I'd like to install NixOS to a flash drive, and have the operating system run entirely on the flash drive. Is it possible to install to a flash drive using NixOps? Or would I even need to? That is, would it be easier or better just to write a script that would do it?
First let's get this out of the way: if the purpose is just creating a live installer to install NixOS on a system, you should follow the instructions in the NixOS manual.
Assuming you want the drive to be capable of updating itself, you should avoid NixOps. Unlike the nixos-install command, NixOps was not designed to copy only the evaluated and built machine to the target machine. It will not copy the Nix-language expressions over to it, so the target machine will not be able to update or modify itself.
I see two possible approaches for this. The most straightforward one is to use the nixos-install command to install NixOS on the drive like you would install it on an internal drive. To the kernel and every sane BIOS, a USB stick is just another block device to boot from.
The other approach is following the manual and changing the root= parameter, which may make changes persistent. I have never done it for my installation USB sticks, so I don't know whether that really works.
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Hi i have an application written in GTK and i would like to make it into an bootable ISO file.
I have tried many options but have failed and being sent in many directions using cmake and make by following several tutorials which did not work.
Does anybody know how to create an bootable ISO file for / from an GTK based application on linux / ubuntu?
I am currently using ubuntu to develop the bootloading application yet i would prefer the GTK application to startup when the computer starts up, and have no operating system running if possible?
GTK requires an operating system kernel (a Linux kernel...) to be running, and some display server, e.g. Xorg.
So you need to actually make your custom Linux distribution.
I would prefer the GTK application to startup when the computer starts up, and have no operating system running
This is not possible
But you could study the source code of source based Linux distributions like Gentoo and work for several months to make your own Linux distribution.
You probably would need help and address many issues you did not even thought of (e.g. AZERTY keyboard layout, computers with only USB disks, laptops with only Wifi network connections, etc...)
Notice that Debian & Ubuntu can be configured to boot some (open source) GTK based installation procedure. I guess you could study in details their implementation (since it is open source)
It's not possible to boot a GTK application without operating system, as Basile Starynkevitch said.
However, you can use Linux to display only your GTK distribution, without any additional programs and I think it can be done easier, than Starynkevitch's method.
You can try to use the tool Systemback or similar to create a bootable live Linux distribution. Systemback is not maintained anymore but there is a github fork made by BluewhaleRobot that appears to be more up-to-date.
You can install a light Linux distribution, for example Xubuntu, and remove all unnecessary packages and programs. You can set the wallpaper, remove or leave the taskbar/menu start etc. Then, install your GTK application, add it to autorun and use Systemback's "Live system create" function.
The ISO image should be created and your program should be already installed in it with autorun.
It's not a perfect and stable solution, however, it seems to be the easiest way to achieve what you want.
I may have a couple assumptions of Linux incorrect about the Linux system, and for that I apologize.
I have been educating myself on the Android and Linux systems for a while now and I started looking into installing a custom boot loader and Linux system onto an older Samsung tablet. Immediately upon looking into the feasibility of this, most of the answers I could find were that it wasn't possible because you would need the drivers that are being used by the android kernel to communicate with the OEM hardware in whatever Linux kernel you are installing.
I have one of these tablets rooted and I believe I may have found the drivers I need (not sure on that yet), and so I guess my question is, is it possible to take the drivers and put them into a Linux kernel within a distribution install image and install Linux on the device (using also a custom boot loader)?
I presume because someone hasn't done this before there is a pretty good reason why, but I am basically looking to be able to use Linux on my old tablet without the resources being taken from Android, and personally in my opinion, if I don't need Android and can install Linux straight on to the machine, then why keep it?
In the long run I am looking into LFS to create a custom distribution that can be installed on these tablets, but the most important question to me right now is if I do create this distribution can I get the drivers that the hardware needs (and even then will my kernel be able to use them?).
I also understand that some of these drivers may be proprietary drivers provided by the manufacturer, but I am not looking to profit off of this but instead research the feasibility of a better personal on-the-go computing setup.
