First impressions (feedback) and persistence

[TenderFoot]

Guess I could've contributed to another ongoing thread but don't want to break into its cosiness but have just come upon MX-14 whilst looking at an unrelated thread and thought I'd investigate.

In particular. I was intrigued by two features close to my heart - Persistence and Remastering. Persistence offers the possibility of creating a useful rescue system (as Puppy can be) and also a customised install directly from usb. Of course, Remastering also offers the means to creating a customised iso after an initial install.

1> First of all hardware.

I'm happy to report that graphics support in MX-14 works flawlessly, including compositing, across my five machines without even the need for cheatcodes! These consist of Intel Mobile 4 GMA 4500M on the Tosh laptop, ATI Radeon X1200 on the netbook, ATI Radeon 9250, ATI Radeon 9550 and nVidia 6200 LE on the desktops (all old stuff!).

Similarly wifi n/w connects without a hitch.

From my perspective these two features are crucial.

Sound is rather more problematical with weak sound on the laptop and netbook and none at all on two desktops (CMedia CM6501) with error warnings generated. Oddly, when trying to play sound files vlc is usually launched but on one occasion clementine was the default.

Printing is also proving problematical and localhost:631 "server refused the connection"! Perhaps not enough of Cups is included by default? Hplip also failed although it did see my wifi printer it complained about not finding ppd.

2> However, so far no joy with Persistence. There seems to be two possibilities offered for setting this up - Grub menu options and a desktop dialogue but am not sure whether these are independent methods or inter-related with the necessity to use both? First of all tried the desktop dialogue which seemed to take me round in circles but nevertheless rootfs and homefs have been created. Yet they are obviously not being utilised as I have achieved no level of persistence whatsoever. Next tried the grub offerings but all I get is a (persistent!) nagging to change the root password to something more secure. I have searched for information on setting it up but so far have drawn a blank.

3> Xfce is my favourite wm, especially when used in conjunction with Compiz and Screenlets. The latter always works impeccably with xfce (and Mepis 8/11 kde) but although available and installed (appears in menu) it fails to launch. This is often because dbus-x11 isn't installed but it is, though "screenlets-pack-all" and "screenlets-pack-basic" are not available even after enabling testrepo and reload? Compiz is only offered as one limited entry (compiz-fusion-bcop) in Synaptic with no plugins, fusion icon etc offered?

4> As a further observation but in common with almost all distros, why is there more than one type of password dialogue. Although just a niggle, one would expect a consistent appearance. After all, it is just a simple function that needs to return just one boolean value regardless of the caller electing to use decoration/theme that doesn't conform to the general appearance of other windows. Isn't there a standard function available as part of the common libraries?

5> Is there an intention to include a splash screen as a cosmetic between grub and desktop? However, boots and shuts down impressively quickly (though, for some strange reason, required me to press enter to complete shutdown on one machine) and is credibly responsive running from usb. Interesting to see a graphical grub menu rather than the severely text one when unebootin has been used!

[Jerry3904]

What version of MX-14 are you looking at?

A few responses on the minor stuff:

Splash screen: Settings Manager > Session and Startup > Splash tab.
If you are on a Live medium, as it sounds, then I not sure how CUPS printer setup will work
Sound: right-click the speaker icon > Open Mixer and see if that helps
Compiz: this is aimed at a CD limit, so there is a lot of stuff that can't be offered by default

Not sure if you saw that there is a whole thread on persistence on MX-14 which you can find with a search.

[BitJam]

However, so far no joy with Persistence. There seems to be two possibilities offered for setting this up - Grub menu options and a desktop dialogue but am not sure whether these are independent methods or inter-related with the necessity to use both? First of all tried the desktop dialogue which seemed to take me round in circles but nevertheless rootfs and homefs have been created. Yet they are obviously not being utilised as I have achieved no level of persistence whatsoever. Next tried the grub offerings but all I get is a (persistent!) nagging to change the root password to something more secure. I have searched for information on setting it up but so far have drawn a blank.

You almost got it. You first have create persistence files via the desktop dialog. Then on the next boot, select one of the persistence options from the main bootloader menu.

The nag screen to create new root and demo passwords should only appear once as long as you change the passwords AND you save root persistence back to disk. There should also have been a screen to set up how you want root persistence to be saved. If you just turn off your computer then the changes won't be saved. I realize being forced to change the passwords is a big pain but it would have been unconscionable to let you run a persistent system with passwords that are public knowledge. For a LiveCD, publicly known passwords are acceptable since it is very hard to infect a LiveCD but a persistent system is just as vulnerable as an installed system.

I highly recommend this video by Dolphin Oracle: AntiX 13 - Persistent LiveUSB. Even thought it's antiX and not MX, the steps are all the same.

