Hi Simon,

U want to create a rootfs.gz to use Slitaz in Ram but u want to keep u configurations permanent ? I'm right ?

Yep there's a way to do it :

In Grub, there's an option , u can put beside screen= .... , keymap=.....
It's " config= .... " , with this one , you can link to a .sh made by your own and displayed next your boot folder .

In that .sh , you can put an interesting instructions . For exemple, write in it your complete network.conf and ask it to be copied in etc/network.conf. (of course u need to have in your rootfs.gz a blank network.conf )

I think I will make a little tutorial to explain it deeply . Indeed , Slitaz in RAM is 3 times better :)))))

Hi moule frite,
't Es pas belge par hasard (des moules frites son le plat nationale de mon pays :-)? merci pour ta reponse et ton aide. je vais changer en englais de nouveau:
I would be delighted to learn from you how to do the above if all else fails so keep me posted.
In fact what i forgot to mention is that when i boot with "home=hda3" in my boot parameters the logout does give me the option to "save filesystem using compression" in either lzma or gz but when i select it SliTaz hangs and a terminal says: xterm: "Can't execvp '/usr/bin/tazusb: No such file or directory" I then check and the said directory and file are there alright with content and all. Googled for other mentions but nothing useful came up. When I then close the terminal the system shuts itself down but no changes are preserved.
Also I tried do get persistence trough tazlito tool but it modified my mbr which took me hours to get Nltdr and grub4dos running. So that did not work out either.

But as I said the option to preserve changes is there so it must be possible no? Anybody know about (semi-) automated persistency?
Please let me know!

(PS midori froze on me several times so i had to rewrite this, a bug or do i need to configure it?)

(edited double post)

Hi Simon

No, in fact , Moulefrite is the name of my dog ;))) for true

Ok , parlons français comme des gens civilisés . :p

J'ai cru que tu voulais créer une façon de pouvoir configurer (réseaux,graphisme...) ta session frugal/live et ce , en utilisant un rootfs.gz statique crée auparavant par tes soins avec les paquets voulus.

Maintenant je crois comprendre que tu cherches simplement à créer un rootfs.gz . C'est ça ?
Alors oui, il y a (ou avait ?) un moyen de sauvegarder l'image de ta session Live avant de te déconnecter avec le logout (très utile et simple ) .

Si tu me dis que ça marche pas ( je suis pas qualifié pour rentrer dans les détails) je te conseille de lire ceci

http://slitaz.org/fr/doc/handbook/hacking-livecd.html#rootfs

Aussi, il y a la méthode barbare et simple que j'ai utilisé auparavant :
Installer Slitaz sur une partition, la bidouiller en paquets, thèmes .... à sa guise .
Eteindre , rebooter en Live , et executer simplement une commande (trouvable dans le lien précédent) à l'endroit de ton Slitaz installé en dur

Avec Lzma
# find . -print | cpio -o -H newc | lzma e -si -so > ../rootfs.gz
Ou avec gzip :
# find . -print | cpio -o -H newc | gzip -9 > ../rootfs.gz

Simple hein ? ici, il va créer ton rootfs dans le dossier parent de ta partition.

Bon évidement, avec cette méthode, faut pas oublier de NETTOYER ton install Slitaz avant d'en faire un rootfs.gz !!!! Imagine créer un rootfs.gz avec dedans dans l'historique firefox , des liens de site de c** LOL ,

Bon après, pour revenir à ce que je disais dans mon post précedent, c'est bien utile, si tu veut pas avoir dans ton rootfs.gz un thème et une configuration réseaux (par exemple) statique.

Dis moi quoi

oui Midori , c'est pas encore au point..

Hey moulefrite,
C'est marrant que ton chien s'appelle comme ca. Merci encore pour ton reaction. en faite ce que je cherche a faire c'est faire sur un disque dur interne ce qui semble etre possible sur un disaue dur externe usb: un install frugale avec persitence. Les guides parlent de simplement ajouter le parametre home= (dans mon cas home=hda3) au menu.lst de grub. Et ca marche a tel point que quand je exite slitaz je recois l' option cite en haute ("save filesystem using compression" avec le choix entre lzma ou gz) mais quand je prends cette option je resois un erruer dans un terminal: "Can't execvp '/usr/bin/tazusb: No such file or directory" et apres slitaz shuts down mais sans preserver les changes.
Excuse moi pour mon francais je suis neerlandophone et mon englais est mieux parce que j'ai vecu plus longtemps entre des englophones que des phrancophones, Je cherche donc pas un solution pour un remaster mais un solution qui preserve tous les petites changes que je fais quotidiennement donc un solution comme selui ci: http://forum.slitaz.org/index.php/discussion/144/how-to-frugal-manual-install-slitaz-revision-2.0
Leur instructions ont pas marche mais j'ai oublie a copier tous le contenu du iso, non seulement le intrd et le vmlinuz. Donc je vais encore essayer de nouveau ces instructions. Je reviendrais!