I may be terribly wrong on how I may have described some things, so here are some of my assumptions:
The .ko files in the Android /lib/modules/ directory are the static kernel drivers I am looking for for that device.
The drivers aren't written for specifically the Android system, but for all Linux variants and would be compatible with another distribution.
If the drivers were written for the Android system, then one would be able to edit or modify those drivers to work with a different distribution.
One could "put the drivers into an installation image", or if not, then one would have to compile the kernel from source with those static drivers.
TL:DR, If this all just amounts to rambling, here are my specific questions:
Is it possible to copy the static kernel drivers of a rooted Android device to something like the SDcard?
Is it then possible to "put" or "compile" those same static drivers into a Linux distribution before installing it onto said tablet using something like Odin, or the like?
I installed a library for exFAT support and I have to manually mount it via SSH. I would like to get it to operate as it does out of the box with drives that are FAT formatted, where appears as one of its shared folders.
The command I am using is something like this:
/mount.exfat-fuse /dev/sds1 /volume1/homes/admin/exFAT
I am not sure of the mechanics of how the NAS does it automatically with its OS. I figure it might be similar to how other Linux OS's do it.
Background instructions for adding exFAT support are here: https://forum.synology.com/enu/viewtopic.php?t=62473&start=90#p390456
I am compiling my own Linux kernel and userland tools for a PXE environment meant for cloning and reimaging. Right now, I'm sticking to a specific kernel version and using preconfigured .config's for building the Linux kernel.
I need to change from using preconfigured .config's to automatically generating the default configuration for the specified architecture, and then enabling all ethernet, ATA, SATA, and SCSI drivers.
The reason I want to do this is:
Updating the kernel means updating the preconfigured .config's, which takes too much time to manually do. The way I'm doing it now is using menuconfig, enabling the options I need, and saving the resulting .config to my repository.
I know the kernel I'm building is missing some drivers because I've encountered some PC's that were not able to mount the NFS share because Linux could not find an ethernet device (which I've verified by booting an Ubuntu CD, which did find the ethernet device). I want an automated way of building any Linux kernel version that will guarantee that ALL drivers I need are pulled in.
Using a distribution's configuration pulls in too many unnecessary drivers and features for my purposes. It lengthens the kernel build time from 10-15 mintues to an hour or more, and the resulting image is too big.
Does anyone know how to write a Bash script to accomplish this?
Have you considered using a text editor to modify the .config file.
Then you can modify it using search and replace.
Plus, there are other choices for configuring the kernel than the menu-driven "menuconfig".
I'm studying for a CS degree, and I need to install Ubuntu for a computer systems class. We are going to do low level Assembly optimizations and stuff like that, so they don't want us to install it in a VMware.
Now, I don't want to do a regular dual-boot install, because I've already done it on my previous computer a couple of years ago, and wrecked my hard-disc with the partitioning. Wikipedia says you can use Wubi to boot Ubuntu from ISO, or install it to a flash drive and boot it from there, and then thus remove the need for partitioning.
Now, my question is - how different it is to program for Ubuntu booted from a regular hard-disc partition, from a Wubi ISO, and from an SD card? I guess the programs will work the same on all options, but we're going to do play with low level Assembly optimizations - can I expect to face any difference in that department?
I'm not sure I'd go this route if it were me personally.
You should be fine in terms of whatever bare metal type stuff you want to do -- you're working with memory, the cache, the chip, etc, so your disk drive shouldn't matter (unless you're doing stuff to the filesystem or something).
Where I think you might get annoyed is the logistics of setting up your development environment. Everytime you boot from your USB stick, you're going to need to sudo apt-get GCC, scite, et. al, load your files on into directories that you want, and then get started. That's a hassle. You could optimize this somewhat by creating a custom ISO of your environment using some kind of tool (you might be able to do it with Clonezilla), but still.. yuck.
I would suggest (speaking of Clonezilla) that you snapshot your hard drive, go ahead and install dual booting with Ubuntu, and then you have a backup if anything goes wrong. Or, I'd think you could get by using the school's machines. Don't they have any Linux boxes that you can ssh into, if not use in labs?
Anyway, good luck. :)