MIDIbox Linux Distro

[nILS]

I doubt that you have the same problem as  frailn had, as it seems he did the full installation, the last of which seems to be "screw up your bootloader". That step is hidden behind an "Advanced" button on the last screen and should be avoided. No, it's not really called "screw up you bootloader" but it has a history of doing that.

Something seems to have gone wrong with the install, especially around the msys/isolinux parts which makes the stick bootable. Drop by the chat and we'll figure that out ;-)

[lylehaze]

Thanks.. I will find you in chat, but not right now.

After a few months of no caffeine, I drank a large Coke today. I have been wired ever since. It's now 4:30 AM, I'm going to try and get some sleep. I'll try to catch you later. I also have some plumbing to do.. Chores etc.

Thankis again for all the help!

LyleHaze

[dj3nk]

First of all I have to say that i havent reaD THE Hole thread yet. buuut ..... ;P

Don't you think this will cause more problems than we have? Over all its a very nice idea to have such a nice "all in one" solution, but do you really think that everybody is able to run  this cd on their machines without problem and with all features? I don't think you can put all drivers in it. What about future drivers for coming hardware ? wlan sticks? sata hdds? raid systems? sata-raid? firewire sound interfaces. will this all work ? I dont want to tell this is a bad idea but i think its a not so easy idea if we dont want to fill this forum with linux stuff, because when somebody wants to use this cd he surely wants to play with all the things on it. And the more things and features this linux distro will have, the more probs are caused. What about the people with special machines that have components which dont accept one of all the drivers you put on this cd. I would ask the forum to help me, because people out of the forum came to this idea. And thats what I think is not so good at all because it will cause just pc configuration issues on this MIDIBOX forum. Some workaround for that could be a new category called somewhat with linux in it. So people with problems can post there. Are here enough keen linuxusers who will help the newbs under us. I suppose much of them (tha noobs). ;P

[frailn]

it seems he did the full installation,

nILS - your script doesn't do the full install? Curious to know what the difference is from full Ubuntu and your script. I was going to start installing some of the suggested programs for the Labuntu distro and start playing around with them using my live USB stick. But, before I do, I'm deciding if I should use my full install or re-install using your script so any unneeded programs are not installed.

I followed these instructions for my install.

[lylehaze]

@frailn

Thanks for including the link to the steps you followed.

If I can find time, I may try it that way.

I am still excited about doing this, but I have a few delays going on. Today is my third day of hiding in the basement pretending to be a plumber. Hope fully it will be the day I finish it.

Of the three windows machines in my house, one will boot to USB, one will not, and on one I can't tell. As a result, I'm hoping to find a stick install that includes the "Hardy Heron" release, Load from USB without touching the PC drive, and the ability to run without a reboot (Qemu?).

I can find install instructions for any two of those, but not yet all three.

dj3nk may have a good point. This is "really cool stuff", but it's not (yet) an intuitive package. At least, not when everybody needs a slightly different configuration.

With a little luck, I'll be back in 8 hours.

LyleHaze

[frailn]

dj3nk may have a good point. This is "really cool stuff", but it's not (yet) an intuitive package. At least, not when everybody needs a slightly different configuration.

That's the beauty of Linux - it's extremely configurable. But, that also means it's not always the easiest thing to install for someone unfamiliar with this OS. I would like to see the distro project move forward. dj3nk - I agree that we could easily get bogged down in Linux install help. In order to avoid that, perhaps adding links to the WIKI page for the distro some good Linux tutorials or Linux help forums would be the way to go. We don't need to re-invent the wheel on Linux how-to's and assistance. There's plenty of resources on the web if someone needs assistance installing Ubuntu for their machine's quirks or needs. Maybe a nice point or gentle push towards those resources would avoid the forum getting bogged down with OS installation help requests. I recommend the link I posted earlier to pendrivelinux. Also, a link to the Ubuntu website and forums.

[nILS]

First of all I have to say that i havent reaD THE Hole thread yet. buuut ..... ;P

Soooo, how about you stfu then? ;)

Don't you think this will cause more problems than we have?