english please, we uncivilized people don't understand french and this is english-general...

Yes Erna you're quite right of course. This is the english forumm sorry!
At the moment i'm still trying things out but so far it seems that the solution proposed in the link (http://forum.slitaz.org/index.php/discussion/144/how-to-frugal-manual-install-slitaz-revision-2.0) does the trick for revision3 as well. But i'm not quite convinced it is full persistence and it works best if you copy the entire boot folder onto the root of your hdd and do not change the folder's name.
edit: I changed the grub menu entry to match the name of the folder:
title SliTaz
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/bzImage rw root=/dev/null home=/dev/hda3 toram=filesystem.squashfs lang=en kmap=be-latin1 screen=1024x768x24 vga=normal
initrd /boot/rootfs.gz
Maybe it is possible to change the folder name but I haven't tried and i don't know if it will work as well in slitaz as in debian-> either by appending to your bootloder menu or config the parameter live_media_path=path/to/foldername or by editing that parameter in the appropriate intrd file (see here for how it should work in debian: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?s=dd2810983800da3a66a93ef1f18462bb&p=3920446#post3920446).
What confuses me in the debian example is is wether it is not neccesary to change the parameters in both places if they occur not only in the scripts/live but in the intrd file as well or is the latter not used in frugal booting. Anybody knows?>

I have not tried to reproduce errors or change folder names for the moment.
Slitaz is persistent with the entire bootfolder from the iso copied to the root of a partition and "home=" added to grub's menu.lst.

However I lost the ability to set my keymap to azerty -with which i can't live- and xfe highlighted fonts are badly readable (but not when the window is not in focus) -whith which i can live. This happened since i installed xorg ati driver (xVesa driver gives artefacts with Ati radeon 7500 also on other linuxes; I later also installed xrandr for turning of laptop monitor).
So I dropped out of the gui into console for a Xorg reconfigure and copied the xorg.conf.new but when I tested it in console i got some of the same errors as mentioned here: http://forum.slitaz.org/index.php/discussion/428/feed-back-sur-la-nouvelle-cooking-:-tjs-des-pb-avec-xvesa
I installed the xorg evdev package and those x11 fonst that were in the repository but did'nt fix it. I also tried in vain al the present codecs including mplayer's to get vlc to play sound in all my video's. Now i only got sound with some of them the others play alright in mplayer though i much prefer to use vlc.

Question:
Does anybody have a solution for my keyboard (I will try to copy keymap & fonts items from a pristine slitaz xorg.conf file) vlc sound (and fonts) problem? Does anybody know how to tweak initrd.gz so that /home is also kept and changes saved within the ramdisk image instead of uncompressed on the harddisk? (I want to keep wine and its huge office program compressed & into ram) This would also mean that another boot parameter than home=hda*/sda* should be used).

Sorry for the errors buit typing qwerty on an azerty board is really a pain and timeconsuming.... So help on these would be greatly appreciated but perhaps these auestions should be asked in separate posts? Wouldn't it be nice if the forum was split up thematically?
Goodnight to all!

