SliTaz Forum

Guest

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Making user and root account at splash screen

Hi,

I've been going trough the slitaz documentation to learn how to add persistence/modify the splash screen. I've found that there wasn't good info at the handbook yet, so I added a page there:

http://doc.slitaz.org/en:guides:persistence_splash

Anyway, I was hoping someone could go over what I write to ensure I didn't wrote down any mistakes (I got all info from forum posts, so there shouldn't be any major ones in there but I did make some assumptions here and there).

I also still remain to have some questions about the persistence adding/splashscreen altering:

* first of all, was I right that persistence can be kept out simply by removing the home=UUID line at the extlinux.conf or syslinux.cfg file ? Is syslinux indeed located at /home/boot/syslinux ?

* next, can both a root and a user account (each with or without persistence, so 4 accounts in total) be made ? I assume  persistence can be added/removed by adding or leaving out the home=UUID, however I didn't find how exactly a user and a root account can be made at the boot screen (not at the slim login manager !). The idea is to be able to remove slim alltogether and just use the boot screen instead (similar as in Antix Linux). An added advantage would be that new linux users might not need to format the drive to ext3 anymore, and can just format it to fat32 in windows and then use a windows usb stick maker (like LinuxLive usb creator, ...)

* another question is whether it is indeed possible to remove slim, and also delete all programs that tap into slim (for example the logout/switch user button in the logout box), ... If possible, what files do I need to change to delete all references to slim

* finally, is it possible to have changes saved in an allready existing rootfs.gz file ? I might need to do changes on slitaz during the course of many days, so would need to log out/shut off the computer many times, and I don't want to make a distro/flavour that uses a huge amount of rootfs.gz files (I assume one will be created every time I make changes during a particular day). Alternatively, if not possible, can I make a recipe, cook list or flavor file (not sure what the difference is between these) or just a basic shell script that would execute all the changes in one go ? That way, I can just modify the recipe/cook list/flavor file/shell script during the course of many days, and then execute it the last day, and immediately make the rootfs.gz file that same day.

mjet

Member

Registered: 2014-11-12

Posts: 4

Re: Making user and root account at splash screen

ext3 is not good, f2fs is more much better for flash memory (drives) such as ssd and usbflash.

linea

Administrator

Registered: 2011-03-31

Posts: 70

Re: Making user and root account at splash screen

Hi BrianPerry

I moved your page to the community guides section (and updated your links)

Thanks for writing!

Guest

Guest

Re: Making user and root account at splash screen

In addition to not knowing what I best used (recipe/cook list/flavor file/shell script), I also need to use what tool I best used: tazlito or tazwok ? I'm not sure what the difference is between the two, and when I need one or the other. As far as I understand, tazwok offers more functions, though I'm not sure what these extra functions are: I'm guessing that with tazwok (and recipes instead of the tazlito flavors), one can also delete packages, which isn't possible with tazlito (with tazlito, one can however use a more stripped flavor, such as justx instead of core though, and then just add all the functions one needs by looking at the package list of core and leaving out what one doesn't need).Also, what I'm not sure about is whether packages get constantly updated with the flavor/tazlito approach; with tazwok I'm quite sure they are, and with an iso they definitely aren't updated, but I'm not sure how it is with the flavors. I finally understand flavors too can be shared with the community (by manually sending them), it just isn't as automated as with the tazwok method. Finally, probably the most important question: does the flavor method allow to also save a modified syslinux/extlinux ? The intent is to make the flavor have a modified bootscreen with persistence accounts. Depending on the above, I would actually preferably use the flavor-method, as tazlito is standardly included in slitaz, whereas the tazwok/toolchain needs to be downloaded every time (which is currently annoying as I'd be making the flavor or cooklist from a non-persistence enabled slitaz liveusb). I can modify some handbook or guides pages to make the distinction more clear, once I myself understand the differences.

linea

Administrator

Registered: 2011-03-31

Posts: 70

Re: Making user and root account at splash screen

Hi BrianPerry

What slitaz version are you using?

Tazwok has been deprecated since 3.0: http://doc.slitaz.org/en:cookbook:toolchain

Guest

Guest

Re: Making user and root account at splash screen

I all ready found some answers to my questions. I updated some manuals slightly so things also now become much more clear for others too. Appearantly, it is possible to change the boot loader screens, ... by hacking the iso" once made, and once the iso is updated, changes can be relayed into the original flavor file by means of a tazlito iso2flavor command. I'm still not sure what the extra benefits of the toolchain are though, though I suspect it has something to do with more features in altering the rootfs files (which can be extracted and edited using the toolchain).

For the boot loader hacking: before I'll begin on this I first need to now exactly how things work and what the files are I need to modify/how. Having read the "http://doc.slitaz.org/en:handbook:hacklivecd#modify-the-isolinux-configuration" page, I seem to understand that what was the "main boot loader" was actually the isolinux boot loader, which in turn starts syslinux (with FAT32 usb sticks). With ext-formatted drives, syslinux itself then also starts extlinux before that boot loader can load slitaz.

Is this correct ? I really need to now this to know what files to edit. Also, is it possible to leave out booting the syslinux boot loader completely when booting a slitaz liveUSB stick formatted in ext3 ? If possible, I suppose I can just alter the isolinux files to accomplish this, and then make 2 versions of the customised slitaz distro I want to make; knowlingly

* one for FAT32-formatted sticks (isolinux booting syslinux which then boots slitaz)

* one for ext-formatted sticks (isolinux booting extlinux which then boots slitaz)

Finally, can you tell me whether the rolling slitaz releases are the latest slitaz version (aka slitaz 6) or whether they procede the slitaz cooking versions (current cooking version being slitaz 5 RC2). I'd need to know this to know whether I'll need to do the changes with slitaz 5 RC2 or rolling-core. See http://forum.slitaz.org/topic/slitaz-5-rc2-problems

Guest

Guest

Re: Making user and root account at splash screen

I looked at the ext3-based slitaz 5 version I made a few days ago to check whether there is indeed an extlinux as well as an syslinux folder at /boot/ (and see whether there are any isolinux files in / ). I didn't find a syslinux folder though (which would imply it automatically loads extlinux after loading the main boot loader -isolinux-). The only folder I found was an "extlinux" folder at /boot/. Other files at /boot/ were bzImage, rootfs.gz, rootfs2.gz, rootfs3.gz, rootfs4.gz. So besides not finding a syslinux boot loader, I also didn't find any isolinux files at /, but I did found an isolinux file at /boot/extlinux, confirming that this isolinux boot loader is indeed the first boot loader that is started.

In the /boot/extlinux folder, I found both the isolinux.cfg file mentioned above, as well as extlinux.conf. I added in the files in annex as texts file. I'm not sure but this would hence seem to imply that there is also no /boot/syslinux/ folder made at all (for any slitaz version, fat32 or ext3). I'm not sure on this however.