spartango Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 Umm... I'm a try to formulate this idea starting sometime this weekend, as time permits. Then will test and share and test more. This definitely a good start, and a wiki'd be useful soon too, tho not yet. @Panarchy: we started the new team like a week ago...and we have good ideas but no results yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyhighmac Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 Yeah. I think we have a great start, with some great possiblilities but it is going to take time. I will be able to setup a wiki for us when we want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(MoC) Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 Well we have that worked out, let's split the labour and say who does what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagar Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 Well, people wanting release dates and wanting to print t-shirts & host wiki's aside, There are 2 ways to approach making a live DVD: taking an install DVD & modifying it to the point that it runs dock & finder or some substitute (kismus, kalyway make bootable) , and taking a complete install and adding the ramdisk features etc to allow it to boot (modbin etc). I've made up 2 sticks which are essentially identical, except one has the minimal install image on it & the other has a retail DVD image. both are readwrite images so they can be modified and experimented with. A quick look seems to indicate that the retail DVD uses rc scripts whereas the installed OS uses launchd ? (take a look in /etc on the install dvd) As the retail DVD image boots just fine, and I have used this type of stick a lot for toolkit purposes by launching stuff from terminal, clearly the ramdisk & booting setup from here can be used. Also, there is much talk of "Live DVD" but little mention of what it actually is, so some goals should be agreed on regarding what it should be capable of etc. If a simple application launcher with a selection of utilities is all that is needed, then I'm pretty sure that could be done with a stripped-out install DVD, and should be possible to make cd-sized. or at least ~1gb On the other end of the scale, if we say that the requirements are dock, finder, multiple applications running etc, that is a whole lot more work, and should be approached in stages. Based on this, I think the first project should be to follow the modbin pattern and add the ramdisk features from the retail DVD to the installed image, and see how far that gets? Just trying to be practical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyhighmac Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 Ok Hagar, just trying to contribute what I can. I agree with Hagar on that we should create an outline, and then go from there. I believe a limited os would be best. Easy to see how it runs on your system, the basic layout for new users. I don't think people need to run applications, that could introduce problems, etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(MoC) Posted October 31, 2008 Share Posted October 31, 2008 I agree with Hagar... My idea is how about we start slow and try and get a limited bootable system and see how it goes. If it actually is snappy then we should keep going and turn it into a full environment over time. How far do we want this project to go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyhighmac Posted November 1, 2008 Share Posted November 1, 2008 Yeah. MoC is right. I think this project should start off limited, then if it is possible we could got to a full system. maybe a boot key where you could have it boot into limited mode, otherwise into full when we get that far. what do you mean by how far? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(MoC) Posted November 1, 2008 Share Posted November 1, 2008 Yeah. MoC is right. I think this project should start off limited, then if it is possible we could got to a full system. maybe a boot key where you could have it boot into limited mode, otherwise into full when we get that far. what do you mean by how far? I meant this as do we want it to be more than a minimal system? Or do we want it to be something fully blown? We should be thinking about this to know how to proceed. But the whole start out small go out big is a good idea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyhighmac Posted November 1, 2008 Share Posted November 1, 2008 Well I think a combo, so (in the future) it would boot automatically into full featured mode, and then during boot, you can press a key and boot into minimal. But yes, starting out small will be the best, and we already have the groundwork set up by Hagar and a few others... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spartango Posted November 1, 2008 Share Posted November 1, 2008 I agree with the small-to-big approach, especially cause we'll never get something working otherwise ...but all that said, we should not try to pile hacks on to the small setup when we move bigger. We'll definitely need to switch approaches some when we move to a more full-featured setup. I really would like to avoid hacking up an install image to make it full-featured when we want finder and all the normal features... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyhighmac Posted November 1, 2008 Share Posted November 1, 2008 Yeah. spartango is right. I think we should create an outline of what needs to be done, and in order of importance. Then delegate those tasks. But thats just my idea. What is everyone else's opinion? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~pcwiz Posted November 1, 2008 Share Posted November 1, 2008 I hope I'm not too late to the party but if you guys are interested in any help or stuff I'm available....I already did successfully create a LiveDVD with modbin's package and it works (uses RAM disk and some shell scripts and stuff that run at startup) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyhighmac Posted November 1, 2008 Share Posted November 1, 2008 how well does it work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panarchy Posted November 1, 2008 Share Posted November 1, 2008 We wish we knew. You'll be updated of our progress on the homepage (by REVENGE I assume) I'm not going to be the one who sets the release date, as it will be when this team is comfortable to release. You will see an announcement on Frontpage News when we do. Okay, thanks. Umm... I'm a try to formulate this idea starting sometime this weekend, as time permits. Then will test and share and test more.This definitely a good start, and a wiki'd be useful soon too, tho not yet. @Panarchy: we started the new team like a week ago...and we have good ideas but no results yet. Okay. Happy to beta test once you've made some progress (my specs are in my sig). Yeah. I think we have a great start, with some great possiblilities but it is going to take time. I will be able to setup a wiki for us when we want. Okay, cool. