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BoneZ

Member

Registered: 2020-12-28

Posts: 16  

Refracta OS issues and questions :)

Good day, everyone! It's been quite a long time since I've messed with Refracta OS. Mine needs updated, and I am upgrading my computer soon, so I will need the latest and greatest kernel for that hardware very shortly as well for a separate build. So I have some questions. I will number them below for easy answering. Please be aware that I am a very nooby Linux user. I'm trying to dabble more in Linux to eventually rid myself of Windows in the near future. So hopefully your answers are idiot-proof haha.

- 1.) I tried a couple/few months ago to install Refracta OS onto a hard drive using the Live USB with Refracta Installer. I have multiple hard drives attached, and this was a brand new one that I wanted to use the BIOS to select that drive to boot from. So I was trying to get Refracta OS installed and to boot from that drive. But I ran into some issues. Once Refracta OS was installed on the drive, I couldn't get it to boot. I tried a couple different things, but couldn't get Refracta to boot from that drive. Seems like a boot manager problem, and I probably wasn't doing it right from the installer. I just couldn't get the boot manager/boot loader to install on that drive for some reason. Be advised that I don't have any issues installing bigger distros like Mint, Fedora, etc.

Another issue with this I ran into, I was trying to split the drive in half (128 GB and 128 GB partitions), to have Refracta OS on one partition, and then another Linux distro on the second partition to try out different distros (this is a Windows PC). But I couldn't get Refracta Installer to install Refracta OS to one of the two partitions. It would only install if the drive was one single partition. Again, probably my noobiness on not how to make the installer install to one of the partitions on the drive. Seemed like it just wasn't giving me the option or wasn't willing to install to one of the separate partitions. Which was weird, since it had no problem installing to that drive it it was a single partition. Or do I have to install Refracta OS, then shrink the partition to be able to create a second partition?

- 2.) Besides Refracta OS, I keep seeing Excalibur/Ceres being mentioned here on the forums. Are these also derivatives of Devuan? From what I'm understanding, Excalibur/Ceres also have Refracta Tools installed with them already? I wouldn't mind trying these out either.

- 3.) As for my mention of needing the latest kernel for the latest drivers, one great OS for the latest kernels is Fedora, from my understanding. I used to have a website saved that mentioned how to install the dependencies for Refracta Tools, so that you could install those on virtually any Linux distro. Would you have those commands and/or what would be needed to install the dependencies to get Refracta Tools installed into say Fedora or Mint, etc.? That way I can open up my OS options to any distro as long as it can utilize Refracta Tools.

My end goal is a light distro where I can have all of my hardware drivers (including video drivers) installed, video codecs for VLC player. And a browser. Don't need a whole lot of bloat much from that.

Thanks for reading this wall of text, and appreciate any help on getting a light distro with Refracta Tools working on this 3 year old PC and a brand new 2025 PC here in another month or so.

Last edited by BoneZ (2025-03-06 19:35:05)

BoneZ

Member

Registered: 2020-12-28

Posts: 16  

Re: Refracta OS issues and questions :)

Doing some more reading, I see Refracta tools only works on Debian-based distros. So I'll see if I can install Devuan and try that out.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,563  

Re: Refracta OS issues and questions :)

1. I find myself fighting with grub a lot more in the last few year. It might not be you. If you have another linux installed, the easy solution would be to install Refracta without a bootloader, then let the other linux find it and add it to the existing boot menu.

You should be able to install to any partition when there are several on the disk and or several disks. The graphical installer will show you lists of partitions with checkboxes. The text installer requires you to enter the correct device name. That's probably something you're doing wrong or misinterpreting. No way to tell from here without more information.

2. Daedalus is the current stable version of Devuan. It's the same as Debian Bookworm (only better). Excalibur is the testing suite, same as Debian Trixie, and Ceres is Sid, always unstable.

3. Command names and file locations differ greatly between the rpm and deb worlds. Getting the scripts to work with both would be a major undertaking.

Newer kernel:
Here's an iso with a minimal graphical system, daedalus (stable) with backports kernel, and I think it has some firmware installed. You could install this and then add whatever you want.
https://get.refracta.org/files/experime … 4_1806.iso

Excalibur isos will be coming soon, but it's still in Testing so there will be frequent changes and possible breakage until it's stable. (maybe by end of year)

BoneZ

Member

Registered: 2020-12-28

Posts: 16  

Re: Refracta OS issues and questions :)

Good morning, fsmithred! Appreciate the answer. I watched the video on how to install Devuan, so I was doing it wrong when trying to install to one of the two partitions I made. I will try again today with both Devuan and Refracta OS.

And that is a good idea about using another distro to put both into the bootloader. I'll try that if I can't get Refracta OS to boot again. Have a great day!

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,563  

Re: Refracta OS issues and questions :)

Nice to see you again and good luck with it. Post again if you run into problems.

BTW, I don't think you can call yourself a noob anymore. I checked my old forum logs. 2014!

Edit: fixed type (the year)

BoneZ

Member

Registered: 2020-12-28

Posts: 16  

Re: Refracta OS issues and questions :)

I actually have run into a problem, which I think was one of the reasons why I couldn't get Refracta OS or Devuan to install. The installer (Refracta Installer) lets me choose which partition to install the OS to, but it's automatically picking my Windows drive for the EFI partition. I do not want to mess with my Windows partition. I need the EFI/bootloader installed to the drive I am installing Linux to, which most mainstream distros allow you to do.

I've been skipping the Gparted window. Do I need to go into Gparted in the installer to do something first, so that the EFI/bootloader gets installed to the Linux drive and not the Windows drive?

Last edited by BoneZ (2025-03-07 17:16:38)

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,563  

Re: Refracta OS issues and questions :)

The installer will recognize more than one existing efi partition and let you choose the one you want, so yes, you have to make it first.
In gparted, make a fat32 partition and give it the esp flag (it'll get the boot flag automatically).

Your motherboard might not let you be the one to decide which efi partition is the real one. And I don't know if having two and switching them by changing the drive order will work or is safe. The usual procedure is just to let linux use the same efi partition as windows and put itself in first place for booting. If you've looked at what's in the efi partition, you can see that there are several bootloaders. You can change the order or manage them otherwise with efibootmgr - depending on how much the motherboard manufacturer felt like following standards. see rodbooks.com for more info on uefi.

BoneZ

Member

Registered: 2020-12-28

Posts: 16  

Re: Refracta OS issues and questions :)

Ahh, gotcha. I'll make one in Gparted and try again. My UEFI system is new enough, that I can have an EFI partition on every single drive. And my BIOS will detect it and let me choose which drive to boot from. Thanks!