PixieLive - How-To

PixieLive4 to HDD as "normal" distro

2013-12-20T18:00:00+01:00

Dear PixieLive4 users, since some of you wanted to install PixieLive4 on their NetBooks HDD as "normal" (i.e. non live) distro, here is the quick and dirty guide.

It's pretty straight forward, it can be summarized as:

prepare an HDD partition
extract the lzm modules
remove pixielive scripts
create missing directories
copy /dev
create an /etc/fstab
install and configure grub (the bootloader)
reboot and have fun!

This guide is not for newbies, i will not explain every command in the details, it would take too much time and you could damage your system if you don't know what you are doing.

For the commands you don't know "man", "gentoo wiki" and "google" are your friends.

I cannot guarantee everything is done in the best way here, it worked on my computer so it should on your.

Let's get started:

backup all of your documents
backup your windows partition if you think you will need it in future
make sure you have a backup of all your documents and software
double check you have a backup of all your documents and software (on a different disk)

boot PixieLive4 as usual
Prepare an empty partition on your disk, at least 10GB (you can use fdisk or gparted)
open a terminal window and become root
- su
format the partition you created as ext3 (ext4 won't boot with grub-1)
- mkfs.ext3 /dev/sdaX #where X is the partition number
prepare the mount directory
- mkdir /gentoohdd
mount the partition in the directory (replace the X with your partition number)
- mount /dev/sdaX /gentoohdd
- recursively copy the content of every module on the partition (notice the / after $i, it's important). It will take a looong time
  - for i in /mnt/live/memory/bundles/*; do rsync -a "$i/" /gentoohdd; done
- copy the /dev directory
  - cp -a /dev /gentoohdd
- create the some missing directories:
  - mkdir /gentoohdd/sys
  - mkdir /gentoohdd/proc
  - mkdir /gentoohdd/run
  - mkdir /gentoohdd/tmp
  - mkdir /gentoohdd/mnt
  - mkdir /gentoohdd/media
- create the fstab file (replace the X with your partition number)
  - echo "/dev/sdaX / ext3 noatime 0 1" > /gentoohdd/etc/fstab
- install grub
  - grub-install --root-directory=/gentoohdd /dev/sda
- copy the kernel in place
  - cp /mnt/live/memory/data/PixieLive4/boot/vmlinuz /gentoohdd/boot
- create a grub menu configuration (replace the Y with your partition number in the grub way, usually Y=X-1)
  - nano /gentoohdd/boot/grub/menu.lst
    - ##############################
    - default 0
    - timeout 5
    - title PixieLive4-HDD
    - root (hd0,Y) # usually Y = X-1
    - kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/sdaX
    - # you don't need this part if you don't have Windows installed
    - title Windows
    - rootnoverify (hd0,0) # assuming windows is on the first partition of the first disk
    - makeactive
    - chainloader +1
    - ##############################
- remove unneeded pixielive init scripts
  - rm /gentoohdd/etc/init.d/pixielive*
  - rm /gentoohdd/etc/conf.d/pixielive*
  - rm /gentoohdd/etc/runlevels/default/pixielive*
  - rm /gentoohdd/etc/runlevels/boot/pixielive*
  - rm /gentoohdd/etc/runlevels/shutdown/*
- rebuild the shutdown runlevel
  - ln -s /etc/init.d/killprocs /gentoohdd/etc/runlevels/shutdown
  - ln -s /etc/init.d/mount-ro /gentoohdd/etc/runlevels/shutdown
  - ln -s /etc/init.d/savecache /gentoohdd/etc/runlevels/shutdown
- copy the xorg.conf
  - cp -a /etc/X11/xorg.conf /gentoohdd/etc/X11
- unmount the gentoohdd partition
  - umount /gentoohdd
- reboot from the hdd

PixieLive3RC1, modules cutomization

2013-04-11T08:00:00+02:00

A quick explanation on how to customize the modules in your Pendrive, removing unnecessary programs to earn some space.