I found and 'll try this for the keymap (new handbook on slitaz's site): SliTaz saves the configuration of the default locale in /etc/locale.conf which is read by /etc/profile on each login and the keyboard setting is stored in /etc/kmap.conf. These two files can be edited with your favorite editor or configured respectively with tazlocale and tazkeymap. You can modify the settings you chose on the first boot by typing as root administrator:)

Anybody has anything on the home folder and vlc sound question? (and fonts, though i can try editing xorg.conf for that)...

if you have installed xorg-xf86-input-evdev you should select your keyboard through a hal rule, or at least i've done it that way:
http://forum.slitaz.org/index.php/discussion/comment/3807/#Comment_3807
this is a workaround i use to have specific xorg.conf for specific pc, but if you have just a pc you can have a xorg.conf, the hal rule works anyway:
http://forum.slitaz.org/index.php/discussion/comment/4181/#Comment_4181
about saving /home in initramfs edit /usr/bin/tazusb and move /home from the for cicle at line 487 to the find command at line 485, but beware of ram size issues

Hey Ernia,
That is really great, thanks a lot for your help, I 'll try this out as soon as I have a bit more time this weekend!
Meanwhile I have some questions about /home and ramdisk if I may, and I hope they will be the last to bother the community with:
1. If I edit /usr/bin/tazusb how do I keep persistence since the boot parameter home=hda3 (in my case) would apply any more I suppose, or? I was thinking that it would actually make more sense to keep /home as hda3 and just to move the user folder ('tux' or others) from /home into intramfs (where also 'root' is). Do you know how I can do that?
2. I use the boot parameter toram=filesystem.squashfs, is this parameter superfluous and what is the difference with the parameter root=/dev/ram ramdisk_size=xxxxxx rw and if I better use the latter parameters, what number should I write there: the MB equivalent of the full 512MB ram, or less, or more with the swap included?
I have placed my Internet program (seamonkey shared with other OS installs) and its download folder, mailbox and cache on another partition. My rootfilsesystem of Slitaz (with I think all applications I need) is about 70MB and I want to add wine with an installation of msword2003 which takes up 450MB uncompressed (I don't know the average compression rate of lzma, will take some time to save sessions I suppose...).
3. I read somewhere that you need at least 256MB spare ram to run processes, but I have so far run 465MB filesystems of debian lxde without problems using half of both 512MB ram and 512MB swap. How much spare ram do I really need for running processes and what components should I best run in respectively ram and swap to have performance benefits of a frugal install and how do I configure this; e.g. what is the trade of between installing office2003 or seamonkey browser cache in ram or can I have both running in my 512MBram?
4. All this moving /home or /user and compressed .wine folder with office2003 in ram would not be necessary if I could share the .wine folder I have on the home partition shared between my "puppy linuxes". I did try to share all the non installation specific folders with slitaz but it's not working and I suspect not even possible (unless I change links each time I run either puppy or slitaz) because if e.g. winword is run it will look also to the non symlinked folders that have to do with puppy's wine.sfs paths rather than the slitaz installation. Does somebody know a workaround that would save me from using space i can't spare for a second uncompressed office2003 installation?
Thanks again for all the very valuable help and have a fine weekend!
Simon

you ask a lot of things, and i've reread your first post more carefully and now i can't understand what you are doing.
i don't know grub4dos but looking at your menu.lst you are using slitaz as a live system without knowing it, so you are not having changes saved when you exit because you should use tazusb writefs lzma to have a brand new rootfs.gz with your changes inside.
http://hg.slitaz.org/tazusb/raw-file/tip/doc/tazusb.en.html
the problem with your setup is that if you have not deleted /init in your rootfs.gz you try to use an initramfs which never load another root filesystem. in slitaz live you never exit from initramfs, initramfs is your root filesystem and this is probably the reason why /home is not in initramfs by default, it could eat up a lot or all of your memory.
slitaz will take all the memory needed from the uncompressed rootfs.gz, if the memory is not enough you will not be able to run programs because you will not have memory. so, if i got it right, slitaz does not have toram=filesystem.squashfs or root=/dev/ram or ramdisk_size=xxxxxx rw because slitaz does not have a ramdisk but a initramfs from where you never get out.
if the psubdir=SliTaz in grub4dos menu.lst means that grub4dos do some sort of chroot in /Slitaz directory of whereismounted/dev/hda3 and you need slitaz only in your pc maybe you could try a hd install of slitaz in the Slitaz directory of whereismounted/dev/hda3 and maybe share you /home with puppy linux, but i think that you could have problems sharing /home dir because slitaz has some personalized script and the same could have puppy.
http://doc.slitaz.org/en:handbook:installation

ernia,
I provided the wrong information, I had changed my grub's menu.lst, I am so sorry about that (I have added it now to my first post of april, please see there). So on that basis I suppose we can skip the remaks of your last paragraph, no?
As for not loading a filesystem outside initramfs, does this have downsides if I want to load the whole filesystem in ram anyway? With my current setup (see post on 1 arpril) I am booting quickly, running Slitaz comfortably and at logout Slitaz gives me the option to "save filesystem using compression" (lzma or gz) and it will automatically save my changes into a new rootfs.gz while backing up the previous ones.
This works really great and seems to save changes well! Only I would like to include my user (tux or other) folder in that rootfs instead of in home. Since the persistence boot parameter requires to define home as a partition I suppose, not footfs.gz (which is fine, puppy does the same but e.g. lighthouse puppy saves its other users also on its squashfilesystem).

