MLED installation script as a proof-of-concept

gegechris99 · 02-14-2016, 12:21 PM

Regarding selection of mirrors, I was lately looking into giving some choices to the user rather than automatically selecting a mirror based on location:

Code:

Selection of a download mirror:
 a) Use default mirror http://mirrors.slackware.com/slackware/
 b) Select a mirror from http://mirrors.slackware.com/mirrorlist
 c) Enter manually a mirror

Choice "a" would be the default choice. Definition of the default mirror can be discussed but the one shown here has the advantage of automatically selecting a mirror among the "official" ones based on your location.
Choice "b" allows the user to select a mirror among the "official" ones but it would take more time because it needs to download the mirror list and prepare the menu entries
Choice "c" is needed because the previous options would still provide only an incomplete list of mirrors and a user may have her favorite/pet mirror not listed (ex: you mentioned http://slackbuilds.org/mirror/slackware/ and I like http://slackware.osuosl.org/)

I wrote a script to play with this use case (see attached file). I'll wait for feedback before putting it back into the installation script (or not).

PROBLEMCHYLD · 02-14-2016, 03:50 PM

I just tested, and it is looking good. I would like to test the full script. Thanks

gegechris99 · 02-14-2016, 04:39 PM

Herewith the updated mledauto script with the menu to select the mirror. I made only some unitary tests.

Even though, it's good to give the choice to the user, I found that some of the "official" mirrors are not up-to-date (ex: http://ftp.belnet.be/ftp.slackware.c...ckware64-14.1/).

So I'm just wondering if it wouldn't be safer to define only a very short list of known-to-work mirrors (3-4 no more) instead of offering the choice to a user who unwittingly might select an outdated mirror. It would be even worse for a Belgian user because even with the default choice (automatic selection of mirror) she would end up with the outdated mirror.

So there would still be 3 choices with:

- a default mirror known to work (ex: http://slackbuilds.org/mirror/slackware/)
- a selection from a very short list curated by script maintainers (my proposal 3-4 choices max to ensure reliability over time)
- manual entry

What do you think?

PROBLEMCHYLD · 02-15-2016, 09:55 AM

Just ran the script on a clean install and all went well. The only issue I have is, if your internet connection is not stable some packages get dropped. Then you have to run the script again. This really is not a problem as far as the script goes. I was just pointing it out in-case users come across this issue in the future. The default mirror is fine. Users have the option to choose their preference.

P.S
I did do the install over wireless while streaming netflix and hulu all at the same time. Other than that, all is fine. Thanks for the automation of MLED.

gegechris99 · 02-15-2016, 02:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PROBLEMCHYLD

I did do the install over wireless while streaming netflix and hulu all at the same time.

Quite impressive!!!

Out of curiosity, how many MLED installations have you performed using the script in its various versions?

PROBLEMCHYLD · 02-15-2016, 02:31 PM

All of them. The only time I didn't use it, is when I was having installation problems. I have and will use the script every install. I don't mind formatting my hard drive. I have a lot of computers. Some old some new. I like to test things before I put them on the main computer. Running side by side test machines.

PROBLEMCHYLD · 02-17-2016, 02:07 PM

Shall we continue, dealing with the configuration?

gegechris99 · 02-18-2016, 07:40 AM

I think that we can add the running of the cleanmenu.sh script in the installation script. It's one of the first steps in the MLED configuration guide.

For the other configuration steps, I doubt that they can be automated but we can try to simplify human interaction:

1) Set locales - OK
I can propose a menu similar to the choice of the mirror and automate the update of lang.sh file.
2) Clean up the applications menu - OK
cleanmenu.sh script will be automatically run
3) Switch to the GENERIC kernel - Not OK
I'm not very comfortable to have the script provide guidance here as there are many options to consider when buidling the initrd file (LVM, encrypted partition and choice of keyboard layout for passphrase entry...)
4) Install VirtualBox Guest Additions - Not Applicable
I don't use VirtualBox but I understand this step should be done within VBox. So not to be included in installation script
5) Add one or more users - OK
We can add a dialog to ask if user wants to add new users and then launch "adduser"
6) X11 in a nutshell - Not OK
I don't want to put this step in installation script. Again it's because you have to run lilo and it's better to have the user deal with things related to the kernel for now.
7) Search and install some extra applications - OK
We can ask the user if she wants to install extra applications (ex: remmina) but here the script will run in dialog mode so the user can select the software to be installed.
8) Basic maintenance - Not Applicable
This is no longer configuration but best practice for maintenance of the system. To be left out of the installation script.

A final word: I will take some time off in next week, so don't be surprised if I don't post in the period.

