TC base install issues.

[TroyB]

Hi all,

I'm having trouble with the TC 3.2 base install, I have created the following:

sudo su
fdisk /dev/sda

/dev/sda1               1         244     1959898+  82  Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda2   *         245         488     1959930   83  Linux
/dev/sda3             489       91201   728652172+  83  Linux

mkfs.ext4 -I 256 -L home /dev/sda3
mkfs.ext4 -I 256 -L / /dev/sda2
rebuildfstab

mount /mnt/sda2
mkdir -p /mnt/sda2/boot/grub/
mount /mnt/sr0/
cp -p /mnt/sr0/boot/* /mnt/sda2/boot/

mkdir -p /mnt/sda2/tce
touch /mnt/sda2/tce/mydata.tgz
grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/sda2 /dev/sda
cp /mnt/sdd1/grub.cfg /mnt/sda2/boot/grub/
cp /mnt/sdd1/optional/* /mnt/sda2/tce/optional

Reboot computer to see Grub2 menu and then quiet boots me into the blue TC GUI, the following things happens.

1st
.filetool.lst doesn't have anything inside it, this cause backup to not work and cat backup_error in tmp displays "tar:empty archive", I had to populate it in order for it to work.

2nd
onboot.lst has a list of applications for onboot, but ondemand creates a directory with the applications inside it, but it doesn't created a ondemand.lst, like onboot.lst

3rd
If I remove all the hidden folders on my home/tc drive (sda3) and do redo all the steps starting from "mkfs.ext4 -I 256 -L / /dev/sda2". I am drop into a non GUI prompt which requires me to startx to login into a black background, instead of a blue background with the TC image.

What am I doing wrong here?

Thanks for your time.
TroyB

[maro]

What I find interesting is that you seem to have created the empty backup yourself (via touch /mnt/sda2/tce/mydata.tgz). Did you check that a backup did actually happened? You could try (before a reboot) to list the backup content (e.g. via tar tvf /mnt/sda2/tce/mydata.tgz) or maybe even force one manually (e.g. via filetool.sh -b).

You seem to be copying your extension files from a different storage device (via cp /mnt/sdd1/optional/* /mnt/sda2/tce/optional). To me it would have made sense to also copy your previous 'onboot.lst' (e.g. via cp /mnt/sdd1/onboot.lst /mnt/sda2/tce). Otherwise (and I'm stating this a "non-ondemand user", but purely from reading some scripts): you are right there is no 'ondemand.lst', AFAIK there is no need for it as the "ondemand" extensions are meant to be in the '.../tce/ondemand' directory. Did I miss you bringing them over from the other storage device?

I'm not sure how the "drop into a non GUI prompt " happened or is related to whatever you've done. I usually have to kill the X server to achieve the same. Nevertheless if you end up without a running X server, but with a working shell (e.g. in a 'console') you are still able to perform a lot of things (e.g. execute all those commands you listed earlier on). To get a bit of an idea what might be happening one would have to know a few details, e.g. what extensions are installed at this very point in time (e.g. via ls /usr/local/tce.installed) and what are (all) the boot codes used for the current system (e.g. via cat /proc/cmdline).

[TroyB]

Hi Maro,

Thanks for getting back to me.

Since this post, I have redone the steps & left the command "touch /mnt/sda2/tce/mydata.tgz" last after "cp /mnt/sdd1/optional/* /mnt/sda2/tce/optional" this populates the .filetool.lst with the following.

opt/bootlocal.sh
opt/bootsync.sh
opt/shutdown.sh
opt/tcemirror
opt/.filetool.lst
opt/.xfiletool.lst

and "tar tvf /mnt/sda2/tce/mydata.tgz" command gave me "tar: short read" I have assume that backup will work now.

"To me it would have made sense to also copy your previous 'onboot.lst' (e.g. via cp /mnt/sdd1/onboot.lst /mnt/sda2/tce)."

Yes, you are right, I will keep this in mind for the future.

"AFAIK there is no need for it as the "ondemand" extensions are meant to be in the '.../tce/ondemand' directory."

Oh, I thought it was support to have an ondemand.lst in the first place much like onboot.lst, well it clears things up

"cat /proc/cmdline" gave me the following, I have added the norestor after reading the wiki on backup for faster shutdown & startup time.
BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/bzImage quiet norestore tce=sda2 opt=sda2 home=sda3 xvesa=1600x1200x24

Thanks again.

[maro]

I'm not surprised that you get "tar: short read" after executing the 'touch' command. I trust you know that 'touch' on a non-existing file creates an empty file of the name (hence the short read of the 'tar'). I still don't get it why you want to do this, as I'm also not aware of any need to do this.

[tinypoodle]

http://www.tinycorelinux.com/install.html :

Prepare file for backup & restore

touch /mnt/hda1/tce/mydata.tgz

I remember having done this, but then that was many versions ago.

[TroyB]

Hi Maro & Tinypoodle,

The command "touch /mnt/hda1/tce/mydata.tgz" was from the installation guide on TC website http://tinycorelinux.com/install.html

I guess, I figured this out after the reinstalled of TC and left out the above command, which created mydata.tgz anyway.

Thanks again for your help, looks like everything is back to normal.

[maro]

... The command "touch /mnt/hda1/tce/mydata.tgz" was from the installation guide on TC website http://tinycorelinux.com/install.html  ...

Fair point and something that had not crossed my mind to check as I've never seen a need to do the same. A quick check revealed that this 'touch' also happens in the 'usbinstall' and 'tce-setdrive' scripts. So it's at least consistent, but as this thread has shown it can lead to confusion, if not backup is performed before the next re-boot (or rather the first boot of the freshly installed system).