May 2010 - Arch-releng - lists.archlinux.org

[arch-releng] updates to Wireless card issue
by Keith Hinton 13 May '10

13 May '10

Okay, Thomas, I ran the commands you mentioned. The resulting URL should contain the output. I am now back in Windows at this point-and Curl had to be installed into the LiveCD before this would work. The resulting URL is: http://npaste.de/Su/ http://npaste.de/Su/ Enjoy! Note: My passed email where I mentioned kernel 2.6.33, and the need to first rmmod iwlagn, modprobe iwlagn prior to wlan0 actually showing up still applies. Hopefully the above URL will assist in you folks actually telling me how I could avoid this (especially) in an installed environment specifically. Thanks again! Note: it would be even more useful if folks with Intel WiFi Link 5100 AGN wireless cards could also help other than myself with testing out this type of thing. Thanks. Regards, --Keith

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[arch-releng] Iwlagn driver issue
by Keith Hinton 12 May '10

12 May '10

Hi list, First: I'm using the very latest ArchCD (not the official Arch disk as that is not accessible-and I'm a blind comptuer user, but Chris Brannon's TalkingArch project.) He produces snapshots using Archiso and some other tools and provides the accessibility-but it is identical otherwise beyond including some other packages to the netisntall CD. His latest snapshot uses kernel 2.6.33. For more information for those Arch users who are unaware of his project, please type: Arch Linux for the blind into the search box of the Arch wiki. You'll find links to download the CD and such there, and learn more about what it is. Or visit: http://the-brannons.com/tarch/ One of the probles I'm having and this is why I mentioned the kernel on Chrises snapshot is this: I have an Intel WiFi Link 5100 AGN wireless internal card in this laptop. While this card does have support via the entry driver iwlagn, I have a problem. When I boot the CD Rom, and run lsmod, one of the loaded modules is, iwlagn. However, despite this being the case, guess what fello Archers? No wireless wlan0 interface, in fact: iwconfig: Lo no wireless extentions. Eth0 no wireless extentions. Then it returns the shell. if using his CD that would be: root@Archiso. So then, I have to type the following and yes the wifi-5000-Ucode file is already on the Arch CD under /lib/firmware: rmmod iwlagn modprobe iwlagn And only after typing this does the itnerface finally show up to ifconfig and other such tools. I find this extremely disconcerting, as wireless networking is the only available option to me. While Arches kernel (again) 2.6.33 on the CD created wlan0 after rmmodding and modprobing again, I am concerned that if I isntall Arch that the same actions will be required in an isntalled environment, and I absolutely refuse to rmmod iwlagn modprobe iwlagn each and every time at a root shell just to create wlan0. I therefore have not installed Arch at this time because of this very thing. Does anyone (a kernel maintainer) or anyone else who has this type of card specifically an Intel Link Wifi 5000-based chip or my case: Intel WiFi Link 5100 AGN card have an explination for me behind what is happening here? Is it Arches Udev system? Is there a flaw in the Archiso system or something that would cause this? Is there an effective solution that will force wlan0 to be present on an installed environment without needing to modprobe this thing? I shouldn't need to be modprobing anything. Thanks for any specifics that you folks can provide. I can't send any backtraces, or bugs to you folks, because there are none that are generated-this is just what happens on the CD. I won't install Arch at all until I know specifically why this happens in the first place, (and please note) Another blindness-accessible CD (though not Arch) GRML, using kernel 2.6.33 as well at time of writing this eamil to you folks, automatically creates wlan0. I find it troubling as Chrises CDs are produced with the latest Archiso improvements, and I am pretty sure that the build has nothing to do with it. Something is obviously wrong then with the udev system that ArchLinux has used all these years, or something else. The radio does have a hardware switch, but is always turned on. And no, windows never disables the radio. The only time this happens is if I allow the battery in the laptop to die entirely then only then would I need to press the hardware switch. So I am not understanding what's going on. I am going to CC this to the Arch-Releng folks as well, I'd like as much feedback from as many people-I am no Linux exbirt by any means-and am only an end-user of Arch-no programmer. So I do not know why this occurs. Is it my computer in particular? Or have you folks encountered situations where this type of thing has happened before? Or, am I just having a random bad day with Arches kernel. Although this is quite reproduceable on my box with that card. Strange that GRML though has no such problem and automatically has wlan0 already there with identical kernel version and same module as Arch, iwlagn. Thanks again! Regards, --Keith.