Depends on the kind of problem you have.

do you really think that everybody is able to run  this cd on their machines without problem and with all features?

No. I don't even think that everybody would want to.

I don't think you can put all drivers in it.

Same for any other OS. But, *most* of the drivers are there. After all, the "base" distro is ubuntu and not some backyard school-nerd project.

What about future drivers for coming hardware ? wlan sticks? sata hdds? raid systems? sata-raid? firewire sound interfaces. will this all work ?

Yes.

I dont want to tell this is a bad idea, but...

Then don't. Period.

i think its a not so easy idea if we dont want to fill this forum with linux stuff, because when somebody wants to use this cd he surely wants to play with all the things on it.

Noone said it was going to be easy.

And the more things and features this linux distro will have, the more probs are caused. What about the people with special machines that have components which dont accept one of all the drivers you put on this cd.

They're boned. Just like people that can't compile kicad on MacOS or get the toolchain installed on Windows, or ... are boned right now.

I would ask the forum to help me, because people out of the forum came to this idea. And thats what I think is not so good at all because it will cause just pc configuration issues on this MIDIBOX forum.

...and we don't have these yet? Don't you think you're worrying a bit too much for now?

Some workaround for that could be a new category called somewhat with linux in it. So people with problems can post there. Are here enough keen linuxusers who will help the newbs under us. I suppose much of them (tha noobs). ;P

Well, um. Yeah. I'm pretty sure it would be possible to set up a new board on this forum. I don't see that as a big issue though. It's not like we want to force people to use Linux. We merely want to offer an alternative, which so far seems to work really nicely.

nILS - your script doesn't do the full install? Curious to know what the difference is from full Ubuntu and your script.

The script basically creates a persistent live stick. That means it copies the entire CD on one partition of the stick, leaving the whole Live CD funtionality intact. And it sets the system up to use the second partition as the persistent one meaning it stores all you additional applications and data there. So you get the best of both worlds. A stick that can run in live mode on any computer and a working persistent "installation" at the same time.

I followed these instructions for my install.

Which is basically what the script does. Meaning: You didn't install either ;-)

@lylehaze: Don't bother doing that manually, the script does exactly that (and a bit more). The laptop you tried doesn't happen to be a HP one, now does it?

edit: By the way, the script is just a temporary solution to allow linux-noobies to fiddle around with the basic setup without having to worry about typing in weird commands. So, any problems with that script are really temporary.

[Wilba]

first of all I have to say i haven't read the whole thread but the idea of running linux on my pc is scary... everyone knows u get what you pay for and since linux is free it must be crap... i wouldn't want a linux distro accidentally corrupting my boot partition and destroying my hard drive... u know how long it took me to download all the pr0n on it??? anywaze the only p33ple who would need this linux distro are those stupid p33ple who use macs cos if u run windows then everything u need for midibox just works and stuff and even the cool stuff that costs lots of money likesuchas logic u can just download cracks for like reel easy... peace out W1LBA

[lylehaze]

nILS,

I appreciate your support. One of the reasons I'm backing off a bit is so that I won't become a bother for others.

My x86 machine is an old Asus A7V. depending on the USB port I used (builtin or PCI add-on) I got no response to a boot attempt, or "No Operating system found" (or something like that).

My wifes laptop is an "E-Machines", but a rather good one, if a few years old. It was one of the first 64 bit laptops, and even has a real video section, without "sharing" the system ram. It is loaded with (32 bit) XP, and has no option for booting from USB at all.

My daughters laptop is less than a year old, Dell, and has a boot to USB option. I tried, it reported "No OS Found" just like my Asus did.

The downside is that when I'm away from my machine, I always use my wifes laptop. Since it cannot boot to USB, I would lose the portability that I was hoping for. If qemu was part of the install (if I understand correcly) I could run it inside windows without tampering with the boot options. That is a lot more "socially acceptable" when running on a borrowed machine.