[TenderFoot]

Jerry3904

Yes, I should have said that it is MX-14 RC2.

Splash - OK that could be set up if installed and/or Persistence is established.

Yes - live media (usb) and so as above.

Sound - already tried that but still weak. With the desktops it is h/w issue reported.

Compiz - but it should still be fully available in Synaptic.

Persistence - I'll do a further search!

BitJam

I'll follow up your advice (after my bath and a pint!) but with regard to root password, I've never been nagged/insisted before - though occasionally warned of it's weakness. Are you suggesting that a linux system can be easily hacked by malevolent external forces?

[arjaybe]

Yes - live media (usb) and so as above.

I had CUPS not work live, then work installed. Similar error message to yours.

[BitJam]

I'll follow up your advice (after my bath and a pint!) but with regard to root password, I've never been nagged/insisted before - though occasionally warned of it's weakness. Are you suggesting that a linux system can be easily hacked by malevolent external forces?

Good question. When you install Linux, you are forced to provide new passwords. I don't think what we are doing is much different except it happens during a time when you don't expect it. You can think of enabling root persistence as a very very quick install (or you can think of installation as just another form of persistence ). I think the big problem is that if people don't get to the step of saving persistence then they will be faced with the password screen again the next time they boot which gets very annoying very quickly. Perhaps we could automatically run persist-save shortly after a persistence system has been booted for the first time. This might help reduce the problem of seeing the password screen multiple times.

The problem is not just that the default passwords on the LiveCD are simple and easy to crack, they have been made public so they are not secret. Keeping the root password secret is one of the main lines of defense in keeping a Linux system secured. If you insist on using a well-known and well-advertised root password then I would say yes, in those circumstances a linux system is easily cracked. To put this in perspective, if an exploit were announced that made the root password public then it would be a BIG DEAL. It would make headlines (at least on Slashdot) and there would be a mad scramble to make a fix and push it out to users ASAP.

I agree that the password screen is a giant pain in the neck. I hate it. But It would be extremely negligent for us to create a situation where a bunch of Linux systems in the field were all using the same, well-known, root password.

[kmathern]

...Compiz - but it should still be fully available in Synaptic. ...

Almost all of the compiz packages were removed from Wheezy in June of 2012 when Wheezy was still "testing".

The bugreport explaining the reasons for it's removal (and followups complaining about it's removal) can be found here: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=677864.

You can add a snapshot.debian.org repo to install compiz, I posted some instructions in a post on the debian forum here: http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=511972#p511972

I think those instructions have worked for some people, but I would consider using compiz on MX or Wheezy as unsupported.

[anticapitalista]

Sound is rather more problematical with weak sound on the laptop and netbook and none at all on two desktops (CMedia CM6501) with error warnings generated. Oddly, when trying to play sound files vlc is usually launched but on one occasion clementine was the default.

What sound files launched vlc?

This is often because dbus-x11 isn't installed

dbus-x11 is installed on MX-14

5> Is there an intention to include a splash screen as a cosmetic between grub and desktop? However, boots and shuts down impressively quickly (though, for some strange reason, required me to press enter to complete shutdown on one machine) and is credibly responsive running from usb. Interesting to see a graphical grub menu rather than the severely text one when unebootin has been used!

No there isn't any intention to include a boot splash screen.

[TenderFoot]

Thanks for everyone's input here and will study all the info and links carefully.

Just to clarify one point (anticapitalista), my observation re screenlets was

This is often because dbus-x11 isn't installed but it is

so we're agreed!

In the meantime, I'm just wondering, once I come to terms with all this, my (simple) goal is achievable. That is that when I have a live media (usb) as I like with appearance and apps, such modifications are included with subsequent deployments from it to hdd partition on my machines and whether an iso of my customised version can be created either from the live media or from an installed version. It would be rather insecure (in a different way!) to rely on the usb as the only "backup"! Alternatively, whether an installed version can be remastered in which case the persistence, per ce, becomes irrelevant...

EDIT

What sound files launched vlc?

wav (but I'll re-check).

[BitJam]

... when I have a live media (usb) as I like with appearance and apps, such modifications are included with subsequent deployments from it to hdd partition on my machines and whether an iso of my customised version can be created either from the live media or from an installed version. It would be rather insecure (in a different way!) to rely on the usb as the only "backup"! Alternatively, whether an installed version can be remastered in which case the persistence, per ce, becomes irrelevant...

Yes to almost all of the above. If you use root-persistence or remaster-live (from the RemasterCC) then changes you have made will be transferred to the hdd when you do an install. In fact, this should happen even if you don't use persistence or remaster.

I believe you can already make a backup and an iso of an installed system using the snapshot utility. There is no GUI program (yet) to make an iso from a remastered LiveUSB but it is a single command on the command line. We should probably add a GUI wrapper to it.