need to have some sort of remote installation functionality,
> > SSH or otherwise?
> 
> With uml, you can't just take an iso image, and do an install like you
> would with physical hardware, or in something like virtualbox. When
> installing debian inside a uml machine, I used rootstrap, which could
> be modified for other distros according to the rootstrap docs. I did
> once install slackware inside a uml, but I think it was something like
> 6 years ago or so. I do remember that it took me quite a few hours,
> and some hit and miss trials before I got the installer to install
> into a uml machine all the way through to the end. That's all I can
> recall though, given how long ago it was, and because I played with it
> only one time, but did manage to get slackware installed into a uml
> like I said, from what I can recall. To answer your question,
> rootstrap gets input from, and writes output to your controlling
> terminal, so you can use it over ssh, or in front of a physical
> keyboard if you'd like. I personally like to deal with an installed
> system inside of a uml machine via ssh, though there are ways to map
> uml consoles to your own physical system's consoles, and not only.
> 

Interesting, I'll have to check that out. It sounds like it could come in handy
for doing textmode stuff.
>
> > What I am basically going for is a solution where I can grab
> > pretty much any distro that has a textmode installer i.e., Centos, Debian, Arch,
> > etc, get it installed, and render it bootable so I could play with
> > it.
> 
> I would personally use virtualbox under a windows host for such a
> scenario. In case someone is wondering why I'd do it under a windows
> host, there are a couple of reasons. First, the debian packages for
> virtualbox require x. You could just use the self-extracting version,
> provided you agree to the PUEL license, to get a headless system
> without needing x, but going that route means the software isn't
> installed through your distro's package management, and getting it off
> later could be a pain. The final reason is that under windows, NVDA
> does a good job dealing with the GUI, as I already mentioned. In fact,
> whenever I want to use the GUI to do something, rather than the
> command line, I shutdown my copy of wineyes, and bring up nvda. There
> is no such option for now under orca as far as I know, you're limited
> to using VBoxManage for everything, like it or not. 
> 

AS far as I know, the only thing VBoxManage cannot do that the GUI can is map
alternate host keys, and even then I figured out that VBoxSDL can arbitrarily do
it via VBoxSDL --detecthostkey && VBoxSDL --hostkey <above values>.
>
> That's just my own preference, and I do realize others may choose to
> do things differently for their own probably as good reasons.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
> - -- 
> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
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> (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first)
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Re: virtualization, was: Re: an observation, and question

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Fri, Apr 09, 2010 at 01:36:20PM -0400, Igor Gueths wrote:
> AS far as I know, the only thing VBoxManage cannot do that the GUI can is map
> alternate host keys, and even then I figured out that VBoxSDL can arbitrarily do
> it via VBoxSDL --detecthostkey && VBoxSDL --hostkey <above values>.

No, VBoxManage can do that too. Since the old vbox-users list is gone,
and there are no archives as far as I know, I'll post below a reply I
got from Frank from the virtualbox team on this issue:

From: Frank Mehnert <frank@innotek.de>
To: vbox-users@virtualbox.org
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:20:26 +0200
Subject: Re: [vbox-users] host key




Hi Greg,

the host key value you see is an internal value of the host system,
that
is an Xorg value on Linux and a completely different system on
Windows.
The following values should be valid for Windows hosts (I cannot test
it
currently):

  160    left shift key
  161    right shift key
  162    left control key
  163    right control key
  164    left menu key
  165    right menu key

Kind regards,

Frank

On Monday 09 July 2007, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> Yes, but I haven't managed to figure out all the details. Let me
> explain what I know so far, and maybe someone at Innotek will be
kind
> enough to provide a more complete explanation instead of just saying
> that the explanation is too complicated and prone to error, and
> leaving it at that.
>
> Under winxp as the host, I was able to play around in the gui
> interface, and figured out that alt+f to get into the file menu,
> followed by hitting i, got me into the input settings where you can
> change the hostkey. A bit of tabbing around and listening to what
> window-eyes was saying, allowed me to successfully change the
hostkey
> to be the right alt key.
>
> Running "vboxmanage getextradata global enumerate", showed me that
one
> of the keys defined was "GUI/Input/HostKey", and that its value was
> "165. So, from that, I know that in order to set the hostkey to
right
> alt you'd do:
>
> vboxmanage setextradata global "GUI/Input/HostKey" 165
- ---snip---

Greg


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Re: an observation, and question

[Gaijin]

On Thu, Apr 08, 2010 at 09:44:13AM -0500, John G. Heim wrote:
> 100% sure any of them are good but 
> I'm guessing there is a linux utility for testing a drive.

	Do you mean "fsck" or something else?