I have seen Ubuntu with persistence and qemu, but only for the previous version. In all I'm enthused, but confused.

Break is over, back to plumbing..

Hey Wilba, hold ths pipe for me. ;-)

LyleHaze

[MTE]

i wouldn't want a linux distro accidentally corrupting my boot partition and destroying my hard drive... u know how long it took me to download all the pr0n on it???

Make a backup of the MBR & the system....Acronis rockz ;)

[stryd_one]

nils' script is an automated version of that document frailn linked. It's not a full install, but it does include everything: it's a persistent live install. that means it's still a 'live' boot, so it works on different hardware, but it also retains your changes for the next boot.

A full install doesn't load all the hardware drivers, so it only works where you install it, but it's faster to boot.

lyle: it appears that the bootloader isn't able to find the disk. That's something that can be avoided by following certain setup procedures, and it can be fixed but seeing as you haven't used this installation yet, i'd just nuke it and start afresh.

heads up: nils' script does the partitioning on your drive for you. Use it with care :)

do you really think that everybody is able to run  this cd on their machines without problem and with all features? I don't think you can put all drivers in it. What about future drivers for coming hardware ? wlan sticks? sata hdds? raid systems? sata-raid? firewire sound interfaces. will this all work ?

Yes. Hey, if windows can get all the drivers on one disk why can't we? ;) All of the above examples are already supported in ubuntu, except firewire audio support which is part of a package that's already in our list. As for delivery of future drivers, we may need to borrow your time machine for that ;) Seriously though, most drivers will be released in the ubuntu distro anyway, and those that are reeded can be downloaded from the repositories.

The reason we've gone with ubuntu is because it has excellent hardware support right out of the box. That was the most important milestone of all.

we dont want to fill this forum with linux stuff

Could be a problem... If the noise about this gets too heavy I'm sure we could work something out, like a new forum category as you mentioned.

And the more things and features this linux distro will have, the more probs are caused.

Are here enough keen linuxusers who will help the newbs under us. I suppose much of them (tha noobs). ;P

Sure, that's why its so great that so many people are getting involved now at this pioneering stage. As lyle has discovered, it's not always straightforward when you have no prepared documentation and automated procedures, but after a time this will become a lot easier. For example, the upcoming ubuntu release will (I have heard) be distributed not only as CD ISO images but also in images ready to write to a USB stick. Another example is the above procedure, which is an unfortunate outcome of a bug that slipped through into the release - intrepid will not have all that messing around to do, the graphical menus will work fine.

Update:

I had a four hour conversation with the ubuntu studio devs, who are fucking awesome, thankyou MMA and co! They cleared up a LOT of questions and really laid the options out for us. In fact, they tried to talk us out of a live disk saying it would not be worth it, and for different reasons than perhaps intended, I believe they were right, but I'll come back to that. It narrows down to this:

Due to legal restrictions , we will not be able to distribute a modified ubuntu image. This means the end user will have to download the ubuntu ISO from ubuntu (or torrent etc) and get our modifications separately. That leaves us with the following options:

'Full' Install to writeable media (internal HDD, USB HDD, USB flash, etc) + Install packages from our repo*

This is what you'd normally do for a non-portable setup anyway. Sweet

'Live' & Persistent install to writeable media (USB HDD, USB flash, etc) + Install packages from our repo*

This would be normal for a portable setup. All good.

'Live' & NOT Persistent install to read-only media (CD/DVD, or also USB HDD, USB flash, etc) + Install packages from our repo*

This introduces the problem - the installed software, and any other changes you make, will be lost when you boot. That means every boot will take maybe half an hour to do all the installs

* That's a super-simple one-step procedure. Can be installed from a downloaded image, or online.

This can be worked around by pre-installing the packages to the bootable CD image, but that means that the end user has to download ubuntu, boot to it, do some procedure (maybe scripted, but still....) and then save the image and burn it, to have a live CD. It's not al that hard, but it's not very "nice" for newbies I'd say.