PROBLEMCHYLD · 02-18-2016, 10:26 AM

I can't ever seem to get generic kernel working. Always end up with 99 99 etc....on boot. Everything else seems fine. Its looking good. I would like to further invest the issue in the future. Focusing on the script, we are more than halfway there.

gegechris99 · 03-05-2016, 10:22 AM

Herewith an update of the MLED installation script. Main changes are:

- Added a welcome message: content can be improved
- Added an option during selection of download mirror to select one mirror from a pre-selected list of mirrors known to work (our editor's choice)
- In the last step of installation, the user can decide to install extra MLED packages
- Finally, the cleanmenu script is run at the end

I haven't yet covered the choice of language and the addition of a user. Regarding choice of language, I'm working first on a separate script to play with changes in /etc/profile.d/lang.sh that I will publish when it's ready for test.

PROBLEMCHYLD · 03-05-2016, 03:27 PM

Just ran the latest script and here is my feedback.

1) The script returns an error on line 233 because of the A at the end of RESET. I have removed it to continue the installation testing.

Code:

echo -e $BLUE"\n\nInstall extra Slackware packages:"$RESETA

2) You could removed the code for installing Virtual Box, since now we have the extra MLED packages option. There is no need for it at the beginning of the script.

3) For the lang.sh, is it possible to detect the Keyboard layout to determine the language? The script would detect the KB layout and change lang.sh base on the KB settings. IDK

Other than that, thanks for the updated script. Everything else runs awesome.

gegechris99 · 03-05-2016, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PROBLEMCHYLD

1) The script returns an error on line 233 because of the A at the end of RESET. I have removed it to continue the installation testing.

Thanks for the report. It's corrected in the attached updated script.

I also removed the code that dealt specifically with installation of Virtualbox.

Regarding the selection of language, I tried to propose the list of locales available in the lang.sh file provided by MLED. For now, I'm playing with MLED configuration in a separate script mledconfig.sh (also attached to this post).

This script is for testing purpose only. It will use a copy of lang.sh stored in the $HOME/tmp directory of the user. I highly recommend that you test on a copy of lang.sh first even though my testing showed no issue.

I also included in the configuration menu, an option to add a new user (it's a simple call to "adduser" after you enter the login name). I did not test it up to the actual creation of the new user (I control-C before approving the new user).

PROBLEMCHYLD · 03-06-2016, 11:35 AM

Got two errors

Code:

# Trim Slackware packages
echo -e $BLUE"\n\nTrim the base installation:"$RESET
$CWD/microlinux/desktop-$VERSION-$ARCH/tools/trim.sh
echo -e $GREEN"\nThe base installation has been trimmed"$RESET

error:
awk: fatal: cannot open file `/root/../tagfiles/a/tagfile` for reading (No such file or directory)

although the trim.sh script ran, the error was still displayed.

Code:

# Clean up the applications menu
echo -e $BLUE"\n\nCleaning up the applications menu:"$RESET
$CWD/microlinux/desktop-$VERSION-$ARCH/tools/cleanmenu.sh
echo -e $GREEN"\nApplications menu has been cleaned up"$RESET

error:
ls: cannot access /root/desktop: No such file or directory

the cleanmenu.sh script didn't run at all. I had to manually run it. I witness NO other errors besides the two.

The mledconf.sh created my user profile successfully.

Thanks again.

gegechris99 · 03-06-2016, 02:20 PM

Strange errors. I don't know what caused them.

Here's the diff between the two last versions of the mledauto.sh script:

Code:

36,38d35
< # Flag to install Virtualbox as an option
< VBOX=${VBOX:-no}
< 
44,49c41
<     # Force installation of multilib packages if Virtualbox is installed
<     if [ "$VBOX" = "yes" ]; then
<       MULTILIB="yes"
<     else
<       MULTILIB=${MULTILIB:-yes}
<     fi
---
>     MULTILIB=${MULTILIB:-yes}
187,188c179
< echo -e "\n\tMultilib installation: "$MULTILIB
< echo -e "\n\tVirtualbox installation: "$VBOX"\n"
---
> echo -e "\n\tMultilib installation: "$MULTILIB"\n"
233c224
< echo -e $BLUE"\n\nInstall extra Slackware packages:"$RESETA
---
> echo -e $BLUE"\n\nInstall extra Slackware packages:"$RESET
256,262d246
< 
< # Install virtualbox packages
< if [ "$VBOX" = "yes" ]; then
<   echo -e $BLUE"\n\nInstall the virtualbox packages:"$RESET
<   slackpkg -batch=on -default_answer=y install virtualbox
<   echo -e $GREEN"\nVirtualbox packages have been installed\n\n"$RESET
< fi

I don't see anything in there that would have created trouble for trim.sh and cleanmenu.sh

Also the trim.sh and cleanmenu.sh scripts don't appear to have changed since 11 months ago in Slackware 14.1.

Can you check that the both scripts have been installed in the correct location: /root/microlinux/desktop-14.1-{32|64}bit/tools?

PROBLEMCHYLD · 03-06-2016, 02:30 PM

I believe it has something to do with this code and yes the scripts are in the proper location.

# Go to root home directory
cd
CWD=$(pwd)