So to recapitulate:
1. Given your last post and with the aim of running slitaz compressed in ram: what are the benefits of runninging it not only from rootfs.gz but from an additional compressed squashfileystem also (and do I just need to delete /init from rootfs.gz to do so)?
2. Do you know how do I change the location of my user folder (tux or other) from home (=hda3) to the rootfs (or if better to the addiotional squasfilesystem).

Extra from above: As long as I have only that 70MB compressed rootfs.gz running in ram, I will have plenty of space in ram to run programs and processes I suppose though with my 512MB ram I wonder about the following:
- if I am going to add wine with office2003 (450MB, don't know how much that will be compressed) am i going to have enough ram left to run processes?
- could and should I set my browser cache to ram as well? (now it is set to an external partition, as are my download folder and mailfolder)
- why does a 400MB debian filesystem.squashfs running fine frugally with the bootprefix toram=filesystem.squashfs show in the proces manager only 200MB ram used and 200MB swap.
How shouls I configure running parts either in ram or in swap, any Ideas?

Again thanks a lot for your valuable help and patience!
Simon

forgive me, i've seen root=hda3 so i thougth that you wanted an hdinstall and were using initramfs without knowing that you never exit from it in live mode.
your post of 1st april is in french, i know nothing about french.
with the tazusb modification i gave you in my first post of 3rd april there is no need of home= boot parameter because /home would be in your rootfs.gz after the first run of tazusb writefs lzma (which is the program that slitaz run when you save).
beware of upgrades because if the modified tazusb would be overwritten from an unmodified one at first execution of tazusb writefs you would loose your /home.
the toram= option is not a kernel option
http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt
so there must be some script somewhere which take care to do the job required to use squashfs and aufs, because squashfs is readonly and you must use aufs or unionfs to save your changes to squashfs. take a look at debian script to see how they manage it.
the rootfs.gz is extracted by the kernel itself
http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/filesystems/ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt
so it is not possible keep it compressed while booting.
the only way to keep slitaz compressed or reduce the size of slitaz memory usage would be to compress part of the system (not the init script) and modify the init script to get the aufs up before to start the booting process.
you should save your session modification in a brand new squashfs again if you, e.g., install new programs, i don't think that aufs write its changes in a compressed way.
in my opinion it's a mess, you must be very motivated to do that, and it will take you lot of time. but if you like it... :-)

Hey ernia,
It was my bad! I forgot to post the new menu.lst - and we shouldn't be having full conversations in french on the english forum :-) (basically, moulefrite explained me how to make a rootfs.gz from an installed system and i was saying I failed to get persistence, which is sorted now).
I was surprised to learn that the kernel decompresses rootfs.gz into ram that is a very useful piece of information too, thank you again! My fully installed slitaz took more than 1GB on my hdd, which wouldn't fit in my 512MB ram, but that's something different than an uninstalled decompressed rootfs.gz I now realise :-) But no matter, I'll do it uncompressed and keep an eye on resource while running and see how I fare.
I am not nearly skilled enough to find out by myself in reasonable time how to modify the scripts to have aufs or unionfs up in time to have a writable squashfilesystem, if that's the only way to have a compressed filesystem running in ram. So I 'll follow your lead and give that up. :-) (edit: i deleted one ignorant question :-)
Thanks again for your help! I'll look at the documentation and try your fix when I'm back in Slitaz. You mean the one where you say: "about saving /home in initramfs edit /usr/bin/tazusb and move /home from the for cicle at line 487 to the find command at line 485, but beware of ram size issues", no?. I'll just post again with my findings just in case other people would like to know how it went...
Okay, I'm off to other realms now. Thanks once more! and goodnight :-)

Hi Simon

Hoe gaat het ? ;D


I see that you have some trouble. Perheaps if you want us to help u,
u should be more accute in your questions as we can't follow ..


