MCNLive Kris - BETA

After a few years of silence around MCNLive, here we are again with a brand new MCNLive release, based on Mandriva 2010.0!

It won't have all the nice features you might remember from MCNLive, but the most important things are there. Copy2ram is present, remastering on-the-fly is possible again and even booting from USB is no problem at all!

Note that the way MCNLive is put on an USB stick has slightly changed. There is no wizard for this anymore, but you can simply dd the iso image to your stick, just like Mandriva One. You should even be able to use Mandriva Seed to put the image on your stick!

As I said, there are things which we didn't got running (which doesn't mean it won't return in a next release, just not on "Kris"). For example persistent changes with a loopfile are not possible. Also the boot screens are not graphical (the boot menu still is though).

Since you need a lot more memory to run Mandriva 2010.0 with KDE 4.3 then you needed to have in order to run Mandriva 2007.1 with KDE 3.5, we added a bootoption 'useswap', which searches your drive for swap partitions and enables them, giving you some more space to breathe in.


The name "Kris"
Kris is offcourse the nickname of the original MCNLive maintainer, so in some way this can be seen as a tribute to her work. On the other hand, a kris or keris can be a weapon, which is processed in the wallpaper.




ISO contents
MCNLive Kris is based upon a fully updated Mandriva 2010.0 release, with KDE SC 4.3 as desktop environment. SMplayer is added for your multimedia needs and since we do have a remaster option, we added K3B to enable you to burn the remaster directly.

Firefox is the default web browser but you can use Konqueror from the menu if you wish.

As you see, "Kris" is not filled with loads of software, but since you are able to remaster it you can easily create your own version with the pieces of software you need.


Beta testing
While most should work fine, it can perfectly be that it won't work on your hardware. Besides you might find some issues we haven't found ourselves. If you run into problems running "Kris", please let us know by replying in this topic. Please do not reply with "it doesn't work", but try to ground your reply. One small side note: if your hardware doesn't work on Mandriva One, it probably won't on MCNLive either.

In case of hardware problems, the output of this command can be very helpful:


Putting "Kris" on USB
As said, you should be able to use Mandriva Seed, but if you're not affraid to use the command-line you can easily use the dd-command. Note that you put the image over the whole stick, not on a partition so you lose all contents of the stick!

Where you change sdX into the device of your choice. Please be careful selecting the right device or you might overwrite your harddrive.


Download
You can download the beta on one of these mirrors:
ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/man...l/mcnlive/Kris/
ftp://ftp.surfnet.nl/pub/os/Linux/distr/m...l/mcnlive/Kris/


Update 03-18-2010:
The second beta has hit the mirrors!

Most important changes since the first beta:
- Mounting local partitions when using copy2ram has been fixed.
- The remaster script now checks if there is a partition for the temp files before going on.
- The vesa bootoption now places a default xorg.conf when none was written by drakx11.
- Antialias settings have been fixed.
- Allowed root login through KDM.

http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=05947

Ook bij MIB...
http://mib.pianetalinux.org/mib/forum/view...?f=2&t=1887

MauRice

They still use the original M-logo. Can someone help them to the new 'celluloid' Kris-logo?

* My crap on board video chip needs the vesa boot option, since the xorg nv driver doesn't work (same problem on MDV Free 2010.0)

nvidia nForce 630i [DISPLAY_VGA] (vendor:10de device:07e2 subv:1462 subd:7504)

Commercial nvidia driver does work, but not included in this version.

* The 'root' password is: root
(you need this for installing and un-installing software and for settings)
* The 'live' password is: live
( if you logout and login again)

* Works nicely in VirtualBox, with 512 MB RAM

* GUI Remaster-on-the fly doesn't see and doesn't offer my NTFS partition (in VirtualBox), not able to remaster using GUI script.
Command line remaster works, NTFS partition is mounted RW by default after the start. This command worked:
# mkhotmedia -t /mnt/sda1 -o mnt/sda1/output-file.iso

(with 512 MB RAM assigned to the VM, and very little changes made, mostly changing KDE settings to save RAM, and uninstalling stuff, remaster took 6 minutes.)

