Dev1 Galaxy Forum / Refracta Installer needs testers.

Re: Refracta Installer needs testers.

dummy@example.com (fsmithred) — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 15:00:35 +0000

Thanks! Um, there's a new one coming soon, but I'll wait for you to report. I'm sure you'll see some things that have become invisible to me. Anyway, I just added support for full disk encryption. Only had to add four lines of code and change a couple of on-screen messages.

Re: Refracta Installer needs testers.

dummy@example.com (greenjeans) — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 22:00:33 +0000

ON IT!

If you had donate button somewhere, i'd send you beer money Thanks for all you do FSR!

Re: Refracta Installer needs testers.

dummy@example.com (fsmithred) — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 21:01:16 +0000

Here are some notes I made for a recent test iso with a newer version of the cli installer. Most of this information applies to the graphical installer, too. Options are mostly controlled in the options window instead of the config file. The parts that talk about which grub is installed and which grub packages are supplied in the iso will only apply if you have those versions of grub installed or available.

- The installer allows you to have separate /boot or /home partitions.
- The root and /home filesystems can be encrypted (without LVM).
- Other directories can be moved to separate partitions (see config file).
- Installer will create a 256MB swapfile. To change the size or to use
a swap partition, edit the config file. (/etc/refractainstaller.conf)
- Installer uses ext filesystems by default. To use other fs types, edit
the config file to turn on the no_format option, and format the
partitions manually.
Partitioning the disk(s) can be done before running the installer or from
within the installer. If you are in a graphical environment, you can use
gparted. If you are not in a graphical environment, the installer will run
either cfdisk or gdisk. New feature: the installer will let you return to
the partitioner before proceeding, in case you want to change something.
For UEFI Install:
grub-efi-amd64 is installed. Near the end of the installation, you will be
given a choice to install the bootloader or not.
For BIOS Install:
grub-pc package is in the root of the filesystem, and the installer will
know what to do with it. Let the installer copy the package to /target
and install the bootloader. You can also skip the bootloader if you
plan to use another.
For 32-bit grub with 64-bit system:
grub-efi-ia32 package is in the root of the file system. Install the
package before you run refractainstaller or install it to /target in
a chroot. The installer will pause to let you do this before it installs
the bootloader. It may also work if you let the installer copy the package
to /target during the installation.
For BIOS install with GPT partition table:
You will need to create a small partition (>1M), unformatted, with
bios_grub flag in parted/gparted or EF02 in gdisk. Otherwise, you will
need to boot from a disk that has dos partition table.
More info: http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/bios.html"

Refracta Installer needs testers.

dummy@example.com (fsmithred) — Mon, 12 Mar 2018 13:15:50 +0000

I merged the two gui scripts into one - refractainstaller-yad and refractainstaller-uefi are now refractainstaller-gui. It's not packaged yet. I moved a bunch of stuff around and shook up the code a bit, so there could be some new bugs. I've run through the install many times (scores of times) and it seems to be pretty good. But I want more guinea pigs to try it before I put it in the repo.

Copy the script from here and save it as refractainstaller-gui
https://gist.github.com/fsmithred/86594 … 07ebd41e58
You can run it from the current directory with

sudo refractainstaller-gui -d

(or be root)

You should have the latest refractainstaller-base installed from ascii repo (or newer from sourceforge.)

Changes:

refractainstaller-gui (9.3.4) unstable; urgency=low
* Use LC_ALL=C for fdisk -l to accommodate other locales.
* Test for gpt and for BIOS boot partition and warn if it's needed.
* Allow re-run partitioner within the installer.
* Improved test_hostname() to play nice with xgettext. (Blinkdog)
* Add '-k all' to update-initramfs for cryptsetup.
* Select EFI partition from list if there are more than one.

-- fsmithred
refractainstaller-gui (9.3.3) unstable; urgency=low
* Run grub-install after copy debs in case debconf does not run.
* select_grub_dev if grub-pc is copied to /target and installed.
* Use default reserved blocks with new ext filesystems.
* Test for unformatted EFI partition.
* Merged uefi and bios installer scripts.
-- fsmithred

Known (very weird) bug:

If you're running in virtualbox, and you let the installer format the partitions, which it does by default, some yad windows might be malformed. This occurs in ascii, with yad-0.38. It's not a gtk3 problem, because I tried it with gtk2 versions of yad-0.38 and yad-0.40. It does not occur with yad-0.27.

It also does not occur if you select the 'Do not format' option, and you format the partitions in gparted (from within the installer or before running the installer. Doesn't matter.)

Even weirder...
If you select to install on encrypted filesystem and select 'Do not format', it won't format your /boot partition, but it must format the encrypted partition, but the bug does not manifest in this situation.

The window that's almost exclusively affected only comes up if you have the wrong grub installed. It's the window at the Pause, right before installing the bootloader, and it has buttons for Chroot, Continue, Abort and either Install Bootloader or Copy files. It may appear as a vertical line, probably 1 pixel wide, and if you grap the edge to expand the window, it will be distorted, and the title bar will say "Unnamed window". Easiest thing to do in this case is reboot (otherwise, you need to unmount /proc, /sys and /dev from /target, unmount /target/boot/efi and /target/boot if they are mounted, and then unmount /target.)

I did not see the bug when I installed on hardware, and I haven't tried installing in qemu. I've also seen it happen with the first greeting window, if I've run the installer more than once in a session.

So... format your partitions first, and select 'Do not format' if you're in virtualbox. Install it in different ways to test all the parts. Let me know what breaks. Make some deliberate errors to see if the script is smart enough to stop you from shooting yourself in the foot. Don't test this on a production system.

Thanks,
fsmithred