				Michael

Re: an observation, and question

[Joseph C. Lininger]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256

> Do you mean "fsck" or something else?

fsck is a filesystem checker only, it doesn't check the actual physical
media. For that, use the badblocks utility. You can run it yourself if
you haven't yet built a filesystem, or you can have mkfs call it. It can
do a read testing, write testing, and non-destructive write testing.
- -- 
Yes means no and no means yes. Delete all files [Y]?
Joseph C. Lininger, <jbahm@pcdesk.net>
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Re: an observation, and question

[Kerry Hoath]

You need to do an expert install to get the tasksel page if I recall 
correctly.


at the boot prompt key in expert

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 4:02 AM
Subject: Re: an observation, and question


> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> On Wed, Apr 07, 2010 at 09:49:13AM -0500, John G. Heim wrote:
>> For instance, I have a little computer that is intended for you to build
>> your own wireless router.
>
> Yes, a Soakris (spelling) machine if I remember right. One of those is
> on my own wish list.
>
>> I think the trick is to install just the base system. During a debian
>> install, a page comes up where you check off which groups of packages you
>> want to install. You can uncheck everything, even the base packages and
>> then your install will take only about 300 Mb of disk space. Even with a
>> dialup connection it doesn't take 24 hours to download 300 Mb.
>
> Hmmm, I don't remember such a page. When I installed it, it was a
> simple text interface, 1 for yes, 2 for no, and numbers on other pages
> for configuration options, such as partitioning disks and so forth. I
> don't recall seeing a page with checkboxes of any sort during the
> install. I got the iso I used from:
> http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0.4/i386/iso-cd/debian-504-i386-netinst.iso
>
> Greg
>
>
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> web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org
> gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc
> skype: gregn1
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>
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> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

Re: an observation, and question

[Jason White]

John G. Heim <speakup@braille.uwo.ca> wrote:

>I think the trick is to install just the base system. During a debian 
>install, a page comes up where you check off which groups of packages you 
>want to install. You can uncheck everything, even the base packages and then 
>your install will take only about 300 Mb of disk space. Even with a dialup 
>connection it doesn't take 24 hours to download 300 Mb.

Another option here is to boot a GRML CD (which has Speakup included), then
use deboostrap to install Debian. the Debian installation manual has an
appendix which explains how to do it.

Re: an observation, and question

[Tony Baechler]

As Debian has officially stated, you must have a minimum of 128 MB of 
RAM to do an install.  Debian itself might run on less after 
installation.  Yes, I realize this is a late reply, but the statement 
that you can only install Slackware isn't true, provided you have at 
least 128 MB of memory.  You could also set up a virtual machine to do 
the install and somehow use dd to copy the raw virtual image to the 
Pentium hard drive.  You could also try an older version of Debian and 
upgrade.

On 4/6/2010 12:49 PM, Gregory Nowak wrote:
> A couple of days ago, I grabbed the debian stable netinst cd-rom image,
> and attempted to install debian on to a machine using that image. The
> machine is old, a Pentium running at 133 MHz, with 64 megs of ram,
> with no dvd drive, just a cd-rom drive.
>    

Re: an observation, and question

[trev.saunders]

Hi,

pretty sure the manuel says 49 not 128 as the hard lower limmit.  49 seems kind of random, but maybe its the exact smalles posible.

Trev

Re: an observation, and question

[John G. Heim]

Huh...   Which version of debian did that requirement come in? I don't think 
it was there in etch.  My laptop is running lenny but I may have installed 
etch and then did a dist-upgrade to lenny.

I'm kind of shocked that you need 128 Mb. Debian still has 486 kernel 
packages. In fact, last fall, I got a bug fixed for a driver for a chipset 
that has been obsolete  for about 10 years. Those things aren't directly 
debian related but the linux community generally has outstanding support for 
old hardware.

Well, I suppose you can always do the install step by step yourself.  Maybe 
thats why debian figured it was no big deal to have a 128 Mb requirement for 
their installer.




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tony Baechler" <tony@baechler.net>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Friday, April 09, 2010 4:52 AM
Subject: Re: an observation, and question


> As Debian has officially stated, you must have a minimum of 128 MB of RAM 
> to do an install.  Debian itself might run on less after installation. 
> Yes, I realize this is a late reply, but the statement that you can only 
> install Slackware isn't true, provided you have at least 128 MB of memory. 
> You could also set up a virtual machine to do the install and somehow use 
> dd to copy the raw virtual image to the Pentium hard drive.  You could 
> also try an older version of Debian and upgrade.
>
> On 4/6/2010 12:49 PM, Gregory Nowak wrote:
>> A couple of days ago, I grabbed the debian stable netinst cd-rom image,
>> and attempted to install debian on to a machine using that image. The
>> machine is old, a Pentium running at 133 MHz, with 64 megs of ram,
>> with no dvd drive, just a cd-rom drive.
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
> 

Re: an observation, and question

[Tony Baechler]

It is in the troubleshooting section of the installer manual. It will 
definitely apply to Squeeze and I'm almost positive that it applies to 
Lenny. I'm fairly sure it applies to all newer daily builds of the 
installer.

On 4/9/2010 7:16 AM, John G. Heim wrote:
> Huh... Which version of debian did that requirement come in? I don't 
> think it was there in etch. My laptop is running lenny but I may have 
> installed etch and then did a dist-upgrade to lenny.

Re: an observation, and question

[Gregory Nowak]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Fri, Apr 09, 2010 at 02:52:08AM -0700, Tony Baechler wrote:
> As Debian has officially stated, you must have a minimum of 128 MB of  
> RAM to do an install.

Where did you see that statement? I went through the install manual
before starting, so I know how to start speakup, and I don't recall
seeing 128 megs of ram being mentioned anywhere in that guide.

Greg


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