* The fonts setting are unfortunately still in subpixel hinting: medium style, and not in NONE.
After my remaster they use the correct settings.

______________________
P.S.: I'm flattered. Thanks for the MCNLive *Kris* . It's sweet.

You deserve it !!!

Good job. Nice to read reactions from "all over the world".

What new logo do you mean?

What is the output of this command on your system?

Ah, so your ntfs partition is identified as type 'fuseblk', that explains why the script can't find it as it greps on ext and ntfs.

This is line 26 of /usr/sbin/mkhotremaster:
Can you change the line to this:

And then retry?

I replaced 'ntfs' with 'fuseblk' in the script (I believe we don't need 'ntfs', df identifies RW ntfs-3g partitions not as ntfs), and it works!
Solved

Ok. Did the same on my original file, so this error will be gone in the next version.

After such a long time : was despairing ...

Let me first say 'Hello' to Chris. Glad you are still there.

Also : 'Thank you' for providing this MCNLive Kris BETA. Thank you very much indeed.

Am writing now from within MCNLive Kris. So this is not too bad!!!

Will use it for a couple of days and let you have my comments then.

Just one question now: can I install it as ISO on a hard disk ( "frugal" or "poor man's install")? What would be the grub entry then?

Thank you. And all the best with this nice piece of work.

You can do a normal installation, see the "Live install" icon on the desktop. As far as I know it is not possible to simply place the iso on disk and boot that.

THE Kris-wallpaper.

I don't see a new logo in that wallpaper... but maybe my eyes are bad (oh yes they are! ).

When i do a remaster in the "copy 2 ram" mode it creates a iso file of 8 MB
Also i can not choose a temp directory....

That's probably the reason it creates a small iso... there's not enough space in your memory to place the squashfs file. Some more information. Could it be you only have NTFS-partitions available? In that case, see Kris' reply above.

Having said that... I believe the script doens't check if any useable partition is found at all to use for temp, so I guess it would be a good idea to implement that now.

After some testing ...

Got stuck a couple of times and had to reboot but am unable to find out what was the cause.

Installed opera qt4. Am able to run the program as root but not as user 'live'. Can not create the '.opera' directory in "/home/live".

Small detail : kindly clean up your root directory. Remove your '.viminfo' and '.bash_history'

Thank you.

Michel, i'd like to see a regular login screen, and the possibility to logon as root, like the old mcnlive
In copy2ram mode disks are not mounted automagicly (bug?)

From the normal mode i can do a re-master!!
My laptop has 2GB memory, but i can imagine all space is used when in copy2ram mode.

Nicely surprised by Distrowatch this morning.
MCNLive is in the chart at 28!!!!!!!

Strange... did you install a lot of software or were you just doing simple tasks like browsing the Internet?

Please provide some more information. Maybe a link to the package so we can try to reproduce the issue.

Can't hardly be much in there, but will do.

What exactly do you mean? The old MCNLive logged in automatically as well as I remember... you should be able to logout and back in if you wish though.

Strage, I'd say that's not possible, but if you are experiencing it it probably is. :P

You probably cannot because you don't have a drive mounted to put the temp files on, so all temp goes into memory. My laptop has 1,5Gb and I can't do a remaster either without a drive for the temp files. The more software you install, the more memory you need.

Yes, I have been installing the software I like. Think that all problems came after installing Opera 10.10. As told could run opera as root, not as user 'live'.
Here the url : 'ftp://ftp.opera.com/pub/opera/linux/1010/final/en/i386/opera-10.10.gcc4.qt4.i386.rpm'
Hope you will be able to reproduce the error and find a solution.

Thank you very much for your efforts.

Regards,

I'm downloading it now but have one question Is there a way to use copy to ram after installing it to a usb-stick. Just like Puppy-linux does.

