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I'm a Slitaz noob, usually running some Ubuntu distro.
I downloaded the new 4.0 RC1 and made a bootable usb drive with it using unetbootin, but it crashes during startup with a kernel panic message on two different computers. Have I done something wrong? The method I used works with the 3.0 Slitaz distro.
Any suggestions are welcome, but I only know basic terminal commands, so go easy on me 
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Try adding rootdelay=8 to kernel boot code when unetbootin's menu appears.
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I tried adding rootdelay=8 to the boot code, with no change in the error message on either computer.
It looks like possibly a dual error: filesystem could not mount root, and kernel panic.
I tried re-formatting my usb device with ext2, ext4, and FAT (ext3 not an option), with the result of 'operating system not found' when I try ext2 or 4 (but FAT works fine).
None of that is an issue if I make a Slitaz 3.0 usb boot (using FAT).
Any more suggestions? I would really like to try running this new RC.
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Hi,
I guess unetbootin dont magae correcly our new 4in1 ISO wich have now 4 rootfs.gz instead of 1. Maybe better to boot from a burned cdrom and them create a LiveUSB with SliTaz home made tools.
I dont have any Windows system to make test but your can try out TazUSB for Windows to create bootable SliTaz Live USB from windows – http://is.gd/TazUSBexe
- Christophe
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@pankso
This I tried yesterday. I booted frugal: the directory slitaz.4 contained /slitaz/boot/bzImage and the different rootfs.gz-files, 1-4. I got this kernel panic booting manually from grub with rootfs1.gz till rootfs3.gz, only rootfs4.gz booted, but I could not get a working Xorg-server.
root (hd0,1)
kernel /slitaz.4/boot/bzImage root=/dev/ram0 rw nomodeset
initrd /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs1.gz
boot
If you tell me what kind of log would be of use for you I could repeat that (later).
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Take a look on cdrom at /boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg. Your grub config will be :
root (hd0,1)
kernel /slitaz.4/boot/bzImage root=/dev/ram0 rw nomodeset
initrd /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs4.gz /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs3.gz /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs2.gz /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs1.gz
or
root (hd0,1)
kernel /slitaz.4/boot/bzImage root=/dev/ram0 rw nomodeset
initrd /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs4.gz /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs3.gz /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs2.gz
or
root (hd0,1)
kernel /slitaz.4/boot/bzImage root=/dev/ram0 rw nomodeset
initrd /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs4.gz /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs3.gz
or
root (hd0,1)
kernel /slitaz.4/boot/bzImage root=/dev/ram0 rw nomodeset
initrd /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs4.gz
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Thanks!
The last thing I tried but it did not work. Now I burn a CD and try it again. Stay tuned! ;-)
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I burnt a CD. It boots without problem. But no way to get a working Xscreen. Nouveau failed even when I booted with nomodeset in the command line.
It always ended up in ,,Found no screens". - I give it up now, other things to do. The ,,rest" of my different slitazes work well. But apparently this new Xorg thing has many, many issues, especially in case one uses nvidia graphic cards of mixed ages.
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@michaelbischof You booted last 4.0-RC1 without any modification (not a custom build) ? If yes and Xorg dont start with a standard Nvidia card then we are in trouble... I might have stripped down too much Xorg... on this version the package is called xorg-server-light and it means what it means, I remove all dri/drm dependencies to avoid mesa and friends on the ISO.
I have done a contributor flavor at the same time than 4.0-RC1 but with a lot more package include Xorg with intel, nv, ati, geode drivers and mesa. If this one boot you to the desktop then we have found the bug and we will think about having full Xorg by default.
http://is.gd/TazDevISO
Thanks a lot for these feedback, without the users community we could not fix and make SliTaz better :-)
- Christophe
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initrd /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs4.gz
is a text only flavor.
initrd /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs4.gz /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs3.gz
is X11 only flavor (no wm)
The full flavor is
initrd /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs4.gz /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs3.gz /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs2.gz /slitaz.4/boot/rootfs1.gz
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Ok,
but I cannot promise to have done this in a minute. Anyway - stay tuned! (As usual I will first try to boot from a frugal setup, not from CD)
In the last month the only version of slitaz that I could start with an Xscreen without further trouble was this Xvesa-flavor. For me it is no problem - but when I hand it over to a pupil there is no hope. The do not work in front of a black screen! ;-)
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Look at your watch!
This functions nice - some more feedback: it runs with nouveau, without nvidia, but looks better than the old cooking. Heaven knows why! ;-)
Yes, handsome I would say. Better icons...
With firefox plus icedtea installed it has 340 MB space - in this form I would give it to pupils. Because only then they can run, if needed, LibreOffice (but as => AppRun, not installed!).