Some of you may wonder why i included so many softwares in a live distro, the answer is:

Because you can select them by yourself!!!

If you peek into the PixieLive3RC1/modules directory you will notice a strange code on modules names. They are numbered. The numbering system is a code which tells you the modules dependencies.

There are 5 different modules categories (Identified by the starting letter).

B - Basic modules
- don't touch them, they are always needed by the system
S - Single modules
- they doesn't require any other module
- they are not required by anyone else
- you can freely remove them
C - Children modules
- they are not required by anyone
- you can remove them if you don't need them
G - Grandparent modules
- they are required by some other modules (type C or P)
- they don't require any other module
- before removing them you should remove any other program which require them
P - Parent Modules
- they are required by some other modules (type C or P)
- they require some other module
- before removing them you should remove any other program which require them (type C or P)

After the name there is an additional code which describe the dependencies

Dependencies code:

R - requires
- packages required by this package
- you can't remove them or this package will not work anymore
I - Is required
- packages which require this package
- if you remove this package, they will not work anymore

That's it!

A practical example:

P35_imagemagick-6.7.8.7_RP34G47G61_IC04P40C26.lzm
- parent module
  - it require other modules
  - it is required by other modules
  - you will have to work a bit before removing it
- is required by
  - C04 - C04_calibre-0.9.20_RP39P38G54G58P35.lzm
  - P40 - P40_inkscape-0.48.4_RG51G48P35G61G62G59_IC26.lzm
  - C26 - C26_lyx-2.0.5.1_RP35G55G42P37G48P40G59.lzm (it's in the LaTeX directory)
  - if you remove P35_imagemagick these programs will not work properly anymore
- requires
  - P34 - P34_lensfun-0.2.5-r2_RG59_IC05P35.lzm
  - G47 - G47_exiv2-0.23-r1_IC29C05P35C23.lzm
  - G61 - G61_lcms-1.19_IP40P35.lzm
  - you can't remove these packages or P35_imagemagick will stop working properly

Paying attention to the dependencies indicated on the packages names you can easily customize you image.

Notes:

Some packages are grouped in the LaTeX subdirectory for convenience, you can create your own groups (subdirectories), they doesn't affect the module loading in any way.
I created the LaTeX group so who doesn't need LaTeX can easily remove all the packages related to it.

Open for discussion!

How to install it on your HDD

2010-08-25T20:45:00+02:00

If you don't like to use PixieLive from the SD card (i.e. because you want your SD slot free) and you don't want to use it from your USB pendrive, you can run it from any partition on your HDD, you just need a partition, and GRUB.

A quick how-to:

copy boot/vmlinuz and boot/initrd.gz into the PixieLive directory (just files, not the boot directory)
copy PixieLive directory into the partition you prefer (but NOT a NTFS or the system will slow down due to the ntfs-3g slowness)
DO NOT RENAME PixieLive directory
set the PixieLive section in your grub menu.lst in this way:

#--------------------------------------------------------- title PixieLive root (hd0, NUMBER_OF_THE_PARTITION) kernel /PixieLive/vmlinuz ramdisk_size=9000 root=/dev/ram0 resume=/dev/YOUR_SWAP_DIR rw AllowSuspension initrd /PixieLive/initrd.gz #---------------------------------------------------------

pay attention, the numbering of partitions in (hd0, ?) start from 0, not from 1, so /dev/sda3 is (hd0,2)
resume=/dev/sd?? may be omitted if you don't have any swap partition or don't want to hibernate the system
AllowSuspension is only useful if you want to enable suspension on your system, and it's written on the same line of kernel... it seems on another line for the word-wrap
Enjoy you semi-live distribution ;)
If you boot from an ext(2,3,4) partition, you should use this fix Ext Wrinting Fix as described here.
add changes=/PixieLive/ to the kernel line to enable persistent changes feature

PS: If you don't have have any grub installed, because you don't have any other linux distro installed... i think you will need to google a little bit to find out the solution, i don't have it yet :-p