First impressions (feedback) and persistence

[kmathern]

compiz is pretty easy if you follow the excellent howto in my sig ;) (spoonfed) i use with xfce and kde currently, and will probably try to set it up live.

@Tenderfoot, for compiz I recommend using the instructions here: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=511972#p511972 instead of the"spoonfed" link in loco's signature.

They are both posts I made at the Debian Forum.

The instructions in the post that loco linked to use a sid snapshot repo. I wrote the instructions using the sid snapshot before I realized that the same thing could be done with a Wheezy snapshot repo. For MX or Wheezy I think it's safer to use the Wheezy snapshot repo.

[TenderFoot]

Once again thanks for all the input - I'll try to respond (more or less in reverse order)...

kmathern - followed links but not sure what "snapshots" are or how to implement them. If I select a date what do I do with the contents? Or do I just need to copy/paste the code lines?

Stevo and Loco - searched for earth-sunrise and liked the images so downloaded earth_sunrise_1.0_all.deb from gnome-look.org. Can I not just install from that or should I follow the cli route? BTW is the Moon animated to indicate progress - I note that in one of the links kmathern was discussing combining it with the Mepis progress bar?

anticapitalista - no, I couldn't locate the meta-package-installer at the time so used Synaptic then had HPlip try to diagnose itself (I've saved some of the output). However, I've tried the meta-package on this (now fully persistent!) liveusb with the same result - and avahi-utils has again not been installed! With regard to the cups modules, sorry can't remember (must keep notes!) but interestingly cups is working ok here without adding anything.

BitJam, Gear Boy, and Jerry - thanks for the links to the current documentation! However, I think it's a little light on Persistence guidance for those of used unetbootin - in particular "The Fnal Step"! It may be that simple if one used antix2usb but it sure wasn't for me. rootfs and homefs have to be created with RemasterCC which can be convoluted and then on reboot select the appropriate item in boot menu - and then the password business. And doubt whether I could get repeat the process without further practice!

As a final "off piste" question - from browsing the documentation (yes I do!), I get the impression that Remaster does not create an iso image from a hdd install but sort of "fixes" (back into into a single linuxfs) a persistent liveusb and is that a necessary step to install our customised live media to hdd?

[BitJam]

I get the impression that Remaster does not create an iso image from a hdd install

This is true of the Live remaster.

[It] sort of "fixes" (back into into a single linuxfs) a persistent liveusb and is that a necessary step to install our customised live media to hdd?

A live-remaster is not required to install customized live media to hdd. Nor is root persistence. If you boot a LiveCD, install packages and then do an install, those packages will get put on the hdd. IOW, whatever root file system you see on your live media is what will get installed. As for the first part of the question, yes you can think of a live-remaster as fixating file system changes. In some of the incomplete and more technical documentation I made the analogy:

If root persistence is like using a piton while climbing up a cliff, [live] remastering is more like setting up a camp or bivouac site.

Again, you don't need root persistence enabled in order to remaster-live. If the live-remaster were "free" (if it was very very fast and didn't consume many resources) then there would be no need for root persistence. We would just do a live-remaster every time you wanted to save filesystem changes.

[jsalpha2]

BitJam, Thanks for the link to the video about persistence. I've finally got it working.

[Stevo]

Once again thanks for all the input - I'll try to respond (more or less in reverse order)...

kmathern - followed links but not sure what "snapshots" are or how to implement them. If I select a date what do I do with the contents? Or do I just need to copy/paste the code lines?

Stevo and Loco - searched for earth-sunrise and liked the images so downloaded earth_sunrise_1.0_all.deb from gnome-look.org. Can I not just install from that or should I follow the cli route? BTW is the Moon animated to indicate progress - I note that in one of the links kmathern was discussing combining it with the Mepis progress bar?

anticapitalista - no, I couldn't locate the meta-package-installer at the time so used Synaptic then had HPlip try to diagnose itself (I've saved some of the output). However, I've tried the meta-package on this (now fully persistent!) liveusb with the same result - and avahi-utils has again not been installed! With regard to the cups modules, sorry can't remember (must keep notes!) but interestingly cups is working ok here without adding anything.

BitJam, Gear Boy, and Jerry - thanks for the links to the current documentation! However, I think it's a little light on Persistence guidance for those of used unetbootin - in particular "The Fnal Step"! It may be that simple if one used antix2usb but it sure wasn't for me. rootfs and homefs have to be created with RemasterCC which can be convoluted and then on reboot select the appropriate item in boot menu - and then the password business. And doubt whether I could get repeat the process without further practice!

As a final "off piste" question - from browsing the documentation (yes I do!), I get the impression that Remaster does not create an iso image from a hdd install but sort of "fixes" (back into into a single linuxfs) a persistent liveusb and is that a necessary step to install our customised live media to hdd?

The plymouth theme packages for Ubuntu won't work with MEPIS or Debian, since they install the files in a different place. I guess I should upload it into the CR...to choose a plymouth theme, you have to run some commands in the terminal, though I also have an EZ-Switch GUI package that I should upload to do that.
Here's packages I did I while ago, but they will install and work in M11 or M12:

http://ubuntuone.com/7KjcijzXJIjCtyhsz6SZAd

EZswitch should show up in the Settings section of the menu.

[TenderFoot]

Stevo - installed plymouth themes and EZSwitch using deb packages from your zip file with no errors reported when downloading dependencies. Was that correct?

Ran EZSwitch from menu and selected earth-sunrise but it just reports "theme not changed" - and it isn't. You mention M11 and M12 but this is MX-14 RC2?

[Stevo]

I'll experiment with MX and plymouth. Are you saying you still have the bars at the bottom of the screen instead of the the sunrise theme?

[TenderFoot]

Stevo - sorry gone so long (pressing personal business)!

As I say no change. No sunrise. No bars at the bottom of screen or anywhere else (but, of course M8 and M11 are fine with the default splash and progress).

[Stevo]

Is this on a real install, or a virtual machine or persistent Live install?

[TenderFoot]

The initial trial was on persistent liveusb.

Have now tried on a full (updated) install. This time had more to choose from - ie not just earth-sunrise - and choice seems to be accepted. However, after reboot still no earth-sunrise or solar. Back in EZswitch, nothing seems to be selected but assume this is a bug in the dialogue as choosing a new splash is accepted but selecting the same one invokes the "no changes made" message. Either way, still no splash (other than the xfce one which I tried out of interest and only appears late in the boot process).