OT? Partition Wizard bootable cd: Linux version, etc

[Puddin' Man]

OT? Partition Wizard bootable cd: Linux version, etc

I have great need for solid, reliable partition mngt. software on a bootable CD
or USB thumb-drive or similar.

Partition Wizard bootable cd comes close but there are problems. When booted, the
screen sorta "wraps". The first 2/3 of the their screen displays as the last 2/3
of my screen. The last 1/3 of the their screen displays as the first 1/3
of my screen. There is a solid line separating the pieces.

What should look something like:

1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
...
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890

actually displays something like:

89012345678901234567890 | 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567
89012345678901234567890 | 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567
89012345678901234567890 | 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567
...
89012345678901234567890 | 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567

and the cursor doesn't move at less than 400 mph. Etc, etc. It still works,
but there is a serious question of GUI control.

These Linux-live thingies probably work great when one is running hardware
very similar to what they were tested on. I am running an Intel i5-650 on
an Asus H55 board. The cpu is Nahalem-Clarkdale with the graphics integrated.
Not a prototype for your average desktop, but it's been fully functional
with lots of software for over a year. Other stuff displays fine.

Not being a Linux-person, I can't even identify the Linux flavor. Files
/folders on the CD are like BZIMAGE, TINYCORE.GZ, ISOLINUX.*, VESAMENU.C32.

There are some display options at boot: I can't get any of them to work.
Is it possible to tweak these things? Set some config options, etc???

Thx,
P

"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."

 

[Paul]

OT? Partition Wizard bootable cd: Linux version, etc

I have great need for solid, reliable partition mngt. software on a bootable CD
or USB thumb-drive or similar.

Partition Wizard bootable cd comes close but there are problems. When booted, the
screen sorta "wraps". The first 2/3 of the their screen displays as the last 2/3
of my screen. The last 1/3 of the their screen displays as the first 1/3
of my screen. There is a solid line separating the pieces.

What should look something like:

1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
...
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890

actually displays something like:

89012345678901234567890 | 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567
89012345678901234567890 | 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567
89012345678901234567890 | 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567
...
89012345678901234567890 | 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567

and the cursor doesn't move at less than 400 mph. Etc, etc. It still works,
but there is a serious question of GUI control.

These Linux-live thingies probably work great when one is running hardware
very similar to what they were tested on. I am running an Intel i5-650 on
an Asus H55 board. The cpu is Nahalem-Clarkdale with the graphics integrated.
Not a prototype for your average desktop, but it's been fully functional
with lots of software for over a year. Other stuff displays fine.

Not being a Linux-person, I can't even identify the Linux flavor. Files
/folders on the CD are like BZIMAGE, TINYCORE.GZ, ISOLINUX.*, VESAMENU.C32.

There are some display options at boot: I can't get any of them to work.
Is it possible to tweak these things? Set some config options, etc???

Thx,
P

"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."

It is possible it's a copy of this, Tiny Core Linux (I'd never heard
of this before), running Busybox.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny_Core_Linux

Your first step, is pressing control-alt-backspace, to
kill the X server. The X server (for graphics) is misconfigured.
I don't know how many times I've seen Linux distros do
stuff like that, within Microsoft Virtual PC (for WinXP).

In my experiments, problems like this, can't be stopped
from the kernel boot line. You'll notice in the boot menu,
you can press <tab> to edit the boot line. Options such
as VGA=786, is a way of influencing the screen dimensions
of the screen, while the boot sequence progresses. But it
doesn't affect X.

Once you do the control-alt-backspace, you should be in a
busybox shell. Black screen, with "#" as a prompt. You're running
as root, so no need to use "sudo".

I can see a file /etc/xinitrc, where you can see how the canned
environment is brought up. There is a copy of vi available,
and you can edit that.

vi /etc/xinitrc

I tried changing the contents there to

/bin/xterm &
/bin/jwm

so I could get a terminal to type in, and the "jwm" window
manager. My problem then was, no copy of "startx" to start
the X server again. As a workaround, you can use xinit to
start the X server, and according to the manpage, if no
xinitrc is available, it starts an Xterm window anyway.
So you don't even need to hack xinitrc, for the moment.

xinit

So I tried that, and got a small Xterm in the upper left.
First command I typed after that, was

/bin/jwm &

to start the Windows Manager. Once the Window Manager is
running, you'll be able to move the Xterm window around.

Now, that's the basic principle. I can say these things,
because I don't have a problem with the X server startup.
It's working fine here. So the above, is some tools for
working with things, when they're working OK.

