SystemRescueCD quits Gentoo moves to ArchLinux

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 10:15 am Post subject:

/me pokes Naib in the talk page.

Maybe move this discussion there?
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Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

xaviermiller · Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 10:53 am Post subject:

Hi!

I'm interested in this project. I can help with my little hands and low free time.
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Kind regards,
Xavier Miller

Naib · Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 9:27 pm Post subject:

So two ways to go about this

1) build a totally new project built from releng liveCD
2) reproduce the last sane systemRescueCD and improve from there ( update )

#1 has the option to regenerate from scratch rather than relying on a further outdated seed
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Anon-E-moose · Posted: Tue Mar 05, 2019 10:16 pm Post subject:

I'm kind of partial to option 1.

The goal should be to have something that can replace sysrescuecd with similar pkgs and abilities, not necessarily duplicate it per se.
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pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Massimo B. · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 7:54 am Post subject:

Bad news, today I lost my favourite rescue system. All the rest has already been said here, and I can't understand the decision either, agree with mv that they should at least publish an explanation instead of a simple Changes list.

Switching to systemd or dropping 32bit is all acceptable, 32bit people could still get some separate 32bit ISO. But switching the Distro with all the infrastructure is a big step. I wasn't even able to restart the sshd without Arch knowledge, eventhough I know a bit systemd from OpenSuse.

Interesting idea to fork another Gentoo based systemrescuecd. Looking at the available Gentoo boot media, Minimal I didn't use for many years, Admin CD I didn't know (is that just having some more tools than Minimal?), and LiveDVD, isn't that a good replacement as rescue system?

I remember using OpenSuse TW live sometimes before which was solving some issues on machines where I wasn't able to boot anything else. One machine (HP Elitebook) wasn't able to boot from USB, just freezing. systemrescuecd on SD card was failing but OpenSuse was running fine there. One other advantage, the system is completely rw, can be extended, updated and maintained inside. IIRR just the kernel wasn't possible to be updated from that running ISO. This is easy to configure a sshd and keep the configuration every start. Is that possible on the Gentoo LiveDVD as well?

Some years before I was using Knoppix as rescue system. grml I was also testing a while but this was often outdated, though still maintained. And I'm not the Debian expert.

Old systemrescuecd <6.0 was at least able to emerge missing things which saved my day when I needed newer btrfs-progs. But those things are lost every reboot.

For maintaining or repairing my btrfs machines, my requirements for a live ISO are recent tools and kernels. Window Manager and a functional Web browser is nice and I'm fine with something small like Xfce, which is my daily main desktop anyway.
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Naib · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 7:58 am Post subject:

xaviermiller · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 8:05 am Post subject:

Hi!

I tested some weeks ago to extract the SystemRescueCD root and update it to ~arch (yeah), but it failed. Seems the base system is quite outdated, only the needed tools are upgraded.

I guess starting from a blank template and inject SRCD's world file would be more productive.
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Kind regards,
Xavier Miller

Cuong Nguyen · Apprentice Joined: 18 Jan 2018 Posts: 152

Hi, I can share my sysrcd.dat that I compiled with gcc-8.3.0 in 2 version -Os and -O3 CFLAGS

Naib · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 8:29 am Post subject:

Naib · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 8:35 am Post subject:

Part of me wants to model this in sysml. There are plenty of USE cases that will drive requirements

"needs to be small" -> the gcc optimisation -0s shall be used, minimal USE flags to be used
"needs to permit creating newer filesystems" -> btrfs tools, zfs tools shall be included
...
what stakeholders exist? what type of end-users?
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xaviermiller · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 8:37 am Post subject:

Yeah, let's go to the Catalyst way.

I will try to build a ~32 bits live system (at least live USB, I don't use CD anymore) with 32 and 64 kernels, syslinux, refind and EFI support on the 64 bits kernel.
One kernel pair for now

+ maybe some other tools as freedos, memtest86+, ... but later

regarding the size, I don't care too much, we can also optimize the squash compression (xz for example) so we can store more tools.
_________________
Kind regards,
Xavier Miller

C5ace · Posted: Wed Mar 06, 2019 10:01 am Post subject:

A couple of years ago I build my own "Rescue System" on a 2 TB USB for my personal requirements. 64 bit, Dos Partition, Xfce, Firefox, MC, Debugger, etc. Still use it fix problems, backup my various laptops and new installations.
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Observation after 30 years working with computers:
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pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Tony0945 · Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2019 12:50 pm Post subject:

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

Tony0945 · Posted: Thu Mar 07, 2019 9:29 pm Post subject:

I have to admit that I always forget little things like making a user, assigning the user to groups, getting a standard group of init scripts installed with rc-update. That's what the old GUI installer was good for, providing a visual checklist of those things. I confess I like gparted, but gdisk is working OK for me now that I no longer use a separate /boot and usually no swap partition either,. Re swap, I either have sufficient RAM or I build a swapfile inside root.

tezenhk · n00b Joined: 08 Mar 2019 Posts: 1 Location: Hong Kong

Always enjoyed being able to strip down the SystemRescueCD iso for use with EFI stub kernel based systems, so would love the idea of something similar emerging from this community - equally strippable, configurable, minimalistic and of course Gentoo openrc based!

Stripped UEFI SRCD...

1. 'sgdisk -Z' to clean usb and set gpt partitioning
2. 'gdisk' to create a single '0700' type partition
3. 'mkfs.vfat -F32' to create a single filesystem
4. 'fuseiso' to mount the downloaded iso file then copy contents to usb
5. rename isolinux to syslinux and strip down as shown by tree output below
6. leave the boot/grub/x86_64-efi directory untouched
7. edit the grub configuration as needed

flysideways · Guru Joined: 29 Jan 2005 Posts: 437

I hadn't done a clean Gentoo install in many years, a few weeks ago I downloaded the current systemrescuecd as I had many times before for the install environment. The changes led me to using a minimal install image on a thumbdrive to finish the install that I just did on an old unused laptop that I had come across. It got a minimal install, xfce, and no systemd. It's more of a nostalgia device than anything else.

After finding this thread I have downloaded the last Gentoo based version for posterity and possible future use. It has always been useful when I get drafted into chasing down not so obvious issues on ailing computers that belong to family and friends. Last one was a beta windows driver that my youngest had installed on his computer that looked suspisciously like failing hardware. After identifying the hardware as good the safari was relatively short.

I like the idea of a fast desktop to build binaries for any other Gentoo device that I may care to have. Keeping up a Gentoo based rescue system would also be in order. It's only time, and I have precious little for such dalliances.

I will be following your progress. Thanks in advance.

Naib · Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 11:55 am Post subject:

I know it isn't much but I have been able to reproduce the releng build process to make a minimal iso

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2019 6:49 pm Post subject:

Naib,

Its a big first step. Well done.
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

Hu · Moderator Joined: 06 Mar 2007 Posts: 21635

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 11:31 am Post subject:

Naib,

Do you have somewhere to host your ISO?
_________________
Regards,

NeddySeagoon

Computer users fall into two groups:-
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.