So I understand that you want a big Live Slitaz, but you are short with RAM.

But let me share my work of the 2 last days. It's a nice tip :

The idea is to create a dubble-slitaz : A little Live inside a fully installed
Slitaz where your Live Slitaz can overtake the application from the installed one.

See # tazpkg link openoffice /media/*hard*disk*/

In other words, have Firefox in Ram but load OpenOffice from your harddrive


So here's the way I do it very simple:

1* Launch a Live Slitaz
2* Install all the "heavy" and "casual" application of your future "installed" Slitaz (ex : gimp, open office, skype, wine ... )
3* With tazlito, go on "Live flavor" and press on "Gen distro"
(to speed up the processus copy paste already the tazpkg from your var/cache/tazpkg to the home/slitaz/packages )
4* At the end of the process, you will have a new ISO
5* Make an LiveUSB with TazUSB, your ISO and a USBKey
6* Mount this USBkey as /media/cdrom/
7* Connect an SDcard or another USBKey, or whatever you want to have
Slitaz installed on it (Let's say SDCard)
7* Launch Slitaz Installer, press on "list" to get the name of you target media,
(/dev/sdb1) and then install fully your Slitaz. Don't install Grub.
8* When the installation is finished, you will have your Slitaz installed on
a device (SDCard for exemple).
9* Delete the boot folder from your SDCard

----At this point you have your "heavy-installed" Slitaz, but not bootable

10* Launch TazUSB again, but use the standard Slitaz ISO (+-30mb) and your SDCard as target.
11* TazUSB will generate a new boot folder and won't touch the other folders
previously installed on your SDCard.
12* You can find in boot a folder called EXTLINUX,
find extlinux.conf and open it
13* You can append some automatic options .. but I recommend you to remove the home=.... option (we will see why further, but not having the cache of your browser on your SDCard is already a good reason)
--------------------------------
display extlinux.msg

label slitaz
kernel /boot/bzImage
append initrd=/boot/rootfs.gz rw root=/dev/null screen=800x600x16 lang=fr_FR kmap=de-latin1 (in 1 row !)

include common.cfg
----------------------------------------------------

14* Ok, shutdown u computer, and boot on your SDCard (you can change boot priority in the Bios)
15* Have a look of the results ... Yes it's just the simple slitaz 3 ... ;P
16* But mount for exemple your SDCard on /media/disk (simply from openbox folder browser)
17* and write in terminal something like # tazpkg link gimp /media/disk/
19* say "yes" for all the dependencies. And test your "installed" applications
20* Ok, now lets create some automatic boot configuration .... and than, the finalisation

But I will explain that in another post. I'm too tired now ;p

Tot ziens

When done could someone add this to the wiki? To hard to follow if your not in the convo for regular users



Rupp

Simon,

I tested http://forum.slitaz.org/index.php/discussion/144/how-to-frugal-manual-install-slitaz-revision-2.0 for tikbalang. Still can't get answers to the following.

"Everything works. Now here's the rub. I culled through every page of documentation on the slitaz website and wiki. Most of the documentation appears geared to a technically oriented person rather than a businessman. Most seems out of date. For example, I tried SliTaz cooking [Traditional frugal install] from the wiki; no workee. I tried SliTaz cooking [ISO image] from the wiki; no workee. The TazUSB approach to frugal install; no workee.

For months I've been trying to use SliTaz as a replacement for Windows. Right now, I am spending more time trying to figure out SliTaz than I do fighting Windows.

Here's what I can't do in SliTaz.

Remaster a LiveCD after updating all of my packages with 'tazpkg upgrade', despite multiple forum postings.
Can't use the full laptop monitor real estate, despite multiple forum postings.
Can't use my wireless, despite multiple forum postings.
Can't get CupsPDF working, despite multiple forum postings.

More frustrated than ever! Maybe apple ... lmart"

After some work, I can boot SliTaz 3.0 directly from an iso image on my hdd.
Now, if logic holds, you should be able to add/upgrade, with a new SliTaz in ram. What I have yet to figure out is how to create an iso of SliTaz in ram. Then all I have to do is replace the old iso image on my hdd with the new iso. Viola, excuse the French, a completely updated SliTaz.
No idea why I'm still trying ...