<= But the next question I will ask is: how can it come that this Kompozer does not run within Slitaz-devel? It runs well with Slitaz 2.0, you just click on the executable file kompozer - that's it!
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SOLVED: I found a command line from another distro (crunchbang) that was successful in making a bootable usb with no start-up errors or crashes with 4.0-RC1 on two different computers. Here's the command line I used in case anyone else needs it:
sudo dd if=/path/to/iso/slitaz-4.0-RC1.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M;sync
SUMMARY: unetbootin does not make a properly bootable usb, use terminal command line instead.
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@pankso
If you find some time to explain here a bit in details what exactly you did with this http://is.gd/TazDevISO that worked nice out of the box?
To enjoy that it works is one thing - to understand why it works another one.
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> You booted last 4.0-RC1 without any modification (not a custom build) ?
> If yes and Xorg dont start with a standard Nvidia card then we are in trouble...
... we are indeed. For me it's been like that since the official cooking version from last May and with all the rolling versions I have tried since (at least half a dozen). Needless to say that it's still like that with the current RC. But as nobody ever complained about the issue I thought that my hardware was to blame ... a fairly standard mobo (Asus P5KPL-AM SE), a Pentium D 820 CPU and a slightly outdated Nvidia PCI Express card (G72, GeForce 7300 SE/7200 GS). So, I decided to let Slitaz 4 pass and stick a while longer with Slitaz 3, which has been working wonderfully well since almost 2 years now. But, wo knows, maybe there's still hope? Maybe someone will address the issue and I'll be able to update to the new version ???
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@Darjeeling,
just check it out: does the new 4.0-rc work in your machine? Or: does only this
http://is.gd/TazDevISO
work on your machine?
It is a matter of some minutes.
For me it seems that one needs to have ,,full" Xorg - whatever this means. Feel invited to explain it here, pankso!
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Thanks for your reply, Michael.
> Does the new 4.0-rc work in your machine?
No, as I wrote, it doesn't.
> Or: does only this http://is.gd/TazDevISO work on your machine?
Yes, it does. That was the last thing I tried very late last night (early this morning) and it surprised me. For the first time since the 4.0 cooking version from last May I was able to boot straight into the graphical desktop. None of the many rolling versions since ever worked for me. Neither does the current RC. I wrote about this here a long time ago but got no useful response. The TazDevISO loads Noveau for the Nvidea card in the PCI Express slot. But, strangely, it also loads the cheesy Intel AGP on the mobo although this is disabled in the BIOS. Still, for me the TazDevISO is a huge improvement over the current release candidate.
One issue that hasn't changed since last May is that the panel crashes when I remove the top panel and begin to customize the bottom panel ...
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P.S.:
> For me it seems that one needs to have ,,full" Xorg - whatever this means.
Yes, that's definitely the case for me, too.
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Then we shold wait a bit till some of the developers finds time to explain that here. And my proposal is that many people now should compare the performance of both ,,offers" in this moment.
For me Xscreens are important: in case one has a problem with it I cannot afford to recommend Slitaz to any novices. I am not a developer and have trouble enough to iron out things to the amount that I can work like I want to work.
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> And my proposal is that many people now should compare
> the performance of both ,,offers" in this moment.
... yes, that makes sense. But for a distro with a 2-year release cycle the call for public scrutiny should have come months ago, not just a few weeks before the final release. Also, if the developers had engaged more often in the discussion and the evaluation of reported bugs, severe design flaws like the problem of the "partial Xorg implementation" could have been addressed much earlier and people like me (there must be others) could have actually used Cooking. I wonder how many people read about Slitaz in the DistroWatch review and elsewhere; downloaded, burned and booted Cooking; ended up at the console and put the CD in the bin? There must be lots of them. I wonder how much potentially useful feedback has been lost because of this?
At times Patrick Volkerding seems quite remote from the crowd. But unlike Slitaz, Slackware has effective feedback mechanisms in place that get through to the developers. This is what makes Slackware such a mature, stable and comparatively bug-free distribution. I wish it was like this here, too.
On the positive side ... we have Trixar in the forum, who seems always available, who explains things and who tries to solve problems. Bless him for this.
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@Darjeeling
Normally I used stable 3.0 and cooking was just a kind of casual hobby. This problem, sorry, I did not realize earlier. How many people gave up Slitaz for such a reason I have no idea, either. But a black screen is definitely the end and most guys do not want to follow it up further. Slackware is extreme stable, yes. Buch this amount you should not expect with Slitaz. There is quite a difference in experience and age. Plus: the ,,genius" of Slitaz is whereelse... ;-)
Of course everybody continues it only in the amount that it functions. But for a school environment it offers a lot of chances, especially for a bit older hardware. I guess it is realistic to have a kind of Slitaz (not a flavour with everything installed) with
- LibreOffice as an AppRun (but then jre must be installed)
- a recent firefox
- a functioning hmtl-editor like kompozer
- and may even a kind of additionally ,,mountable" extra part LaTeX
30 MB space is not the conditio sine qua non, but it should stay slim, easy and have a quick response.
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Where did you hear that we have a 2 year release cycle? I think you're confusing our release cycle with Debian's. SliTaz is supposed to release annually (as in yearly). It just had set backs that prevented it from being released end March last year.