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spartango Posted November 1, 2008 Share Posted November 1, 2008 @~pcwiz: i've seen your work and would like to hear about your ideas on this matter. I've seen the modbin approach, and it looks like that's kinda what we've been talking about here, except for the part about the boot, which it seems will be compressed image based as opposed to directly off disk, but that shouldn't invalidate any of his procedure. If we can get modbin's stuff tweaked and formalized(ie, autogen or something) that'd be great, and i think the compressed image would make it faster. Any ideas on where to go? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spartango Posted November 1, 2008 Share Posted November 1, 2008 so, i'm trying the various historical methods that have been discussed to see how existing stuff works atm. plz pm me if ur around if u'd like to join me atm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(MoC) Posted November 2, 2008 Share Posted November 2, 2008 Oh new idea - let's include a various amount of kernels at the bootloader prompt to save us from getting many drivers to work with one kernel and typer of machine. Like that each machine can have a optimized start up time (talking about SSE2, SSE3, SpeedStep kernels etc) for it's specific function or processor instruction. That being said, we need to organize ourselves. What needs to be done? Who does what? EDIT: Oh one more thing, how large do we want this whole thing to be? (In size/space) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagar Posted November 2, 2008 Share Posted November 2, 2008 OK, well this seems to be off to a start.. I'll be doing some experiments to see if I can rip an install DVD down to fit on a 500mb stick, and get something more useful than installer to run at startup, If I discover anything I'll be sure to share it. In the meantime, REVENGE, spartango: best of luck with this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~pcwiz Posted November 2, 2008 Share Posted November 2, 2008 @~pcwiz: i've seen your work and would like to hear about your ideas on this matter. I've seen the modbin approach, and it looks like that's kinda what we've been talking about here, except for the part about the boot, which it seems will be compressed image based as opposed to directly off disk, but that shouldn't invalidate any of his procedure. If we can get modbin's stuff tweaked and formalized(ie, autogen or something) that'd be great, and i think the compressed image would make it faster. Any ideas on where to go? I'm not quite sure I understand the objectives. Modbin's method works fine on a single layer DVD, so are you trying to improve the size, speed, or both? Hagar, As for trying to fit a DVD onto a 500 meg stick, I tried that a few months ago. Didn't work. Even after removing all the packages and all the unnecessary stuff (Extensions) and even stripping the PowerPC architectures and additional languages from the DVD it still stands somewhere around 1 GB and ripping much more out of the DVD will leave you with not much to work with. MoC, By "Application" I think the easiest method would be to use a shell script. It wouldn't be all that hard to write one that detects devices using device and vendor IDs (I have some experience in that area ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(MoC) Posted November 2, 2008 Share Posted November 2, 2008 MoC, By "Application" I think the easiest method would be to use a shell script. It wouldn't be all that hard to write one that detects devices using device and vendor IDs (I have some experience in that area ) We want it to have an interface so that users have SOME control over how stuff is being detected etc. We want the LiveDVD to boot something like Installer but instead of installing OS X we'd be detecting hardware and stuff. You can do the script, sure, I'll work on the UI though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~pcwiz Posted November 2, 2008 Share Posted November 2, 2008 We want it to have an interface so that users have SOME control over how stuff is being detected etc. We want the LiveDVD to boot something like Installer but instead of installing OS X we'd be detecting hardware and stuff. You can do the script, sure, I'll work on the UI though. Nice, I'm assuming the UI will execute the script. Just one quick problem though. What are you planning to write the UI in? It has to be in Cocoa/ObjC if you are basing the LiveDVD on the OS X Installer DVD. And even then, few Cocoa apps work with the resources and frameworks (minimal) provided on the Installer DVD. I could do a UI in AppleScript Studio if you guys base the LiveDVD on Modbin's, but even then its a long shot. We'll just have to wait and see I guess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
(MoC) Posted November 2, 2008 Share Posted November 2, 2008 Nice, I'm assuming the UI will execute the script. Just one quick problem though. What are you planning to write the UI in? It has to be in Cocoa/ObjC if you are basing the LiveDVD on the OS X Installer DVD. And even then, few Cocoa apps work with the resources and frameworks (minimal) provided on the Installer DVD. I could do a UI in AppleScript Studio if you guys base the LiveDVD on Modbin's, but even then its a long shot. We'll just have to wait and see I guess. In the meanwhile I've setup an IRC channel. Please join and I'll give you guys OP privs. irc.nac.net /j #OSx86Live Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagar Posted November 3, 2008 Share Posted November 3, 2008 Hagar, As for trying to fit a DVD onto a 500 meg stick, I tried that a few months ago. Didn't work. Even after removing all the packages and all the unnecessary stuff (Extensions) and even stripping the PowerPC architectures and additional languages from the DVD it still stands somewhere around 1 GB and ripping much more out of the DVD will leave you with not much to work with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spartango Posted November 3, 2008 Share Posted November 3, 2008 Hagar, Have you been able to get the netboot approach to work with 10.5.2 or greater? it not working for me for some reason. It hangs when it should be at the end of rc.cdrom. any magic? btw, good job with the stripped installl! stop by the irc plz. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hagar Posted November 3, 2008 Share Posted November 3, 2008 stop by the irc plz. You can find me almost anytime on irc.moofspeak.net #osx86 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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