[ Testing Completed ] LiveUSB Testers

[Just18]

UPDATE - Jan 2nd 2012

Testing is now completed for this package .......  thanks to all who participated.

The links in this thread are now dead.

regards.

*************************

Hi,
       I have prepared an update to the LiveUSB utility and need testers before it is finalised, to (hopefully) find whatever bugs are left, and to get feedback on usability so that changes might be incorporated before release if desirable.

This is the working part of the script and should be run from a root terminal, so that if something goes amiss, the output to the terminal can be copied back to me for examination.

There are some new options available and also any ext filesystem (ext2/3/4) can be used for the target partition.

So before you fill up those nice new USB drives (flash or HDD) please give this a try and let us know what you think and also how it behaved.

Oh yes .....  if you try it please post back even if you have nothing else to say except that you tried it.

Thanks in advanced for your help.  

The file (25.8KiB):-

EDIT: New script file .....  hopefully the final one .....

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5838889/lusbc_0.9.7.sh

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5838889/lusbc_0.9.7-1.sh


regards.

[tschommer]

Just18, I made a live usb using Sproggy's Joble edition (thanks, Sproggy!) and first added it to the existing entry on my usb, booted it up, and it worked fine.

Then I chose to overwrite everything, chose a different name (Joble), used persistence, copy to ram and memtest, and I'm writing from the live usb right now.

I'll keep on testing some other options and report if anything comes up.

Thanks for your work, Just18!

Torsten

[Just18]

Thank you for testing ....  appreciate the effort 

If you have any comments after using it a few times I would like to hear them ... particularly negative ones. Now id the time to get those out of the way 

Thanks again 

[Just18]

tested on 32bit Phoenix .... created 64bit Phoenix on my 4gb microsd boots and runs flawlessly ... good job ... quick test on 64bit fails ... i will post the results later after a bit more testing

Thank you!
You might have to look at dependencies if the last version was not installed ..... ....  pmount, zenity, p7zip

If it continues to fail please send the terminal output.

regards

EDIT:
           Did a test on an installed updated 64bit, and put 64 bit on a new partition of a USB stick from ISO .......  worked and booted without problem.

[Just18]

Hi!

Hope ye all had a great Xmas

If ye have anything further to report please post ..... it would be nice to catch whatever bugs exist at this stage.

Thank you for taking the time to test.

regards

[AS]

Fully working for me, tested using ISO files and .sqfs from CD media, all 32 bit so far.

Surely an improvement over previous version. 

Thanks! 

AS

[Just18]

Fully working for me, tested using ISO files and .sqfs from CD media, all 32 bit so far.

Surely an improvement over previous version. 

Thanks! 

AS

Thank you for testing 

[Archie]

I just created a LiveUSB with it and ... it even correctly set the UUID on the boot stanza. Nice. Booted with it and its working. It's certainly stable.

The Zenity windows could be made smaller to the proportion of the text content. And I still think the choices I mentioned previously to you could confuse a new user. Maybe icons to make the dialog boxes visually appealing and maybe even help new Linux users understand what's going on.

Thanks, CO. This is certainly an A+ tool.

[Just18]

I just created a LiveUSB with it and ... it even correctly set the UUID on the boot stanza. Nice. Booted with it and its working. It's certainly stable.

The Zenity windows could be made smaller to the proportion of the text content. And I still think the choices I mentioned previously to you could confuse a new user. Maybe icons to make the dialog boxes visually appealing and maybe even help new Linux users understand what's going on.

Thanks, CO. This is certainly an A+ tool.

Thanks for testing Archie 

The dialogue boxes will have an icon ....  same as previous version ....  when the whole lot is packaged and installed.

Confusion of new users ......  I really do not know of any way to provide the desirable Grub install options so the user has complete control over the Grub install, without the user requiring some knowledge of which option should be chosen. It would not fit with 'my' philosophy to dumb it down by eliminating the choices ... the user can easily get the  explanation if required, on the forum.
The default option is the 'safest' IMO .......  as this is mostly used on flash drives, unnecessary writing of Grub is to be avoided.

Regarding the dialogue window size ....  I suppose it is dependent on the screen and res one is using. They 'look' right here is about all I could say to that 

Thanks again for taking the time to test.
So far (tempting fate) there have been no failures reported, so it is looking good for release when the translations become available.

regards.

[Archie]

I just created a LiveUSB with it and ... it even correctly set the UUID on the boot stanza. Nice. Booted with it and its working. It's certainly stable.

The Zenity windows could be made smaller to the proportion of the text content. And I still think the choices I mentioned previously to you could confuse a new user. Maybe icons to make the dialog boxes visually appealing and maybe even help new Linux users understand what's going on.