*******

When working with "broken X", some places to look are
files like /var/log/Xorg.0.log . I just tried an "ls"
and it's there.

ls -al /var/log/Xorg.0.log

You can page through that file with "more" (press "q"
to quit)

more /var/log/Xorg.0.log

or use vi and the page up and page down keys. To
exit vi, use ":q!". (While ":wq" saves and quits)

vi /var/log/Xorg.0.log

In there, you'll find evidence what driver it selected
automatically. For example, you might see it loading
"vesa", because that is supposed to work with anything.
In Virtual PC, the graphics hardware is a fake "S3", and
you can see the X startup process detecting s3 and using
the driver for it.

So you need to discover any errors in there (EE), or
look for evidence of what it's loading.

Xwindows used to follow a configuration file. X was automated,
with the idea that all situations would be resolved successfully.
Hah! More often than not, I have to install my own config (to
override the automation). And in the case of your LiveCD, there
is no way to keep your edits. You're not going to add this crap
everytime. The build date of the X server in this case is 2007,
and perhaps some driver in there, doesn't know your
graphics.

*******

This is what I use to run Ubuntu in VirtualPC. I had the
screen distortion similar to you, but "hacked my way out of it".

The file is /etc/X11/xorg.conf

The file was created, by running nvidia-xconfig, while in
some Linux LiveCD text-only environment. You can remove one
or more of the "modeline" calls, as they're specific to making the
Virtual PC screen work (have to stay under 80MHz for dot clock?).
Where it says Driver "s3", you'd change that to "vesa", as
I suspect you just don't have the right driver in there. So
"vesa" is your only reasonable option. You'll also need to adjust
the "Screen" section, by eliminating some lines from it. I needed
a bit depth of "16" to make the S3 driver work. Or maybe you could
use this for the "Screen" section. The DefaultDepth would normally
be 24, but 16 and 8 are other options.

Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16

Anyway, here is my xorg.conf file, for insertion in the /etc/X11
directory. You could use vi, to type this stuff in. As in

cd /etc/X11
vi xorg.conf (type :wq to save the info)

******************************** Xorg.conf for VirtualPC **************
# nvidia-xconfig: X configuration file generated by nvidia-xconfig
# nvidia-xconfig: version 256.53 (buildmeister@builder101) Fri Aug 27 21:34:01 PDT 2010

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Unknown"
HorizSync 31.5 - 75.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 100.0
# Modelines via "cvt" - refresh rate of 50Hz is irrelevant in VirtualPC
Modeline "1152x864_50.00" 66.25 1152 1208 1320 1488 864 867 871 892 -hsync +vsync
Modeline "1024x768_60.00" 63.50 1024 1072 1176 1328 768 771 775 790 -hsync +vsync
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "s3"
VendorName "Vanilla Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1152x864_50.00"
EndSubSection
EndSection
**************************** End Xorg.conf for VirtualPC **************

Anyway, once you install a good /etc/X11/xorg.conf, then
type xinit, your screen should be unscrambled.

If it is not unscrambled, just try control-alt-backspace again,
to get back to the busybox prompt.

Have fun (it was fun the first time I fixed it - now, not so much...),

Paul

 

[Puddin' Man]

Anyway, once you install a good /etc/X11/xorg.conf, then
type xinit, your screen should be unscrambled.

If it is not unscrambled, just try control-alt-backspace again,
to get back to the busybox prompt.

Have fun (it was fun the first time I fixed it - now, not so much...),

I imagine it -was- fun to actually get it right, after all that work.
Hope you don't have to go thru all that very often.

The smallest of these (Linux-Live) things loads in, what?, 10 mb?
That has something to do with missing (often needed) modules? The
average *real* system (i.e. desktop) has maybe 1gb physical mem (mine
has 4). When are they gonna beef these things up so they run kinda OK
on 80% of such systems rather than 40%?

If I can get this turkey to run on a USB stick, any chance I could
store a few files on the stick and just shuffle 'em around as needed?

Many Thanks,
P

"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."

 

[Paul]

I imagine it -was- fun to actually get it right, after all that work.
Hope you don't have to go thru all that very often.

The smallest of these (Linux-Live) things loads in, what?, 10 mb?
That has something to do with missing (often needed) modules? The
average *real* system (i.e. desktop) has maybe 1gb physical mem (mine
has 4). When are they gonna beef these things up so they run kinda OK
on 80% of such systems rather than 40%?

If I can get this turkey to run on a USB stick, any chance I could
store a few files on the stick and just shuffle 'em around as needed?

Many Thanks,
P

"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."

My Knoppix CD, has an option to install on a USB stick, and
includes in that option, what is known as "persistent store".
It allows my 8GB USB stick, to store the 700MB CD, as well
as has room for a 4GB storage space. Any changes made,
such as editing /etc/X11/xorg.conf , get stored in the 4GB
area.

It's all a matter of whether the distro is set up that
way or not, to include a persistent store.