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[arch-releng] Kickstarting ArchLinux
by v01d 10 May '10

10 May '10

Hi, I was recently on the forum talking to Dieter about AIF (http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=96548) to see how much work should I do to have a usable kickstart-like system for ArchLinux. As I said there already, I'm currently using ArchLinux in an HPC cluster at my faculty. Previously we used RocksClusters (RedHat based, yuck) which was a real pain. Nonetheless, it had a really automated auto-installation system which RedHat calls "kickstart" (Ubuntu now has some support for this). To migrate to ArchLinux I had to develop a custom installation initcpio image which included a set of scripts that take care of: 1) booting through PXE to retrieve kernel and this image 2) autodetecting ethernet hardware and then running dhcp 3) wget'ing to the master node (DHCP server) to retrieve a .tar.gz which contains the instructions on how this particular node (based on MAC) should be installed, along the rest of the scripts (this second part was to minimize the need to rebuild the image while developing this system) that took care of actually performing installation. These scripts took care of everything that the user needed to do to get a fully configured and bootable system (including custom packages and postinstall scripts, if desired). The problem is that maintaining these scripts became a pain since Arch is a fast moving target. AIF now seems like the sane and officially supported tool to base this system on. Well, with this introduction I wanted to say that I attempt to update my system to use AIF so that whenever this is ready I can upgrade my currently aging ArchLinux installation (I don't to upgrades to avoid breakages, I took a snapshot of the repositories a year ago). I'm not sure If I will eventually accomplish this (maybe it takes too much work and I get tired again and quit), but for the moment I'll try to get familiar with AIF and see where I can get. Hopefully I can even contribute to its development. And regarding this last point, I wanted to keep bothering you with questions about AIF so that I can understand more on how it works and how it should be used (I've read the code but it gets a little complex in some parts). So, my first question is: how can I comfortably test and extend aif within a VirtualBox VM? I've read about the idea of cloning the repo inside the VM @ GitHub, but it seems I would have to repackage and install aif everytime I change something. Also, even if I did that, I would have to repeat it after every boot of this VM, since I can't persist those changes across reboots. Thanks and sorry about the long post! Matt (or v01d, the nick I use everywhere else). PS: the code I've developed is at http://github.com/v01d/archcluster

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[arch-releng] [PATCH] comment IPAPPEND option in isolinux.cfg
by Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi 08 May '10

08 May '10

Avoid warning about unknown keyword when boot with syslinux. This option is valid under pxelinux. Signed-off-by: Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi <vmlinuz386(a)yahoo.com.ar> --- archiso2dual/isolinux.cfg | 4 ++-- .../syslinux-iso/boot-files/isolinux/isolinux.cfg | 2 +- 2 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/archiso2dual/isolinux.cfg b/archiso2dual/isolinux.cfg index 5ed26e1..22641aa 100644 --- a/archiso2dual/isolinux.cfg +++ b/archiso2dual/isolinux.cfg @@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ ENDTEXT MENU LABEL Boot Arch Linux (i686) KERNEL /boot/i686/vmlinuz26 APPEND initrd=/boot/i686/archiso.img archisolabel=XXX tmpfs_size=75% locale=en_US.UTF-8 -IPAPPEND 0 +#IPAPPEND 1 LABEL arch64 TEXT HELP @@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ ENDTEXT MENU LABEL Boot Arch Linux (x86_64) KERNEL /boot/x86_64/vmlinuz26 APPEND initrd=/boot/x86_64/archiso.img archisolabel=XXX tmpfs_size=75% locale=en_US.UTF-8 -IPAPPEND 0 +#IPAPPEND 1 LABEL existing TEXT HELP diff --git a/configs/syslinux-iso/boot-files/isolinux/isolinux.cfg b/configs/syslinux-iso/boot-files/isolinux/isolinux.cfg index 2d604ba..5c71325 100644 --- a/configs/syslinux-iso/boot-files/isolinux/isolinux.cfg +++ b/configs/syslinux-iso/boot-files/isolinux/isolinux.cfg @@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ ENDTEXT MENU LABEL Boot Arch Linux KERNEL /boot/vmlinuz26 APPEND initrd=/boot/archiso.img archisolabel=XXX tmpfs_size=75% locale=en_US.UTF-8 -IPAPPEND 0 +#IPAPPEND 1 LABEL existing TEXT HELP -- 1.7.1

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[arch-releng] [PATCH 2/2] fix wrong commented value from previous commit
by Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi 08 May '10