Thanks, CO. This is certainly an A+ tool.

Thanks for testing Archie 

The dialogue boxes will have an icon ....  same as previous version ....  when the whole lot is packaged and installed.

Confusion of new users ......  I really do not know of any way to provide the desirable Grub install options so the user has complete control over the Grub install, without the user requiring some knowledge of which option should be chosen. It would not fit with 'my' philosophy to dumb it down by eliminating the choices ... the user can easily get the required explanation if required, on the forum.
The default option is the 'safest' IMO .......  as this is mostly used on flash drives, unnecessary writing of Grub is to be avoided.

Regarding the dialogue window size ....  I suppose it is dependent on the screen and res one is using. They 'look' right here is about all I could say to that 

Thanks again for taking the time to test.
So far (tempting fate) there have been no failures reported, so it is looking good for release when the translations become available.

regards.

That works for me.

Don't thank us ... thank you!

[djohnston]

Tested today from a live CD session, using latest Openbox CD. Encountered a couple of problems.

(1) I checked all the live USB boot options to test them. Booting from the live USB and selecting Memtest gave an error that /boot/memtest wasn't on the drive. So, the script will create a memtest GRUB boot entry without checking to see if memtest is installed. I then wiped the USB drive and started the live CD session again. Opened Synaptic and installed memtest to the union filesystem. Created the live USB again. Then, booting from USB and selecting Memtest from GRUB menu successfully started the memory test. I did get some errors while installing memtest during the live CD session.

Code:

While installing package memtest86+-4.20-1pclos2011:

INTERNAL ERROR: unknown device sda8
MDK::Common::Various::internal_error() called from /usr/lib/libDrakX/devices.pm:186
devices::entry() called from /usr/lib/libDrakX/devices.pm:201
devices::make() called from /usr/lib/libDrakX/partition_table/raw.pm:56
partition_table::raw::typeOfMBR() called from /usr/lib/libDrakX/bootloader.pm:188
bootloader::read() called from /usr/sbin/bootloader-config:64
sed: can't read /boot/grub/menu.lst: No such file or directory
warning: %post(memtest86+-4.20-1pclos2011.i586) scriptlet failed, exit status 2

(2) Selecting Copy Openbox to RAM failed to boot. Set the boot option splash=verbose to see what was going on. Got a scrolling screen of file/folder already exists errors. They were scrolling too fast to read well. CTRL-S wouldn't pause the messages. Tried it on two different PCs with the same result. However, I need to recreate the live USB from a live CD session on another PC, just to be sure. The GRUB stanzas look correct.

Code:

title   OpenBox with Copy to RAM
kernel (hd0,0)/OpenBox_0/OpenBox_0/vmlinuz livecd=/OpenBox_0/OpenBox_0 fromusb copy2ram root=UUID=f4faf860-4258-4df4-9d03-cce77d50d618 acpi=on vga=791 splash=silent
initrd (hd0,0)/OpenBox_0/OpenBox_0/initrd.gz

Normal boot live USB option works fine. Bootup is pretty quick. Booting with persistence works. I checked to make sure copied files were retained on the USB. That's all I got done today. I will rerun the installation and tests from a live CD session on another PC tomorrow.

[johnmart]

Well, I am an idiot. I couldn't get it to run from terminal either as root or user. I set it as executable, but nogo. Mybad, Iknow.

But just click & run, runs as expected. My usb has an lxde & xfce previously installed. I couldn't wipe the stick & make a fresh install using either lxde or xfce heading. Using the KDE heading runs & results as expected. I did try editing both lxde & xfce to lxde64 & other combinations but nogo. But I also never managed to get that to work in the repo version either. 

I'll try it & be right back.

[johnmart]

Well, perfect result.
But I was confused by the grub menu choices.
I chose the first entry, since I had already installed grub. But I got no login screen, just straight to boot.
I couldn't make sense of any of the grub seections, but like I said in my previous post I am a bit dense.
It was the same with the repo version but I always chose to install a fresh grub.
Great job, I'll keep playing.
2nd try:
Chose all boot options, chose 3rd grub choice to reinstall grub
hmmm.....again no boot menu. Straight to desktop.  
havin' fun, hth.  
btw...this is on my 32bit partition

[Archie]

Forum support! 

[johnmart]

well, in 64bit partition now.
Tried creating a new usb from an iso located in /user/downloads but it caused the script to crash--several times.
Tried the same with an iso located in /downloads & runs ok. So navigating to home/user seems to bring the crash.