I think most people are making the mistake of thinking the Release Candidates or Cooking/Rolling versions are finished products. They are not. It's similar to Debian's 3 release structure - namely the Stable, Testing and Unstable editions. Cooking/Rolling is our Unstable edition, the RCs are now our Testing versions and SliTaz 3 is still our Stable version. At the moment the RCs are being developed pretty rapidly, so feedback is valued. We're already planning the second RC release in the next 3 days. So keep testing and keep giving feedback. It's needed so when SliTaz 4 releases, we have something that works out of the box.
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> michaelbischof: Slackware is extreme stable, yes. Buch this amount you should not expect with Slitaz.
... I only brought up Slackware because like Slitaz (and unlike e.g. Debian) it also follows some sort of non-open development paradigm with no formal bug reporting mechanism for the average user. The quality of such a distro depends on how much attention the developers pay to bug reports in an informal place like this forum.
> michaelbischof: 30 MB space is not the conditio sine qua non, but it should stay slim ...
... I think the 30 MB limit has become an obsession here. Personally, I couldn't care less whether it's 16, 32 or 48 MB. What matters is that Slitaz supports the broadest possible range of CPUs and that 256 MB of RAM should be sufficient for the default flavor. This means Slitaz should always be compiled for i386/i486 CPUs and its default flavor shouldn't come with large applications like an office suite or Gimp pre-installed. In fact, my favorite flavor would be something I'd call "Slitaz Nude", which boots into a functioning Openbox/Lxde desktop that has all the necessary admin- and preferences tools installed but except for leafpad and galculator nothing else. Not even a web browser! The Slitaz repository is stuffed with applications and libraries, tazpkg works extremely well and tazlito is the best tool of its kind in any distribution. Why not leave it entirely up to the user to customize their individual setup?
> Trixar_za: Where did you hear that we have a 2 year release cycle?
I didn't hear it, I deduced it Sherlock-Holmes-style from observation. But of course you're right. The current 2-year cycle seems to be an exception to the rule. I've only been using Slitaz since 3.0 Stable came out in 2010, so I wasn't aware of what went on before.
> Trixar_za: I think most people are making the mistake of thinking the Release Candidates or Cooking/Rolling versions are finished products.
... maybe most people are but I am aware of the difference. I'm familiar with Debian's stable/testing/unstable branches and I don't have illusions about any overnight rolling-release that's produced by a robot. But things are a bit different with the upcoming release of Slitaz 4.0. This version has been in its "cooking" stage for well over a year and for most of that time I have been unable to boot into the graphical desktop. I first complained about the issue in March 2011 here in the forum. The fact that the current RC still doesn't work for me (and others!) and the fact that Pankso is thinking about a final release in a few weeks really should set the alarm bells ringing.
> Trixar_za: We're already planning the second RC release in the next 3 days. So keep testing and keep giving feedback.
... I will.
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P.S.:
> .... that has all the necessary admin- and preferences tools
> installed but except for leafpad and galculator nothing else.
Obviously, there should also be a terminal emulator (xTerm or Sakura)
and a file manager (PCmanFM or PCmanFM-Mod). But I consider these
part of the desktop which is why I didn't mention them.
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Hi Darjeeling,
I would like to join your central argument
,,What matters is that Slitaz supports the broadest possible range of CPUs and that 256 MB of RAM should be sufficient for the default flavor. This means Slitaz should always be compiled for i386/i486 CPUs and its default flavor shouldn't come with large applications like an office suite or Gimp pre-installed."
With some additional remarks:
- a webbrowser like tazweb is a must! But this must function: there are still issues with adding bookmarks. A second must! - To install firefox after boot is a matter of seconds, in case one wants that
- but slitaz should be made so that other software, like Gimp, Kompozer, etc. that comes with static-build dependencies, should run with it. No ,,wrong ELF-header..." problems
- a file manager like pcmanfm is a must as well.
Otherwise one cannot recommend Slitaz to no-nerd type of people.
Such people estimate software from a simple point of view: what do I want to do? They have no idea about its technical background. I just had a look: a simple note editor like Gnote would make it necessary to import a huge bunch of Gnome desktop infrastructur, about 30-40 MB. So this Gnote AppRun has this size - for a note program!
But such things should run on Slitaz if you apply them in form of extras (with static dependencies) ,,ready-in-itself".
That is the way to go, in my humble opinion.
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