08 May '10

Signed-off-by: Gerardo Exequiel Pozzi <vmlinuz386(a)yahoo.com.ar> --- archiso2dual/isolinux.cfg | 4 ++-- .../syslinux-iso/boot-files/isolinux/isolinux.cfg | 2 +- 2 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/archiso2dual/isolinux.cfg b/archiso2dual/isolinux.cfg index 22641aa..4147b27 100644 --- a/archiso2dual/isolinux.cfg +++ b/archiso2dual/isolinux.cfg @@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ ENDTEXT MENU LABEL Boot Arch Linux (i686) KERNEL /boot/i686/vmlinuz26 APPEND initrd=/boot/i686/archiso.img archisolabel=XXX tmpfs_size=75% locale=en_US.UTF-8 -#IPAPPEND 1 +#IPAPPEND 3 LABEL arch64 TEXT HELP @@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ ENDTEXT MENU LABEL Boot Arch Linux (x86_64) KERNEL /boot/x86_64/vmlinuz26 APPEND initrd=/boot/x86_64/archiso.img archisolabel=XXX tmpfs_size=75% locale=en_US.UTF-8 -#IPAPPEND 1 +#IPAPPEND 3 LABEL existing TEXT HELP diff --git a/configs/syslinux-iso/boot-files/isolinux/isolinux.cfg b/configs/syslinux-iso/boot-files/isolinux/isolinux.cfg index 5c71325..715b319 100644 --- a/configs/syslinux-iso/boot-files/isolinux/isolinux.cfg +++ b/configs/syslinux-iso/boot-files/isolinux/isolinux.cfg @@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ ENDTEXT MENU LABEL Boot Arch Linux KERNEL /boot/vmlinuz26 APPEND initrd=/boot/archiso.img archisolabel=XXX tmpfs_size=75% locale=en_US.UTF-8 -#IPAPPEND 1 +#IPAPPEND 3 LABEL existing TEXT HELP -- 1.7.1

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[arch-releng] Arch Linux release Schedule
by Keith Hinton 07 May '10

07 May '10

Hi all. I remember way back when Aaron G posted about how Arches goal would be to release every four months or so to keep up with regular kernel releases and frequent ISO images. However, I remember the last official Iso was in August of 2009. I am not saying that that is bad or anything. I am curious why there hasn't been a release since that time period? I never figured that out. I did send an email to our fine Arch Linux leader using a GMail address-and am curious if that address just isn't checked? I did send Aaron some other interesting emails of late as well. But I haven't received anything-though being a leader of a project such as Arch Linux must take up a lot of time. Take care! Regards, --Keith

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Re: [arch-releng] ArchLinux install
by Dieter Plaetinck 06 May '10

06 May '10

On Thu, 6 May 2010 10:01:22 +0800 Daniel Lin <dlin.tw(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hi, Dieter, > > I found you modified aif recently. I'm not sure are you the proper > person to answer these question. > > Could I ask some issues which occurs when I install the ArchLinux? > > The short description here > ------------------------------------- > 1. The install iso lacks support boot from FAT32 partition. > 2. There is a mkfs.btr, but the install script haven't support the > btr mount partition type > 3. could the boot directoy's name changed to boot.arch.i686/ and put > all squeshfs files in that directory? That's let my usb stick could > boot multiple bootable cdrom easier.(I wish put x86_64 & x86 boot > image in one usb stick). > 4. Is it possible to reduce to boot media's size to smaller such as > 10 or 30 Mbytes? I've seen debian/slax's net boot image is much > smaller then ArchLinux's current image size. > > The long description here > ------------------------------------ > I use GRUB4DOS as my boot loader. (I'm also grub4dos's maintainer in > Arch Linux). > I extract 2009.08 net-install iso files into a FAT32 partition of USB > stick. And chain the menu by GRUB's configfile option. > > It failed when I just change the menu.lst's boot entry, it seems > treat the VFAT as ext2/ext3 partition. > kernel ... archisolabel=MY_VFAT32_LABEL > So, I manual type commands on ramfs prompt to let it bootable. > ln -sf /dev/sdb1 /dev/archiso > mount -t vfat /dev/archiso /bootmnt > exit > If we try to enhance this boot media, that's will let novice user > easier to install arch. 1) i have no clue about that stuff. ask on arch-releng, maybe there's something on the bugtracker. 2) patches welcome. see btrfs thread on arch-general 3) we have dual-arch images. see recent archiso from git, and http://build.archlinux.org/isos/ 4) i don't know from the top of my head. quite some packages get installed (see archiso in git again), namely the base group + more packages. you could build your own media using less packages. ie only the packages you need + dependencies of aif. Dieter

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