Mageia

[dedanna1029]

Well, well, well. THAT was interesting. Got Mageia 2 livecd onto usb flash stick via unetbootin, rebooted to the flash stick on the netbook, kernel panic right off the bat. Couldn't even Ctrl+Alt+Del out to reboot. Ended up having to pull the plug on the netbook to get it to shut down.

Tried again, this time making sure everything was out of the usb ports except the boot disk itself (flash stick), and it did it again.

I don't think they like netbooks very much (either that, or they don't like unetbootin very much).

Edit: To be perfectly precise, it was the dual-arch cd. /edit

They don't even have the excuse of a screwed up md5sum:

Code: Select all

[dedanna@dedanna Mageia]$ md5sum Mageia-2-dual-CD.iso
d6a1a76b04fb0aca908347a13acb13d7  Mageia-2-dual-CD.iso
[dedanna@dedanna Mageia]$ cat md5sum-live-cd.txt
$ md5sum Mageia-2-dual-CD.iso
d6a1a76b04fb0aca908347a13acb13d7

I'm going to re-do the flash stick, see if it works. If not, it's bye-bye Mageia for this kid. Maybe *someday* I'll be able to find *something* that will actually work on this damn thing. CentOS works, but is way too restrictive for a desktop. Can't find anything that I use package-wise. The packages are pathetically low for it. It's rock stable, but servers, keep it for yourselves.

Edit 2: Just tried again. Like, no. Just... no. Moving on to something else (OpenSuSe in the a.m.).

I hate this. I really, really, hate this.

[viking60]

You should probably just dd the iso on to the USB. Unetbootin might have problems with hybrid isos. And Centos is indeed conservative, as a server should be. That is great for people who do not like changes though...

[jkerr82508]

I've seen reports going both ways - for some people unetbootin works, for others it doesn't, but so far as I know, "dd" always works.

Jim

[dedanna1029]

Now that, is something I never got the hang of, was dd.
What would I use for it, with the .iso being on one flash stick, the stick to install from on the other?
Well, actually, I can move the .iso to the hdd. Think I will.
Still, I do need to know the command.

Edit: Ah, hang on here. Just found this and this. Does Mageia even support reiserfs? My /home is reiserfs. According to this it does (see table, "2" column), but I'm quite leary right now.

Thanks.

[dedanna1029]

No, sorry, on second thought, I'm not going to do Mageia. That partition is too crucially important.
Anyone got any idea of something that will work, and still mount reiserfs on install?

I would try to do an Arch install saving /home (which I still haven't got the hang of on it), but it would take too much time to set up, and figuring out how to save /home...

Boss, you gave me clues on that, but what I need to know is what to manually click to do what, and to tell it not to format, etc. etc. - with a graphical installer, I *might* be able to do it, but its installer shows no obvious clues of what to click on, etc. - I didn't get that from you. It's the mechanics I need.

Thanks.

[viking60]

Uh I feel somewhat bombarded here . But to answer what you asked and left first:

Code: Select all

dd if=<source> of=<target>

The source is your iso and the target is you usb (/dev/sdr or something) be very sure of your USB's location, dd is fantastic for wiping stuff - fast

Regarding Arch there is only the hard way of the beginners guide and it will take more patience than ever which you probably do not have

Arch has been a rocky ride lately, meaning that much time had to be spent in making it run smoothly, it has not been as stable as in the past much due to the transfer to systemd.

The scripts like rc.conf are pretty much gone and replaced by the systemd syntax. This has the great advantage that once you get the hang of it, you will be able to work with all distros in the same way.

You will learn more than ever and you will have to read up more than ever - if your willing to invest that then the reward will be great - as always.

My wife is no Computer guru but I have here using Arch on here laptop - with openbox - since I decided to loose Gnome once and for all (well for now anyway )
So it still is usable.... and bleeding edge, more so than ever - and be warned the installation is a bit harder than it used to be..

But I am still "Archefied" I try out other distros and end up missing stuff that I have been spoiled with by Arch - (I cannot think of any program that I cannot install in Arch).

To keep /home you can simply not format/write it with cfdisk which is the most practical tool when installing Arch (make a backup). You only have to mount it.
(If it works -lemme know )

[dedanna1029]

Yeah, it would be the time to setup post-install that would nail me. I'm going to wait until the quarter's out from school, I think, for it.
For now, I need something lightning fast to install that will work with the netbook. I don't think Mageia will be it. It has too many reiserfs bugs, and I can't risk the partition. I've already deleted it off, to reclaim the space. It won't be 'buntu, or any of its derivatives. I suppose it could be Debian, but I just don't want to go there right now. I am 100 GBs short on backing up, so can't. No room.

So, I'm going to keep looking, for that distro that will work with the netbook and isn't so time-consuming to install, that supports reiserfs... *sigh

Thanks much on the dd command. It will be quite useful.

[viking60]

You could give Mageia the dd treatment and see if it works - your /home has a better chance of working with another RPM distro,
Or you can try viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2125

I guess I could help you install Arch via SSH - no guarantees.......

[dedanna1029]

That's OK. I'll try dd on Mageia, see what happens. I think I'll download the dvd though, and not do the dual arch cd.

[dedanna1029]

But to answer what you asked and left first:

Code: Select all

dd if=<source> of=<target>

The source is your iso and the target is you usb (/dev/sdr or something) be very sure of your USB's location, dd is fantastic for wiping stuff - fast

Say, the iso is in /home/myuser/Downloads/Mageia/<Mageia.iso filename>, sdb6.

The one to copy to is obvious, /dev/sdc.

I don't know how much /dev has changed on these things since sdx started out. I'm thinking I could go /dev/sdb6/Downloads/Mageia/<Mageia.iso filename> to the flash stick, /dev/sdc? Or would I simply go /home/myuser/Downloads/Mageia/<Mageia.iso filename>?

Thanks.

Edit: Never mind. Don't know why I didn't think of this. I usually do:

Code: Select all

.:[ [email protected] : 13:18:55 : ~ ]:.
:) cd /home/dedanna/Downloads/Mageia
.:[ [email protected] : 13:19:12 : /home/dedanna/Downloads/Mageia ]:.
:) dd if=Mageia-2-dual-CD.iso of=/dev/sdc

[viking60]

The easiest way is to navigate to the directory where Mageia.iso is.

Code: Select all

cd /home/dedanna/Apfelstrudel/

And do a

Code: Select all

dd if=Mageia.iso of=/dev/sdc

If /dev/sdc is your USB pin!

[dedanna1029]

LOL. Sorry, didn't see your post before I'd thought of that very thing!

I'd like to know, though, how long it should take, approximately? Thanks.