@imart
probably you are an hacker :-)
re-read this link that i have posted yesterday:
http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/filesystems/ramfs-rootfs-initramfs.txt
you will find out that if you boot an iso and you don't do an hdinstall your whole system runs in ram, except /home. in the kernel command line you give root=/dev/null so where does your / directory comes out?
that is the reason why i love slitaz even if it's not transalated in italian and has some maturity problem, developers had a bright idea and i respect them.
if you do the tazusb mods i've posted before ("about saving /home in initramfs edit /usr/bin/tazusb and move /home from the for cicle at line 487 to the find command at line 485, but beware of ram size issues") your whole system, /home included, runs in ram.
the command to save your changes would be tazusb writefs lzma
http://hg.slitaz.org/tazusb/raw-file/tip/doc/tazusb.en.html
but if you want to use slitaz as a windows replacement you better do an hdinstall, i think.

@simon
i did not want to discourage you from trying to have part of the system in squashfs, you could put your squashfs inside rootfs.gz and the kernel would extract squashfs leaving it compressed, but it will take you a lot of time to configure all and it would be very similar to a live cd. it could be an interesting challenge, you could say "i did it", you just have to decide if you want to do it or you have more interesting things to do. the advantage respect to moulefrite's solution would be that you don not need to have a disk connected to your pc after that the system is loaded in ram.

* So, at the present time of my "no-command" tutorial,
we have on a SDcard with :

1' Default Live Slitaz
2' inside a customed and installed one.


Now we are going to append a little script that will

1' Configure automaticaly Network at boot
2' And restore your saved .config

********************************

1* Create a folder on your primary HardDrive (hda1 or hdc1)
(It's seems that SDCard and USB has some troubles to be mounted at boot time) named "SliTaz (!! careful big "T" !!!).

2* Configure your GTK,OpenBox,LxPanel,WallPaper as you wish
but let's say that you must keep default option :

-> Wallpaper : found on /media/flash/SliTaz/background.png
(so before mount your hardrive as "flash" and put into your
png wallpaper called background)
-> Whatever you choice or do with GTK and OpenBox theme, be aware
that the system is pointing to SliTaz default theme.
(So copy-replace your configured gtk-2.0 and openbox-3 folders
in /usr/share/themes/SliTaz)

3* Copy this /usr/share/themes/SliTaz folder in your hda1
(with inside : GTK, Openbox folders and your backgrond.png)

4* Add to that SliTaz folder your /root/.config folder
(just keep inside the following folders :
gtk-2.0 , lxpanel, openbox, pcmanfm, slitaz )

5* Configure your internet connection to get it work

6* Go in your SDCard/boot/extlinux/extlinux.conf

7* Add at the line "append", beside the other option, this :

config=/dev/your_SDCARD_ID,slitazconf.sh

8* This is a script that you have to create (with a simple text editor)
and display beside the boot folder of your SDCard. This script will be
launch at boot time.

9* Here's an exemple of what you can write in it :



-------------------------------------------------------------------

cd /etc/init.d

# go and write in the local.sh of Slitaz

cat >> local.sh << "EOF"<br />
# this is OPTIONAL !!! If do, of course, then change
# your resolution choice in extlinux.conf !!

echo "Create exotic new resolution for your Intel graphic chip"
915resolution 5c 1024 600 16


mount -t ext3 /dev/hda1 /media/flash

# delete your Theme folder before creating
# a symbolic link to your personnal-saved one.

cd /usr/share/themes/
rm -rf SliTaz
ln -s /media/flash/SliTaz /usr/share/themes/SliTaz

# erase your default /root/.config and
# copy from your Theme folder, your saved .config

cd /root/
rm -rf .config
cp -R /media/flash/SliTaz/.config/ /root/

# finish the writing in /etc/init.d/local.sh

EOF



# Automatic configuration of Network at boot time

cd /etc

# remove default etc/network.conf and create and write the saved one

rm network.conf

cat >> network.conf << "EOF"<br />
---###--- copy-paste here ---------------
--- the content of your etc/network.conf --------------
--- when you have it configured and working -----------

EOF

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


10* Save your slitazconf.sh and reboot your computer

11* Check if internet connection and appareance in root session
is auto-configured




See you for the final step : Create your definitive Live Slitaz with its
tazpkg links to the already "installed" Slitaz

Let's precise things.

home=usb , is just a tip to save out on a usb the tux's session configuration. (in the home folder you have sorts of hidden folder like .config , .midori ... )

Right ?

