Pointers to start new Express Disc development

northridgegrp
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Re: Pointers to start new Express Disc development

Postby northridgegrp » Tue Jun 04, 2013 8:17 pm

Thanks for the update.

Not a minute too soon. I am almost ready to jump on this :)

Any recommendations for me to get started building the Amahi 7 iso?
None so far.

northridgegrp
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Prototype Building

Postby northridgegrp » Fri Jun 07, 2013 11:25 am

I know have the main kickstart file that the Fedora people use for compiling their Install DVD from the rawhide repo. The spin community fellow I have been getting guidance has given me some pointers using their spin ks files as a reference point and a command line sample for their builds.

I am going to try to recreate the F18 Install DVD first from my local repo. If successful I will start slowly paring things down to what we need for A7. Hopefully this will finally take us down a happy path for once. :)

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cpg
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Re: Pointers to start new Express Disc development

Postby cpg » Fri Jun 07, 2013 11:29 am

awesome! i will be happy to replicate as soon as you have it suitable for me to take a shot at it.
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northridgegrp
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Current Build Machine Status: Success!

Postby northridgegrp » Fri Jun 07, 2013 9:07 pm

Who Ho Amahi people! I finally got a 32-bit build process to work! After many painful weeks of research, consultations (Fedora Spin Community, Dr. Google ), and much head scratching I managed to mimic the construction of an F18 Install DVD from a local repository! :D

Key Points:

1. The current Anaconda production Installer has a bug. With some guidance from a spin community I implemented a test version of the Anaconda Installer in to my local repo. When the installer first comes up it behaves a bit quirky but it works (also says it is a test version)!
2. The building of installation discs is NOT a simple science and is a little more complicated that one realizes. We will have to start off with a base kickstart configuration file that the Fedora project uses for generating their install media for DVD and LiveCDs.
3. F18 comes with a pile of changes to the kickstart command(s) syntax. I still have to work with these in order to determine what we will need for A7. It should not take too long.
4. During some of my prior attempts to build install CDs I noticed the size of the iso files was getting close to 700MB for the minimal build discs. We may have no choice but to release Amahi Express on DVD iso sizes.
5. Of course I will also need to document my results on the wiki. As some of you know I have already begun this documentation.

I tested by resulting installation DVD on a test machine where I was able to install a minimal F18 (no GUI), do updates, create a user account, and install some software. Reboot and all worked as expected.

The nice part of all of this once we get 32 and 64 bit build processes automated we should be able to generate Amahi spins more often.

When I have completed my work on this Amahi project I would like to hand the torch off to others in our community as I already have my hands full with the work I have been doing with ownCloud testing. Actually once I have completed my wiki work on the "build machine" documentation I really would appreciate some help on the actual work of building the next Amahi Express products.

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Re: Pointers to start new Express Disc development

Postby cpg » Sat Jun 08, 2013 7:19 pm

Awesome! I would like to carry on with this and build the Amahi 7 iso. There is still quite a bit of work, to make the menu to ask the user for the install code, etc., but it should be easier once the process of building the iso is settled.
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Re: Pointers to start new Express Disc development

Postby cpg » Wed Jun 12, 2013 1:29 pm

Downloaded 24GB of updates and counting ... will try an iso build later today or tomorrow.
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Re: Pointers to start new Express Disc development

Postby cpg » Thu Jun 13, 2013 6:20 pm

Update: I had to re-download some RPMs due to a / missing in one of my rsync's, but it should be done in a few more hours.

In the mean time I was able to try to rebuild the base disc without updates and despite downloading the anaconda rpms, I keep on getting a fata error

Code: Select all

no anaconda package in the repository
that is, with the three anaconda packages mentioned in the [wiki]Build Machine for Amahi Express[/wiki] wiki in the repo and the repo being re-created.

Looking into why this is, but it seems like you already hit some of this before, so it may be a well known bug.

More soon ..
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F18 "Pre-Alpha" Base A7 ISO

Postby northridgegrp » Sun Jun 16, 2013 9:44 am

I have some good news and not so bad news

Good News:
I finally managed to get a "stable" minimized F18 "base" ISO built. Meaning no errors during an installation on a machine. I was able to accomplish final command-line prompt installs using classic and LVM partitioning. Now this does not yet include mariadb or the A7 packages.

Not so Bad News:
We can't seem to build any "CD" installs. Believe me after 15 trials I tried to get a CD build, no go. "Roughly" any ISO builds less than 900 MB have stability issues during an install. Basically an install crashes with errors. Remember the current Anaconda Install has bugs and it does not look like they will be resolved until F19. I did A LOT of research on this. Hang on to your hats, F19's Anaconda Installer is also going to get some for major features!

My latest build is about 1.5 GB, includes, Minimal Install and GNOME Desktop as selection options in the Anaconda screens. Also the selection options are not clean, for some reason there is an "Infrastructure" selection menu with no sub-options. This item was not part of the defined kickstart options. But hey this works!

Next Steps:
1. Try current DVD install with GNOME.
2. Consult with a spin community person to see if the "Infrastructure" selection menu can be removed.
3. Add mariadb to the DVD mix.
4. Knock on wood, add the A7 packages to the build mix.
5. If "most" of the above can be achieved then we can look at adding our other A7 features (i.e. method to get A7 install code).

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Re: Pointers to start new Express Disc development

Postby cpg » Sun Jun 16, 2013 12:09 pm

Good progress!

We should probably not optimize for the size of the build until things are working well.
(I am using textual anaconda to configure, not doing X, so my process is somewhat different.)
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Re: Pointers to start new Express Disc development

Postby cpg » Sun Jun 16, 2013 1:43 pm

The current build being tested is in this iso, which I am not linking directly to avoid crawlers and various scrapers to download: alpha dot amahi.org/tmp slash Amahi-7-rc0-f18-x86_64-DVD.iso

The installer comes up in the first console. It some times switches to other consoles, which can be confusing. The thing to do to get back to the installer console is to press ctrl-alt-f1.

It appears the amahi packages are not installed, perhaps due to some dependencies missing, however, I do not know this for a fact.
My HDA: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz on MSI board, 8GB RAM, 1TBx2+3TBx1

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