On my IBM with intel i830 graphic chipset it is not booting, course xorg. Can we use the xorg from 2009.1
I added the bootcode at boot and it startup i can login, see the kde-desktop and trown back to the inlogscreen.
Without that bootcode all i see is a black screen.

With the vesa option a have also a black screen

Yes, when booting from usb everything should work just as booting from cd.

No, we won't. We'd like to keep MCNLive as close to the original Mandriva distro as possible, so reverting to the old xorg is not an option. Besides, while it fixes your issue, it probably breaks things for loads of other people.

There might be a little bug in that bootoption i haven't though of before... when drakx11 doesn't write a xorg.conf file at all, the bootoption won't work. Will try to fix that in the next release.

Edit:Fixed that, hope it works for you in the next beta.

I got the following errors during boot from cd on the aspireone:and then it hangs

Using it for two days now it runs smoothly (or is that because SMPlayer plays Barry White's, You're the first, the last, my everything with repeat on set by me )
Enige 'lastige' in het dagelijkse gebruik is dat ik gewend ben naar Google.com te gaan als startpagina en nu kom ik steeds uit bij ... MandrivaClub.NL

That's strange... your system is already booting at that point, the "trying to mount sda1" message is from my configure script. You tried booting from usb on that system before didn't you?

It is this part of the script that seems to hang on your system:
So it hangs trying to mount a local partition. If you boot that system normally, can you post the ouput of "fdisk -l | grep ^/dev"?

Edit: Posted the wrong version, the above is the one to be found on beta1.

Found the bug! See my post above... I do a grep -v at $hotpart, but if $hotpart is empty it returns nothing, leaving nothing to be mounted! Ooooops!

The output isthis from puppy linux

MCNLive was booting from a external dvd-drive

Strange, all normal Linux partitons... which I guess are all mounted?
I'd expect to see some strange partition type on which it would "hang"... now I can only expect a problem with one of your partitions... did you try to boot from cd again, or tried it just once?

Ok, mounting local partitions when using copy2ram is fixed in my new config script. Also the remaster script checks if any suitable temp partition was found and quits with an error if none are.

En MCNLive blijft het goed doen bij Distrowatch.
Inmiddels op plek 22, en in stijgende lijn.

MCNLive keeps on going strong.
Now arrived at position 22, and still going upwards.

What chart are you looking at? I don't see it...?

Highking, on the homepage is a chart. If you set the option to "last 7 days" you can see MCNLIVE on the 22th place

Ah now I see! Nice!

I deleted all partions of the internal ssd and from the micro usb-stick, tried it again and all went well.
I'm typing this from the aspireone 110 with MCNLive installed on the micro usb-stick
Installed gtkpod, krecipe, abiword total size now about 1,2gb, it's working faster then from the ssd

Ow i forgot i replaced the original kernel with the desktop kernel, why use a 586 kernel (i know why)

Great. I guess you mean you're running a remaster now?

You know why we use an i586-kernel but have to ask? Well for anyone else with the same question: hardware support. Some older machines just don't run with a i686-kernel, for example Via C3 cpu's don't like i686 kernels.

Found it! We've been editing the wrong file all the time!
We searched for the settings in the kdeglobals file, but that's not the file we need! By accident I stumbled upon the file .fonts.conf, which has the following content:

Tested an empty profile with only this file => no luck. Tested again with a new empty profile, this file and the kcmfonts file in place (the oneliner "dontChangeAASettings=false") => nice smooth fonts!

MCNLive can't be stopped in the charts!!!!!!!!
Right now at position 18, and still going up.

And this is only the BETA!!!!!

Noop just installed it and added those programs.

Ah, on that bicycle!

@Kris, is this more like it?

Position 29 today... guess that means we have to release beta 2 soon.

That's it

Ok, then I guess it's time for beta 2 as no-one reported any new issues.

From the head, since beta 1:
- Mounting local partitions when using copy2ram has been fixed.
- The remaster script now checks if there is a partition for the temp files before going on.
- The vesa bootoption now places a default xorg.conf when none was written by drakx11.
- Antialias settings have been fixed.
- Allowed root login through KDM.