Tazlito, is something else. This can help you to either to create an iso based on
your current packages installation, either

Oh, a lot of reactions since I last looked. That's nice. Thanks a lot ernia and moulefrite! What a helpful and friendly place this forum is! I will read through your suggestions and try out what is not above my leage :-) I'll keep you posted on it.
I feel the same as Rupp that all this scattered info here and elsewhere on the forum concerning frugal installs and the various possibilities and tweaks could be of great interest to a lot of users and would be well in the handbook or wiki!
(If nobody else much more knowleadgeble than I feels like writing, I could write a small section but only on what I tried and more or less understand, namely the below, if somebody proofreads it for erronius information. Moulefrite, maybe you could post your things there directly?)
At the moment I'm still all over the place a little and midori still freezes so I should install another browser beside working on my setup first :-)
On that note, to make the installation more lean uninstalling packages will that free the system of all dependencies that are not shared with other apps as well (I have to read up on that :-)?
@Imart, did you succeed after ernia's help? I'll write my experiences as if for the newbe I am myself, just in case :-). What I did was simply extract the entire boot folder from the slitaz iso and place in the root of any partition without changing the name 'boot' (my partition is formatted as ext3 though i don't know if that is a must) and chainload it with grub4dos from windows (it is very easy and quickly done, if you like a link where you can get grub4dos and which very easily explained for me how to install it, i can try and find it :-).
The root user folder is (without tweaking I suppose) always included in your rootfs.gz image but the other user folders (like tux or others you want to creat) are not. I see two easy options now:
1 You keep your user folder in a partition of your choice (formatted in ext3, though again: I don't know if that is a must) by doing simply the following:
You add the line home=hdax (or sdax) to the boatloder configuration file (in my case the menu.lst of grub4dos; nb I use hdax in case if is an internal harddrive and sdax if it is an external usb drive and the must be replaced by the number of the partition you chose). Upon boot you have your tux (or other user folders) simply on that partition, directly accesible to other linux operating systems. The advantage is, if everything is as it should be that upon logout slitaz will present you with an option to save the system as a rootfs.gz in the boot folder with all the changes you made while running it and even automatically keep dated backups of the previous rootfs.gz. The modifications made to the user will be preserved as well since they are simply in the folder(s) on the partition you choose with the boot parameter. As simple as that!
2 If, like me you like to keep your user folder within the rootfs.gz image you simply follow the tweak of ernia (which works brilliantly, thanks ernia!) and leave out the boot parameter home=hdax (or sdax). Now Slitaz will on logout not offer you the option to save changes to the rootfs.gz but it can save it exactly in the same way as in option 1.
If you for example rightclick anywhere on the desktop you will get a menu which gives you 'SliTaz Live' > 'TazUSB Writefs (none: no compression; gzip: compression; lzma: higher compression but takes more time to save though about as quick to decompress). Or you can symply type in a terminal: tazusb writefs lzma (or gzip or none). It saves the rootfs gz in the root folder of your slitaz filesystem so do not forget to move it from within the running filesystem to the bootfolder or all your changes will be lost anyway :-)
I hope this helps, let me know if there's anything else!
And to the others, please do add or correct where neccesary :-)
PS I have not tried upgrading processes. My paranoia is that configuring a pristine install will save time over upgrading and correcting possible issues that may arise with it, but that might be entirely mistaken :-)

@ moulefrite!
I suppose something came up since your last post broke off :-)
Though I am way too much behind with my job's work, I am tempted to try out your guide with the hardware that I have at my disposal but I don't know if it is possible. I have a laptop that, I belive, can't boot from usb, two fatv external usb harddrives with some gigabite of room left and on my internal hardrive an ext3 partition with (if I delete some frugal installs) a gigabyte or so room left... Is there no other way than using TazUsb because that would reformat my usb harddrive, right? so that would'n work for me as I have nowhere to copy and reopy my dta from that hdd and I don't want to buy a new usbkey or drive for the moment.
Oh, you know dutch as well! So we could move over to the dutch forum *grin*.
@ ernia, I think for the time being I'll pass on the challenge in trying to create a squasfilesystem within the rootfsz.gz. As I am way behind with the work I should actually be doing. But if you feel like getting into more detail of how to do such a thing I might be tempted to give it a try.
Thanks again!