Even with a persistent store, the logic of the distro
still might not be that wonderful. For example, I need
to delete the /etc/fstab file, if I want to move my USB stick
from one computer to another, as that encourages "re-discovery"
of any hard drives in the computer. Otherwise, there is
a mis-alignment, between the partitions on the disk, and
how the OS tries to mount them. I'd boot the USB stick
twice, first try allows me to delete the fstab, and
on the second boot, the built-in script that discovers
all the file systems, runs for me.

Maybe you could store a copy of the xorg.conf file on
either a floppy or the hard drive, so you don't have to
enter it in "vi" ? With edits, I might try it this way, and
store it somewhere on the computer.

******* xorg.conf

Section "ServerLayout"
Identifier "Layout0"
Screen 0 "Screen0"
InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
EndSection

Section "Files"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Mouse0"
Driver "mouse"
Option "Protocol" "auto"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Emulate3Buttons" "no"
Option "ZAxisMapping" "4 5"
EndSection

Section "InputDevice"
# generated from default
Identifier "Keyboard0"
Driver "kbd"
EndSection

Section "Monitor"
Identifier "Monitor0"
VendorName "Unknown"
ModelName "Unknown"
HorizSync 31.5 - 75.0
VertRefresh 50.0 - 100.0
Option "DPMS"
EndSection

Section "Device"
Identifier "Device0"
Driver "vesa"
VendorName "Vanilla Corporation"
EndSection

Section "Screen"
Identifier "Screen0"
Device "Device0"
Monitor "Monitor0"
DefaultDepth 16 # 24 is more normal
EndSection

*******

The problem will be, mounting either the floppy, or a
hard drive partition, when you boot the LiveCD. You'd
drop down to busybox, and use the mount command. You'd need
a mount point first (an empty directory to mount on top of).
You can use virtually anything for that. Under ubuntu,
they might normally be loaded under /media, like /media/mymount.

cd /
mkdir /mymount
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mymount # mount first partition of drive hda as FAT32
cd /mymount # Now that mount is complete, look at files.
# Files magically appear under mymount.
ls -al # list the files which are finally mounted
cp /mymount/xorg.conf /etc/X11/ # Copy over the new xorg.conf, then start X server
# with xinit, to prove it works.
... do stuff, then later ...

cd / # move the current working directory away
# from /mymount, so you can dis-mount the
# partition

umount /mymount # un-mount will refuse, if the partition is
# still "busy". That prevents damage via a
# "dirty" dismount.

Each file system has a "type" value that goes after -t.

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/maverick/en/man8/mount.8.html

"-t vfstype

The argument following the -t is used to indicate the filesystem
type. The filesystem types which are currently supported
include: adfs, affs, autofs, cifs, coda, coherent, cramfs,
debugfs, devpts, efs, ext, ext2, ext3, ext4, hfs, hfsplus, hpfs,
iso9660, jfs, minix, msdos, ncpfs, nfs, nfs4, ntfs, proc, qnx4,
ramfs, reiserfs, romfs, smbfs, sysv, tmpfs, udf, ufs, umsdos,
usbfs, vfat, xenix, xfs, xiafs."

You use "vfat" for fat32 or "ntfs" for Windows NTFS. If you get the
type wrong, it's likely the mount command will tell you so. Like if the
type is a mismatch, it shouldn't mount the partition.

*******

There is one other way to work with the tinycore linux. That would be,
to discover how they create the tinycore file system, and "insert" the
new xorg.conf in there for posterity. You might need something that
knows how to "isomaster" to make a new CD. If the tinycore had a USB
option, it might be possible to cook up a new "image" using some
other Linux LiveCD. Then, when you boot your tinycore, it would
already have the xorg.conf you needed.

I'd still try getting it working from busybox, just to see if I could.
I've done this before, typing all that crap in by hand, saving it,
and starting the X server. And managed to get rid of the severely
distorted screen.

Since the Window Manager in that distro, doesn't seem to have
any other items loaded in it, it's not really a general
purpose environment. At the moment, the only reason for starting
a Window Manager, is so you can move the Xterm window around the
screen. Which is worth something, but by regular Linux desktop
standards, not much.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Puddin' Man]

Since the Window Manager in that distro, doesn't seem to have
any other items loaded in it, it's not really a general
purpose environment. At the moment, the only reason for starting
a Window Manager, is so you can move the Xterm window around the
screen. Which is worth something, but by regular Linux desktop
standards, not much.

HTH,
Paul

Ahhhhh, it must be nice to command (and/or know where to find) all the info in
your last 2 posts in this thread.

Also must be nice to be able to present it in a distinct and understandable
manner. Many with the previous skill can't or won't take the time to ...

Thanks-a-Many,
P

"Law Without Equity Is No Law At All. It Is A Form Of Jungle Rule."