What is Rootz exactly, and can it run in Puppy?

[paulh177]

Thanks for your encouragement Hadar. Sorry but I had not read the FAQ which would have made life easier for me

I've spent a little more time looking at this and I think some of the changes I made to the rootz scripts may be unnecessary. I've also found what seems to be a "better" fuse package for Puppy. When time and tiredeness permit I will start over and try to create a customised Puppy (a "puplet") with rootz etc pre-installed, but there are other things I'd like to know before I go to the trouble:

1. Why do you require that setup-browser runs as a non-root user?
Puppy doesn't really implement multiple users properly, and although there is the ability to create non-root users, it is primarily a root-user Linux. (Although of course MU (Mark Ulrich) has created Muppy, a multi-user Puppy)
(I simply commented out the check for root user to make setup-browser run, and it worked OK)

2. PATHS -- Can I install the rootz scripts on the path (e.g. /usr/bin/) or does that introduce problems? Also I am still unclear about httpfs -- do I need only the httpfs binary?

3. dchroot -- I'd like to know the difference between chroot and dchroot? I haven't been able to find out just by googling ...

If I created this puplet as an ISO would you like me to find a mirror for it so that you can dowload it and test it?

paul

[whadar]

1. Why do you require that setup-browser runs as a non-root user?
Puppy doesn't really implement multiple users properly, and although there is the ability to create non-root users, it is primarily a root-user Linux. (Although of course MU (Mark Ulrich) has created Muppy, a multi-user Puppy)
(I simply commented out the check for root user to make setup-browser run, and it worked OK)

Yeah setup-browser shouldn't require non-root user but only warn about it.
The point here is that the same user that runs the browser will run setup-browser. Normally root user doesn't run browser, but in case of single user systems, it does. So commenting this line is just fine in case of puppy.

2. PATHS -- Can I install the rootz scripts on the path (e.g. /usr/bin/) or does that introduce problems?

It can introduce some problems... I will fix this.

Also I am still unclear about httpfs -- do I need only the httpfs binary?

Yes. Note that you can also use other filesystems such as curlftpfs.

3. dchroot -- I'd like to know the difference between chroot and dchroot? I haven't been able to find out just by googling ...

You can think of dchroot as a wrapper for chroot that helps running multiple chroot environments, and allow normal users to access the chroot.

see - http://www.digipedia.pl/man/dchroot.1.html
I guess rootz will use schroot in the future instead of dchroot (explanation in the manpage).

If I created this puplet as an ISO would you like me to find a mirror for it so that you can dowload it and test it?

That would be awesome

Hadar

[paulh177]

hi Hadar --

sorry i've been busy/tired but i am in the process of sorting out a remastered rootz-Puppy. I may be able to do so before I go on holiday tomorrow but if not it will be end of March.
best wishes

paul

EDIT: Have PM'd you Hadar with details of ISO

[whadar]

Hi,

Thanks to Paul rootz is integrated in puppy. I have tested puppy today, and made rootz work with it after few changes -mainly switching from dchroot to chroot.
I still have to work on it, but it works for me...

Here are two screenshots I took, running firefox and gimp from an Ubuntu mirror.





The goal is to have a full solution for puppy in rootz 0.3.3
I'll update more on this soon


Hadar

[paulh177]

that's excellent news.
looking forward to trying the new version myself ... l'm taking the laptop on holiday just in case.

paul

[Boo2themoon]

I had kind of forgotten about this thread, but when I pop back in you've cracked it!
Fantastic work Paul, likewise Hadar.
This is exciting stuff, I can't wait to try it out.

Paul, will there be a puplet, pet, sfs or whatever available for us all to try?

Hadar, great news about a solution for puppy in a future Rootz.

[paulh177]

the puplet i created for Hadar was very much an alpha-alpha-hack so Hadar could get going quickly and included devx_301. It is quite big at 188MB.

rootz-Puppy will probably be better packaged as a dotpet as the packages required to make rootz work are really small (fuse, httpfs, rootz and dchroot) and probably come in at under 100K.

IF I have a moment I'll throw some links and instructions together ... I'm typing this inbetween packing the car ... However I'll watch this thread if i can get a ninternet connection at the holiday cottage.

In the meantime it would not surprise me if Hadar released a new version of rootz real soon now ...

paul

[Boo2themoon]

Thanks for the reply Paul,

I'm about to go away for an early Spring break myself

I'm really intrigued to see how this works. It could be great for Puppy.

Have a good Holiday,

Boo

[whadar]

Hi again,

I've played with puppy (cool distro!) and tried rootz on it. It works quite good with some modifications. I think it brings great things to puppy because you can now run lots of applications that I think you normally can't even install on a puppy machine - i.e firefox 3.

The modifications are not very complex but also not simple, especially because we want to support many kinds of systems (single user on puppy and multiuser on debian). I've organized the tasks, and in version 0.3.4, rootz would hopefully support puppy and its browser (apps can be launched from the browser).

In the meantime there are also old bugs to fix in version 0.3.3 which I plan to release this week.

