Problems booting my minime 2010 remaster

[cncman]

HI all,

I need help getting my minime 2010 remaster to boot. This is my first attempt at making a remaster so I guess what I'm asking for is help making a proper remaster.

The long version....

I made a fresh install of minime  2010 on a single 6GB partition using the procedure Texstar outlined.

I commented out the sections in /usr/share/draklive-install/drakelive-install regarding required services and deleting the guest accounts before install. However, I did not find the section

# Setup for root password and create new user at 1st boot
   system("rm -f $::prefix/etc/sysconfig/finish-install");
   system("touch $::prefix/etc/sysconfig/finish-install");
   open FINISH, '>', "$::prefix/etc/sysconfig/finish-install";
      print FINISH "FINISH_INSTALL=yes\n";
      print FINISH "LICENSE=no\n";
      print FINISH "LANGUAGE=no\n";
      print FINISH "KEYBOARD=no\n";
      print FINISH "TIMEZONE=no\n";
      print FINISH "NETWORK=no\n";
      print FINISH "AUTHENTICATION=no\n";
      print FINISH "USERS=with_root\n";
      print FINISH "USER_AUTOLOGIN_FIRST=no\n";
      print FINISH "GLX=no\n";
   close FINISH;

But That was written for pclos2009 so I'm not surprised that 2010 would be different.

The install went perfectly and I did remember to un-comment the changed sections in the file after install.
I setup my system the the way I wanted it and tried to make a remaster.

First I commented the line

tmpfs /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0

in /etc/fstab and then rebooted so tempfs would not mount.
I then edited /usr/bin/remasterme to...

mylivecd --md5sum --nodir ^/tmp --lzma --bootloader iso pclinuxos-2010.iso

Then as root ran

$umount -a

Making sure my / partition was the only thing mounted.
Then of course ran

$remasterme

The only output that concerns me during remasterme was this.

Subroutine run_program::formatError redefined at /usr/lib/libDrakX/common.pm line 8

Is this a problem or one of those quirks that I should ignore?

After remasteme I then burnt the new 674.1MB .iso to a CD-R with K3b.

Now, booting the new Live CD...
I tried every boot option, safe boot, video safe mode, copy to ram, and media check. They all end the exact same way.

> Error! Warning, installation of driver failed...
(press <enter> to proceed)
Please wait: Detecting USB mass-storage devices.
cat: can't open /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info/info' : no such file or directory...
Error: No suitable media for the livecd content found.
Workaround: Copy the content of the livecd from your boot device to an IDE/SATA disk,
Dropping you to a limited shell.

I've done lots of searching and reading and googling, and have really learned alot during this experience so far.
I feel as though I've exhausted all resources except the one where I simply ask for help.

Please help... this is only the start of the biggest linux project I've ever attempted.

[Linuxera]

I'm sorry you are having such problems.  Can I ask where you got the instructions to go through all this?  I'm really baffled simply because I've done a few remasters and not had to go to such extremes as you appear to be going through.

Thanks,

Linuxera

[cncman]

Well the /usr/share/draklive-install/drakelive-install stuff came from http://www.pclinuxos.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Remaster_Live_CD

I got the /etc/fstab stuff from http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php/topic,71061.msg591124.html#msg591124

and other info from http://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/200803/page06.html

Like I said, this is my first remaster so I studied up some. As I ran into stumbling blocks I searched for solutions and the steps I took were the result.
No doubt that somewhere I've made a newbie mistake.

[Linuxera]

I don't know how many mistakes you've made,  but I can tell you how I did it, fair enough?

Do the fresh install, then open synaptic, update, install draklive-installer and whatever other little apps you want for a perfect set up.

To reduce the size of the ISO you can do some or all of the following,   Clean out icon cache (/usr/share/icon/.....  go into each individual folder and see if there is a file called 'cache'), Remove excess wallpapers (if any), go into /var/cache/apt and clean out the two 'bin' files ya see, run 'bleachbit' (it's in the menu under file tools).  Okay ready, now?  If there's nothing else you want to clean out, then open a terminal, su to root and type

umount -a
remasterme --lzma

You will find the ISO in the root folder along with root's home stuff.  Let me know how that goes for you. 

One other thought I had on this whole process was that when you installed it's possible that only the correct drivers remained for your system and they don't work on the second computer you have, however that shouldn't be the case as the remasters I made on this laptop worked on 99.9% of the computers that other's loaded the ISO on. 

Have fun!!

[menotu]

One thing you can do after doing your remaster / livecd is to first try it in Virtualbox directly using the ISO to load from (i.e. don't burn it to CD first)

If it runs okay in VBox you'll know that the ISO works. Then you can go down the route of burning your CD.

I'd also advise burning the ISO using a very slow burn speed (4x or 8x if possible)

[Linuxera]

One thing you can do after doing your remaster / livecd is to first try it in Virtualbox directly using the ISO to load from (i.e. don't burn it to CD first)

If it runs okay in VBox you'll know that the ISO works. Then you can go down the route of burning your CD.

I'd also advise burning the ISO using a very slow burn speed (4x or 8x if possible)

Good point.  I haven't had any burn problems that I recall so failed to mention it. 

[Neal ManBear]

cncman,
The instructions you followed for creating a remaster were written for 2009. 2010 no longer requires the preinstall editing of draklive-install; you can install as you normally would now. On first boot, you can re-create the guest account, where before it was not possible.

[cncman]

OK, so it looks like I've over complicated things a bit.

I only have two questions before I set out to try your new instructions. Do I still need to make sure tmpfs is not mounted and should I still exclude the /tmp folder?

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Neal ManBear]

OK, so it looks like I've over complicated things a bit.

I only have two questions before I set out to try your new instructions. Do I still need to make sure tmpfs is not mounted and should I still exclude the /tmp folder?

Thanks for the suggestions.

Yes, you should make sure tmpfs is not mounted. I believe that /tmp is excluded by default.

[Linuxera]

the umount -a command as root should take care of that one.. 

[cncman]

The "umount -a" command reports tmpfs  (/dev/shm) as busy. The only way I know of to unmount it is to prevent it from mounting in the first place by editing  /etc/fstab and rebooting as I mentioned in my first post.

BTW: I finised reinstalling and configuring my minime. I will attempt to make a remaster tomorrow evening.

[cncman]

The new remaster fails the exact same way as all my previous attemps. However, After reviewing this thread I saw that Linuxera suggested I use the command "remasterme --lzma" and I realized I forgot to use "--lzma." Also I did not run bleachbit. I guess I should'a re-read the thread before I committed to the remaster.

Any further comments/suggestions before I try again?

[Neal ManBear]

Yes, don't forget to run umount -a.

[cncman]

Thanks, but I did not forget umount -a this time though.

[cncman]

Tried again with "remasterme --lzma" and no, It fails the exact same way.

> Error! Warning, installation of driver failed...
(press <enter> to proceed)
Please wait: Detecting USB mass-storage devices.
cat: can't open /proc/sys/dev/cdrom/info/info' : no such file or directory...
Error: No suitable media for the livecd content found.
Workaround: Copy the content of the livecd from your boot device to an IDE/SATA disk,
Dropping you to a limited shell.

I really need a powerful hint here.