So here's the question: Is it worth it? We all jumped at the initial thought of being able to whack a CD in and go, but there are two new considerations: The added procedure to create the disk after downloading, and.... Would someone actually use something like that so often? I mean, think if it in a real-world example: Is the newbie going to boot, download the mios app, edit the files, compile, debug, compile debug, etc, upload, all in one session? Unlikely. Plus, what abou next time? They havo te go through all that hassle all over again. ugh!

Given that a USB stick with plenty of space is only 10-20$... maybe persistent live or full install should be the default, and non-persistent live CDs should not be initially supported?

I say "initially" because it's going to work out that way, anyway. The first step here will be to package up everything we need, and setup a repository. That repo will enable existing ubuntu installations and new full installations and persistent live installations to get setup easily, and will form the building blocks of anything that would follow from there.

[stryd_one]

I'm backing off a bit is so that I won't become a bother for others.

Noooooo man you're doing a goodthing. You're having some troubles because youre on the leading edge of this - guys at the frontline catch all the bullets. nILS and I and cimo had our share of worries too. but every one we run into we learn how we screwed up so we can avoid it next time.

Since it cannot boot to USB, I would lose the portability that I was hoping for.

Well, no - you can boot to the CD and save the persistent data on your USB stick :)

Also, you can put the grub bootloader on the hard drive so it can boot to there, and then continue on to boot windows, or your USB stick.

The error message youre getting doesn't actually imply that it won't boot from USB - in fact it may well imply that it *will* boot from USB, but that the thing it's trying to boot isn't carrying a boot system. Try those pendrivelinux instructions, I think you'll get a pleasant surprise ;)

As for virtualisation, I've been running ubuntu in a virtualbox machine on my laptop this week for packaging practice, works nicely!

[cimo]

hi

although i see only 24 votes (but hey that s more than the number of paypal donation last time we had a major improvement on the  web.. i love offtopics) i say although only 24 votes i see some interest in the whole process, and i am sure this will pay off.

@Wilba: oh fuck i was writing a long answer but you know what? as S1 says ycdbb ;)

@lylehaze: thanks for taking the time to try this out.

@dj: can you imagine TK thinking after he released the first preMIOS box: "oh well i could try to write code for different machines but what a headache, can yo uimagine having a forum with more than 2000 users.."

S1 i am happy to see that we are going along with the UbuStu devels, Luis pointed out that creating an installer ISO is more difficult than one could think, they have the UbuStu iso created by the Ubuntu team.

To everybody else: try Ubuntu ffs, you ll be surprised.Save yourself before Vista will take over. ;)

[stryd_one]

S1 i am happy to see that we are going along with the UbuStu devels,

Darn right. MMA especially spent a rediculous amount of time, and explained lots of little details to me. He was freakin awesome, super patient - and knows a f#load about it all. What he told us enabled nils and I to take that info away and mull it over, apply our local knowledge of midibox, and come up with a solid gameplan, rather than something based on guesswork or blind faith.

Luis pointed out that creating an installer ISO is more difficult than one could think, they have the UbuStu iso created by the Ubuntu team.

Yeh, there are instructions on modding up an existing installer and it's not tooo rough, but to do what we want, and keep it legal, means major changes, definitely way out of our scope.

[frailn]

Save yourself before Vista will take over

I tried to break my family out of the Windows cycle a few years ago with Lindows, and yes I paid for the license (hangs head in shame) - but it was the only distro at the time that I thought would convince them to switch over. My goal was to win them to Linux so we could keep the PC costs down (five teenagers in my household). Using older PC's running Linux seemed more cost effective than getting stuck in the upgrade cycle of Windows. I showed them OpenOffice among other things, but it went over like a lead balloon. SO, I'll always have at least one PC in the basement with Linux, but upstairs, Vista is running and the wife is loving Media Center hooked up to cable television with a remote.

Ever since Stryd brought this idea up, I can't stop thinking about some way to integrate Puppy Linux with MIDIbox, but that's way over my head and way off topic for this thread. I'll store that one away for another day, after I've gotten more MIOS/MIDIbox experienced.