Happy Hacking
Hadar

[Lobster]

which I plan to release this week.

Very interesting work. Look forward to what you produce.
Rapid deployment and adaption is I believe a key strength of Puppy.

A weakness is package management (which is being addressed by Barryk)

Another strength (once the key components are understood and explored in a distro) is creating a sfs or pet module that will run on variety of Puppy breeds.

Good luck

[paulh177]

hi hadar--
don't know whether this was clear from an earlier post of mine but Puppy does not have tac installed by default.
So unless you can persuade BK to include tac in the standard distribution, or distribute it as part of rootz, you'll need to find another way to read /proc/mounts in reverse order ...


paul

[whadar]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for reminding me of that -- I will add this to the todo list.

I managed to release 0.3.3 tonight:

Changes: Fixed sub scripts exit code. Fixed crush when zenity not installed. Now uses dchroot and not /usr/bin/dchroot. Support relative path for mount point and image path. setup-browser allows root user (with warning). Raise error when mountpoint is not empty instead of cleaning it.

But only version 0.4 of rootz will be fully puppy ready (0.3.4 became 0.4).

From http://vamosproject.org:

The next version is going to be 0.4, which is going to be much more flexible. For instance, not only dchroot and firefox can be used, but also chroot will work and other browsers. Many of the options would be configurable and easier to change per system. Like single user mode, I mentioned before, will be supported by the config. After that rootz will be puppy-ready, and probably more_distro-ready

After some hacking of rootz on puppy - mostly done by Paul, it is now proven that rootz can work on puppy - see some screenshots. But to make it all work together not in an ugly way, some work must be done - I listed the stuff in the todo list (not just for puppy of course!). I hope I didn't miss something... feel free to add stuff you think needed. Feel more than free to play with the code and implement some of the things, or new ideas.

I never quoted myself before - that's a bit stupid I know

BTW, dhcroot in puppy doesn't seem to work. If we are switching from dchroot to chroot, it is not a problem, but still... I don't know why it happens (sort of hangs after you run something). Did you noticed that? (even when running separately from rootz).

Hadar[/quote]

[HairyWill]

tac can be implemented as a shell script
from the sed oneliners

# reverse order of lines (emulates "tac")
# bug/feature in HHsed v1.5 causes blank lines to be deleted
sed '1!G;h;$!d' # method 1
sed -n '1!G;h;$p' # method 2

[paulh177]

@will -- i thought i'd seen a thread somewhere to do that but hadn't been able to find it ... but the sed scripts you supplied should be just what hadar will need i think

@hadar I never found the recompiled dchroot to hang in puppy ... can you give an example (as I have a copy of the rootz-puppy i made for you on holiday with me) so I can see for myself?

thanks

paul

[capoverde]

Very interesting and promising thread: from what I read here, Puppy and rootz seem to be born to work together, and this might be a possible wonderful leap forward for Puppy -- thanks to Artie, paulh177 and all who are opening this new door, and hat off to whadar.

My curiosity is going dangerously up, pity I've got too little time (and experience) to try something myself... Does Barry know about rootz?

[whadar]

HairyWill -- Thanks! I will use this instead of tac.

paulh177 -- my mistake it is not a hang, but an error - cannot execute binary file

dchroot -d ls
(test) ls
/bin/ls: /bin/ls: cannot execute binary file

There are various threads about this problem (google for cannot execute binary file dchroot), but I am not sure what's the solution. One thread suggested that in version 0.13 the bug is fixed (you compiled 0.11).

capoverde -- Thanks for the compliments.
Yes, puppy and rootz are excellent match! I don't know if Barry knows about rootz, but I know many people from puppy community are interested and want to try it out. With this kind of community the integration won't take long

[Artie]

I am amazed that my original humble confused post has led to all this, most of which is quite over my head. I look forward to trying out the first puplet with rootz incorporated. Thanks everybody for taking my inquiry and running with it!

Artie

[paulh177]

i get the same error with dchroot 0.11
I compiled dchroot 0.13 from source and now i get

Code: Select all

dchroot: chdir: no such file or directory

when i try dchroot -d ls
but the ls executes ok and gives a directory listing for the mounted iso

googling the error seems like others have had it but can't find reasons/solutions yet ...

[whadar]

dchroot: chdir: no such file or directory

It's normal behaviour - you fixed it

I made some progress yesterday, which is in the SVN.

Code: Select all

svn co http://svn.bountysource.com/vamos/trunk/rootz

Seamonkey works with rootz!
Now that dchroot is working, the svn version should work on puppy also (with some easy changes in rootz.conf).

Cheers,
Hadar

[kirk]

Very interesting.

Whadar, does Rootz sill require dchroot? I saw one of the previous posts where you used chroot instead.

Also, if you have a hacked version for Puppy, you could probably attach it to a post in this forum.

Edit: I've only played with it for a few minutes, does seem to work. I've attached some needed binaries compiled in dingo alpha7. Don't know what should be in /etc/dchroot.conf or rootz.conf. Probably need to read to docs. I'll play with this later when I have more time for sure. Thanks!