Mama Mia, that's-a one fast-a Linux Install!


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Thread: Mama Mia, that's-a one fast-a Linux Install!

  1. #1
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    Talking Mama Mia, that's-a one fast-a Linux Install!

    I just installed the latest version of Sidux Lite (2008-4) to a partition on my hard drive. The install clocked in at a very imprssive 4 minutes, 38 seconds. This is how long it takes to install Linux these days. They've cracked the five minute install!

    Frankly, I was astonished, as you can see from the artist's representation below.

    Me -->

    I used someone's discarded P4 with a gig of RAM, and an external hard drive.

    Was there a catch? Well, the clock started running when I began the installer. I had already set up the passwords and partitions, etc, so add maybe another three minutes to the total. Also, the initial boot took a long, long time, maybe even a little longer than the actual install. Probably a test of the filesystem. I've already tried a second boot, and it was super fast. It felt like about 30 seconds.

    Sidux and also Kanotix (back when it was based on Sid instead of Etch) has been good for a really fast install before, like about ten minutes. My fastest install before this was also with Sidux, about eight and a half minutes. This comes really close to cutting that in half.

    Please don't think I'm complaining, but what the hell is going on here? What could make such a difference? A new kernel? Has anybody else gotten a suprisingly fast install recently? Has anyone recently beat my 4:38 time?Woo!
    Last edited by blackbelt_jones; 01-24-2009 at 05:49 PM.

  2. #2
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    I installed it some time ago and I too was just as shocked as to how fast it was installed. I first thought something had gone wrong. But yes its a fast install. Very fast.

    That being as it may, I'm not a fan of it. Nothing wrong with sidux itself. But it being based on Sid makes it too unstable for my taste. Just my opinion.

    Give me Lenny anytime (or Testing). Now you're talking about a cutting edge enough and stable distro.
    Last edited by loopback48; 01-24-2009 at 06:52 PM.
    Thanks,
    Loopback48

    Debian fanboy. And only Debian.

    http://www.debiantutorials.org/

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by loopback48 View Post
    That being as it may, I'm not a fan of it. Nothing wrong with sidux itself. But it being based on Sid makes it too unstable for my taste. Just my opinion.

    Give me Lenny anytime (or Testing). Now you're talking about a cutting edge enough and stable distro.
    I may be learning the hard way about that. I seem to have... uh, lost about 50 GB of files, or, as I like to call it... "all my files". The thing is, there's evidence that they're still there, but the system isn't detecting them. The partition is 400 gb, but when I enter the partition with konqueror, there's 350 GB free space. I think I know what i did to make this happen. I'm reinstalling the system, I'll let you know how it turns out...

  4. #4
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    That didn't help, but I'm still seeing signs I've got invisible data hiding somewhere on this partition. I've got a big empty folder, 400 GB from the outside, but when I look at it from the tnside, it's 344 GB. My missing data has got to be somewhere in there, though whether I can reclaim it is another question.
    Last edited by blackbelt_jones; 01-24-2009 at 10:53 PM.

  5. #5
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    Just the fact that its so close to the edge keeps me away. Exciting as all get out. But...
    Thanks,
    Loopback48

    Debian fanboy. And only Debian.

    http://www.debiantutorials.org/

  6. #6
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    Mama Mia, I'm-a so stupid!!

    I think it was my mistake. If Sidux had anything to do with this disaster, it was not allowing me to manually set my own mountpoint. I like to keep all my saved files in a seperate partition from my /home directory. There's probably a security advantage, but mostly I like to keep them away from the clutter of ~ . I usually mount the storage partition as /files, but since that wasn't available, thought it would be okay to mount the parition as /tmp. I thought it would be easier to set the partition up in /etc/fstab. I could edit the fstab entry after the install, instead of writing it from scratch.

    The way the sidux installer works, root is the only partition that is formatted. You can't format any other partitions automatically even if you want to. I thought that since /tmp would not be formatted, the data would not be harmed. My experience with installing has always been that there's "formatting" and "saving the data". Apparently, there's a gray area between the two that I had not been aware of.

    Considering the number of installs I do, my disaster rate hasn't been too bad, but this one happened after I had boasted publically about the speed, so it's kind of embarrassing. I'd been puting it off, but yesterday I ordered the second external hard drive I'd been planning to get, just for backing up.

    Once I have everything backed up, I m not going to hestitate to do the same thing again. I've used Sidux several times, and before there was Sidux there was Kanotix, which also used to be based on Sid (it's now based on Etch) When you think of Sid as being "unstable" it really refers to the repositories more than the distro itself. I've had some problems with Sid, but they've all had to do with things breaking after an upgrade. I've never experienced any data loss that didn't originate, as they say, between the keyboard and the chair.
    Last edited by blackbelt_jones; 01-25-2009 at 10:40 PM.

  7. #7
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    Now that I have read this post as well I see where you went wrong. Since this distribution is Debian based, then I assume it follows the same policy - which is to delete all contents of /tmp at boot time.

    So even if the installer did not format that partition, either as it was rebooted for the first time or during the installer it cleansed /tmp.

    I know 'temp' and 'tmp' are common names to use for directories you don't plan to keep long - since they are inherently temporary. However, I would get out of the habit of using directories at the highest point (branched from root - as in /tmp) unless you make long named directories. That would help with accidentally using a name that the system natively uses already.

    Here is an article on how to make a Debian/Ubuntu system stop cleaning /tmp that might give you some clues as to what happened in your case. If you have not formatted or copied files to the area of the drive that had your files you should be able to recover them.
    "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect."

    -Mark Twain

  8. #8
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    No, I already formatted the drive, because I wanted to use it. It's gone.

    Using /tmp wasn't an accident. It was a mistake.

    It's like I said, whenever I've set up partitions, I've always been given two choices. "Format the partiton" and "keep the data". I got a little sloppy, and I started to think in a false dichotomy. I assumed that"your partition will not be formatted" meant "you will keep your data." Not true, as it turned out.

    Every other Debian based system I know including Ubuntu, gives me the option of entering a custom mount point manually, by typing it in. I enter /files and there's never a problem. Sidux didn't give me the manual entry option. Instead I got a list of prewritten mount points, and that was all my choices. I chose /tmp-- not by accident, by mistake. Since I mistakenly believed that I would be able to keep the files, I thought it would save me a little effort to automatically enter the partition into fstab as /tmp, and later I could edit /fstab to change the mount point to /files. It would be easier than writing the entry from scratch. Such a very little bit of work I was trying to save!

    It occurred to me that it might not work. It didn't occur to me that I would lose my data. Next time I'm not allowed to type in a mountpoint manually, I'll just NOT set a mount point during the system install, and manually set the mount point LATER.

    And I also know that I need a backup hard drive. That's been ordered, paid for, and is on it's way. No more system installing without everything backed up!
    Last edited by blackbelt_jones; 01-27-2009 at 10:46 PM.

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