@simon
i'm still busy with understanding how slitaz works :-)

Simon

Actualy, TazUSB doesn't format and Slitaz Installer doesn't require it necessarly

ok I summarize :

1* you can install a personnal Slitaz (with heavy but casual applications) where you want with Slitaz Installer , remove its boot folder .

2* Then , with TazUsb , install a Live Slitaz in the same device, which will install
a new boot folder with EXTLINUX . And make the device bootable

3* Use the option config= in extlinux.conf to make some automatic configuration at boot in a script made by your own

4* Configure your Live Slitaz session in real time , with some add package like
flash-plugin, xine ... and other little-often-used-stuff , create tazpkg link between your running system and your installed one , fix some graphic,menu,icon on your criteria ... Then -> Create LiveCD -> Write Iso

5* Recover form your new ISO the rootfs.gz with ISOMaster and use it to replace your standard rootfs.gz in the boot folder of your device.

That's it

And all this without any command, good for noobs :D

Hey moulefrite,
That's an interesting setup you have been working on. Thanks for sharing that with us and explaining me in more detail!!
As for me I am looking for a simple, compact solution and preferably keep everything in the frugal install's rootfs.gz. As for wine, it seems that the need for making a squashfilesystem is resolved since I managed to get the external .wine folder from my puppy linux to work for slitaz (All I needed to do was install wine in slitaz, winecfg, and edit the .wine folder: delete folder drive_c to save extra space, delety the symlink C: and replace it by a symlink c: pointing to the drive_c from the external wine folder and replace the system.reg and user.reg by those from the external wine folder (i found it out by myself through trial and error :-).
(As for the original question of the thread it can be considered solved but since I've some outstanding questions I'd like to wait to label it as such if that's ok, or maybe I should close this thread and make a new one?)
By the way, when thinking about making a squashfilesystem from wine I was looking at how tiny core linux symlinks extensions in squasfile either on boot or on demand and either from disk or from ram. I must say i am sold on it. I hope all other distro's will offer such kind of modular frugal install, I think it's a great approach!! I want to stay with slitaz though: I love its compact userfriendly, stable design and its extensions though I am missing perhaps thunderbird and a working vlc.
To All:
The only problem I have (beside xorg and vlc which I will tackle later following the suggestiobns from ernia) is that some programming in slitaz is setting the internal partitions as accesible for root only and is preventing me even as root to modify the permissions (whether in pcmanfm or in terminal). This is really giving me a headache and unnecesarily so, I'm really getting seriously annoyed and tired of Linux distros resetting permissions on directories outside their own filesystem, this should really stop! Does anybody know how to make my hardrive partitions accesile to tux? I tried changing some of the rules in etc/udev but that does not help. Anybody any ideas?
Please let me know!
(Can somebody explain me why I can't run everything as root if I am careful in my browsing and pc habits? What is this linux obsession and messing with permisions finally good for? It's worse than vista, to my personal feeling... Please don't take offence to this newbie's frustration :-)
(PS if it's of any consequence: it's the firefox flavour i'm runiing and frugally without further mods to the filesystem)

UPDATE: I found out in the meantime that the permissions change because PCmanFM mounts the partitions under /media insted of /mnt which allows tux acces to the directories... I'll try to solve it by editing fstab and locas.sh so that it will automount in the proper mountpoint... Hope it'l work...

here's what i did.

1. copy contents if slitaz iso to root of partition.
2. install grub4dos.

this is the same menu.lst i used with slitaz 2.0:

title Slitaz
find --set-root --ignore-floppies /boot/bzimage
kernel /boot/bzimage rw root=/dev/null home=4039-E1EC lang=en kmap=us vga=normal autologin acpi=off apm=on power_off=1
initrd /boot/rootfs.gz

home=(partition serial number)

it still works but the problem now is it does not autologin.

this are the contents of my \boot

grub\
isolinux\
bzImage
gpxe
rootfs.gz
vmlinuz-2.6.30.6-slitaz

i multiple boot between winxp and other linuxes including slitaz 3.0. let me know if you find a solution to autologin.

the error i get is:

"failed to execute login"

all this is still the same with my old tutorial somewhere in this forum.

good luck.

- tikbalang