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I'm not sure I understand how the tazlito process works, or perhaps I'm doing something wrong. Sorry for the long post but I've been trying to figure this out all day and I wanted to include all the relevant details. Here is what I've done so far:
1. Booted 'justx' from Cooking 5 RC2 Live CD
2. With Cooking 5 RC2 'justx' running in RAM, I ran 'tazpkg recharge' and updated preinstalled apps.
3. I installed new apps (keychain, rsync, tightvnc, midori, etc)
4. Generated ssh keys using 'dropbearkeys'
5. Customized /etc/fstab to load /home/ and /mnt/data from a physical hard drive on the machine.
6. Various customizations, including hostname, additional users, imported ssh authorized keys, disabled httpd and enabled dropbear and Xvnc in RUN_DAEMONS in rcS.conf, etc etc etc.. Basically, a lot of little customizations and configuration changes.
So, is it possible to generate a new ISO from the current state of this running 'Live CD' so that all of my customizations are already there on another machine when it boots from the ISO? i.e. hostname already changed, httpd disabled, dropbear and Xvnc already enabled, users already created, etc? Essentially, what I cannot figure out is how to preserve all of my customizations and new packages inside a new ISO that actually works.
Here's what I've tried:
I ran 'tazlito gen-distro' and it goes out and grabs all the packages (including the ones I added myself) into "/home/slitaz/cooking/packages/" and it also creates "/home/slitaz/cooking/distro" which contains slitaz-cooking.iso (32MB) and md5, 2 packages lists, and ./rootcd/ and ./rootfs/ folders.
The ./rootfs/ folder seems to contain a mirror of the "running in RAM" filesystem that I customized. On visual inspection, it contains the apps I personally added. The ./etc/fstab contains my custom mount points. The ./etc/rcS.conf contains dropbear and Xvnc RUN_DAEMONS.. etc etc.. So it all appears ok.
I download that ISO to my laptop and test it on a VirtualBox with HD partitions that match my custom fstab mounts on the other machine, and it doesn't work. I get a black screen with nothing but a big 'X' mouse cursor and nothing works.. no right-click, no left-click, no command prompt, no function keys, no ctrl-function-keys, no spacebar, no combination of ctrl-number or ctrl-letter.. Nothing..
Am I correct that all of my customizations (not just installed packages but also configuration changes) should be recorded on the generated ISO? If so, what am I doing wrong? Shouldn't this generated ISO give me exactly the same environment as the one I customized on the running-in-RAM source machine?
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I've managed to create a bootable ISO now which preserves all of my custom configs and custom package installs. I created it using rsync to copy the live-in-RAM system to my custom cooking /distro/rootfs/ folder, and then I used 'genisoimage' instead of 'tazlito gen-distro'.
One issue I'm facing is a missing mount point.
I have a physical hard drive on the system with a partition /dev/sda3
On the live-in-RAM system, I have /mnt/data
On the live-in-RAM system, I have /etc/fstab containing a mount of /dev/sda3 as /mnt/data
I've confirmed that /mnt/data and /etc/fstab exist in my custom cooking /distro/rootfs/ folder prior to running 'genisoimage'
When I boot from the genisoimage ISO, the /etc/fstab still contains the mount assignment but the /mnt/ folder is empty, so nothing gets mounted.
Is there any way to make sure a mount point is preserved on a cooked ISO? In other words, to make sure that folders inside /mnt/ are preserved? Is there a way to automatically create /mnt/data during bootup before /etc/fstab is run, so the folder is already there? I can of course 'mkdir /mnt/data' once the system is booted and then 'mount -a' to create the mount, but I would like to automate it if possible.
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The init uses /mnt for mounting the filesystem which overwrites any /mnt child folders created in the rootfs.
http://hg.slitaz.org/slitaz-boot-scripts/file/8a6c5a33f76e/init
If the folders in the rootfs is changed to /mount/data or something other than /mnt/<folder.name> it persists as a mount point for /etc/fstab.
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Thanks! That helps very much. Would it be safe to use /media/ as a mount point, or is that only for removable media? I suppose I could just mount it in the root filesystem as /data/ if /media/data is not a good option...
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I've gotten everything working now except for one error msg during bootup of the cooked ISO.. it reads:
/etc/init.d/rcS: line 231: /etc/init.d/Xvnc: not found
I'm not sure how to track down the cause of this error. tightvnc is installed on the machine, but I'm not sure why I'm getting this error.
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There is no /etc/init.d/Xvnc in the tightvnc tazpkg.
http://pkgs.slitaz.org/search.sh?filelist=tightvnc
Get rid of the error:
Remove Xvnc from /etc/rcS.conf RUN_DAEMONS=
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Is it possible to start tightvnc during bootup?
When I had Slitaz installed on the hard drive of another machine, on which tightvnc was also installed, there was a "RUN_DAEMONS= Xvnc" reference, and that's why I manually copied it to rcS.conf on the cooking disk. Perhaps that was a mistake that I then mistakenly duplicated. On looking at the /etc/init.d/ of the old machine, I see there is no Xvnc.
So how to start tightvnc during bootup?
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Last time I played with Xvnc was 2 years ago on SliTaz 4.0
I followed my old tutorial here:
http://forum.slitaz.org/topic/problems-with-tightvnc#post-9540
It's not necessary to Symlink to SliTaz fonts and rgb.txt
The server works but I need to fine tune the xstartup file so I see the desktop.
I'm not sure what is the best way to auto-start it.
I will have to google it and do some experimenting.
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I've been doing some experimenting also. I don't actually need to see the full desktop. Simply displaying an application window, like midori, is fine for my needs. On the hardware-installed system, and on the live cooking setup, I'm able to connect via "ssh -X 111.222.333.444" and then executing "midori" on the command line projects the midori window onto my local computer. That's really all I need, though I'm going to continue experimenting in a virtualbox.
One final error I'm experiencing, on my testing copy of the cooked ISO is when I right-click the desktop and get the openbox menu, and I select "Logout", I get the following:
Failed to execute child process "tazbox" (No such file or directory)
So far I can't find anything on this error in google searches.
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I'm trying to get full core desktop but there are problems with icons and taskbar not appearing.I can open xterm and launch programs from there.
When you boot into a 4-in-1 flavor (base,justx,gtkonly)that has fewer packages than core there are configurations that won't work because the underlying package that owns the file is not installed.
When you choose Logout it executes [c]tazbox logout[/c]
Tazbox is owned by slitaz-tools-boxes which is not on packages list for justx flavor.
Either don't use the Logout from the menu or install slitaz-tools-boxes
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Since I'll rarely be using the machine from the actual desktop I think I can skip it for the timebeing. Thanks for your help, I'll see how far I can get with the next stage.
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