Re: Separate cache folders for undigest mirrors

[Indigo <pointofavailability@xxxxxxxxx>]

Correction -- /etc/skel would actually have become the new /root
folder to be copied to /home/root where /root would be linked.  This
would allow for booting without a home= option, as it would contain
the basic defaults, and could still be run on a machine without any
writable media available.  Any thoughts on this whole idea are very
much welcome.

On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 4:02 PM, Indigo <pointofavailability@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Let's remember the importance of keeping the permissions right for the
> root user.  A regular user should not have the ability to change
> settings in /etc or alter /var/cache -- I do like the idea of using
> the home= boot option, though.  My idea is this:  lets make a
> /home/root folder and just symlink /root to it.  In the /home/root
> folder, we can have a cache directory, as well as the slitaz directory
> (only a root user should be able to generate a new iso from the
> existing filesystem, anyway) -- the permissions could remain
> root:root, and this could facilitate a writable place for changes in
> the root filesystem.  By this, I mean that the root user could make a
> custom /etc/network.conf, or whatever, and have it persistent for the
> next boot.  We could do away with /etc/skel also, as I suggested
> before, and have one place for customizations that wouldn't affect
> $user directories or the rootfs... this would mean that a user could
> reboot into a completely different flavor, or custom package list, and
> not lose display settings or wireless configs.
>
>
> On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 3:00 PM, Christopher Rogers
> <slaxemulator@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>The goal of home= boot option is precisely to use an external devide
>>>instead of having a home in RAM, so I don't see how it will make grow
>>>the RAM requirement to 2GB. It's the exact opposite : Having the cache
>>>folder on /home will avoid keeping all downloaded packages in RAM ! and
>>>will avoid re-download them at each session. And you can mount
>>>absolutely what you want as home (i.e: liveCD+home on hdd; usb+home
>>>from an encrypted file; etc).
>>
>> I was talking when you were said that the livecd could be 700mb. (Like puppy
>> linux multisession or something.) This is without the home= option. Even
>> with home= option your still not going to have your custom packages that you
>> installed to system. Also since its only saving to home folder everything
>> else is still in RAM. You will not save /etc folder. You will not save any
>> other folder other than /home.
>>
>>> I also use my modular-slitaz that has changes boot option. This saves
>>> everything that is not from the livecd into changes folder on my hard
>>> drive.
>>> The home= boot option you also don't have system settings from /etc folder
>>> too.
>>>
>>> With the way sitaz works the make a full 700mb cd would take over 2gb of
>>> ram
>>> just for the filesystem. This is cause everything is uncompressed from
>>> initramfs file into ram. Also this would cause slitaz to be slow to boot
>>> and
>>> buidl the iso.
>>
>> I said in the quote uncompressed 700mb cd/rootfs.gz = OVER 2GB.  I was not
>> talking about home= option in 3rd paragraph.
>>
>> I hope this helps.
>>
>> PS I can talk to you better in irc then email. Sorry about my confusion.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 14, 2010 at 10:37 PM, GoKhlaYeh <gokhlayeh@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Tue, 14 Dec 2010 20:44:55 +0000
>>> Christopher Rogers <slaxemulator@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>> > The /home/slitaz folder is a bad idea since most development folders on
>>> > tank
>>> > go there. That could cause confinct with there being to many folders
>>> > there.
>>>
>>> As you know, I made some changes recently in tazpkg. Before that,
>>> tazpkg copied packages info files from local repository
>>> (/home/slitaz/$release/packages) into the /var/lib/tazpkg; and copied
>>> packages from local repository to cache dir (/var/cache/tazpkg). Now,
>>> it uses symlinks instead; so virtually cache and local repository **are
>>> already merged**. It doesn't complexify anything and save a lot of
>>> ressources. Then, about undigest : as you push the m5sum verification
>>> in tazpkg, here's whats going on : if names overlaps, it replace the
>>> symlink to a repository (lets
>>> say /home/slitaz/cooking/packages/pkg.tazpkg) by a symlink to the
>>> desired one (i.e. : /home/slitaz/undigest/packages/pkg.tazpkg). So once
>>> again, all run as cache dir and local repo are merged actually; and
>>> it's precisely based on tank directory structure = no problem here,
>>> even with multiple repositories using the same cache. I was talking
>>> about desirable changes to make things better, because there's really
>>> no problem with actual behavior. About info files : the side-effect of
>>> using symlink is that tazpkg recharge is needed only once time; then
>>> info files linked from local repository are always up-to-date :)
>>>
>>> > Also this would require a rewrite of most tools that look at CACHE_DIR
>>> > path.
>>> So : tazpkg, as the only other occurence to CACHE_DIR in SliTaz tools
>>> is a line in tazlito which try to link packages from cache directory to
>>> the local directory...
>>>
>>> > I also use my modular-slitaz that has changes boot option. This saves
>>> > everything that is not from the livecd into changes folder on my hard
>>> > drive.
>>> > The home= boot option you also don't have system settings from /etc
>>> > folder
>>> > too.
>>> >
>>> > With the way sitaz works the make a full 700mb cd would take over 2gb of
>>> > ram
>>> > just for the filesystem. This is cause everything is uncompressed from
>>> > initramfs file into ram. Also this would cause slitaz to be slow to boot
>>> > and
>>> > buidl the iso.
>>>
>>> The goal of home= boot option is precisely to use an external devide
>>> instead of having a home in RAM, so I don't see how it will make grow
>>> the RAM requirement to 2GB. It's the exact opposite : Having the cache
>>> folder on /home will avoid keeping all downloaded packages in RAM ! and
>>> will avoid re-download them at each session. And you can mount
>>> absolutely what you want as home (i.e: liveCD+home on hdd; usb+home
>>> from an encrypted file; etc).
>>>
>>> > I just think its better to use the /var/cache/tazpkg/undigest/$repo path
>>> > for
>>> > undigest for now. We should just work on make home= boot option work
>>> > more
>>> > like changes boot option in modular-slitaz.
>>>
>>> I don't see the point about home= boot option. I disagree with your
>>> criticals but obviously you can proceed to this change if you want to.
>>> Hoverwhere, I think having the cache on a peristent home will be a
>>> great improvement and I intend to code this someday.
>>>
>>> Peace,
>>>
>>> --
>>> GoKhlaYeh <gokhlayeh@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---
>>> SliTaz GNU/Linux Mailing list - http://www.slitaz.org/
>>>
>>
>>
>

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