Stryd:

So here's the question: Is it worth it?

All this just to say, YES, let us continue on with the Labuntu project. I'm available to help in anyway my abilities will allow. I'm in agreement that Full and Live&Persistent installs should be default.

[cimo]

ahaha

i was a bit puzzled when i saw a Stryd_one message in the UbuStu mailing list.. i think i will get used to it.

I strongly advice you to join also the LAU list.

Simone

[nILS]

heads up: nils' script does the partitioning on your drive for you. Use it with care :)

That's why I haven't posted the link here, so I could "manually" tell everyone again, to be careful ;)

[Wilba]

@Wilba: oh fuck i was writing a long answer but you know what? as S1 says ycdbb

"ycdbb" sounds like more geekspeak ;)

(I hope people know I was joking before)

[nILS]

(I hope people know I was joking before)

Oh, you were? Shit, I was just typing a 28 page PM to you about how bad ripping software is, mmmkay.

[lylehaze]

Thanks to you all for the support.

I will continue to play with it as time allows, but for the next few days I will be focusing on getting my gerber files out to the proto house.

I saw a small download somewhere that would just test for bootability. I will test with that.

I seem to be stuck on the qemu thing. I found a page that would set up the previous version of ubuntu on a USB stick with qemu and persistence both. If I'm going to go wandering, I might as well be moving towards something!

_IF_ I spend a lot of time playing with linux, I'm bound to get better with it, and that is a good thing. But not until I get these boards out to the fab shop, and get the documents ready, and .. Well, it's always something. :-)

14 straight hours today working on my plumbing. What a pain. But at least it's done, and there are no leaks.

I'd rather work with my brain.

LyleHaze

[lylehaze]

Just a bit more info..

I restored my flash drive to normal, then did the install manually, without using the script provided. Same result. On a guess, I them used lilo to fix the MBR on the flash drive, and I was then able to boot to it from my daughters laptop. progress!

Unfortunately, I am still not able to boot to it from my PC.

So for me, only one of the three x86 machines in my house can boot to a USB drive. And it's the one I'm least likely to be using. :-(

Next attempt: try to make a qemu ubuntu install on my flash drive. This allows running linux from within windows, without a reboot. The instructions look simple, and it's all done from windows. I gave it a shot, but the batch file failed, "cannot find label" or some such.

I opened the file with notepad, looks simple enough. I tried manually following the install. I installed kqemu, but it did not install where the script expected it to. I wasn't aware that running from a USB stick required installs to the machines HD, but this is my own machne, so I did it anyway.

I was still not able to get it working, from the batch file or by manually starting it from the command line.

Maybe my machine is just too old.

Maybe _I_ am just too old.

At least I got a new flash stick and some USB2 ports for my computer from this.

Back to eagle...

LyleHaze

[stryd_one]

Try virtualbox buddy. Just mount up the ISO file and run the installer as though it's a separate PC.

Did you ensure you're runninng the latest BIOS versions on those machines? Check the BIOS config at boot time to see if it's an option? I had to do both.....

Being as how the thing's connected to a PCI peripheral you might need to do something fancy with the card to enable booting from it...

[Goblinz]

Due to legal restrictions , we will not be able to distribute a modified ubuntu image. This means the end user will have to download the ubuntu ISO from ubuntu (or torrent etc) and get our modifications separately. That leaves us with the following options:

I thought the idea of linux is that it's open source with the idea that people can modify and use it as they want????

Could we not base this on a different distro (if there's one without the legal restrictions)

      G

[nILS]

The same restrictions apply on (probably) all other distributions as well. You *can* modify and use it as you want, you just can't modify it and leave the "ubuntu" logo on it. No point discussing it - that's just the way it is.

[Goblinz]

The same restrictions apply on (probably) all other distributions as well. You *can* modify and use it as you want, you just can't modify it and leave the "ubuntu" logo on it. No point discussing it - that's just the way it is.

Could we not remove the ubuntu logo then?