CTKArch

http://ctkarch.org/download/0.7/

[en]
Here is  the final release!

It took some time because I've implemented something quite interesting: the possibility of turning your live into a “nomad installation”, by saving all system changes to the persistent data partition.
The script for add-on creation and the installer have required quite big changes to support this and the add-ons without conflicts.

Read the doc, it's full of interesting info!

PS: if you have already installed v0.7 with the RC1 iso, don't even think of reinstalling: it will give the same result on your hard disk.
However, you will certainly want to update the live on your flash memory stick ou CD/DVD-RW. (talking about CDs, have a look at v0.7's news…)

[fr]
Voilà la version finale !

Ça a pris quelques temps, parce que j'ai implémenté un truc assez intéressant : la possibilité de transformer la live en « installation nomade », en enregistrant tous les changements système dans la partition de données persistantes.
Le script de création d'add-ons et l'installeur ont nécessité des changements assez importants pour supporter ça et les add-ons, sans conflits.

Lisez la doc, elle est pleine d'infos intéressantes !

PS : si vous avez déjà installé la v0.7 avec l'iso RC1, n'imaginez même pas de réinstaller : ça donnera exactement le même résultat sur votre disque.
Cependant, vous voudrez sûrement mettre à jour la live sur votre stick mémoire flash ou CD/DVD-RW. (à propos de CD, regardez la description de la 0.7…)

Génial...
juste un truc dans la description:
"Les fichiers dans l’image ISO sont ordonnés linéairement sur le disque dans l’ordre de leur accès au boot. Cela évite sur les lecteurs CD/DVD d’exiger de nombreux allers et retours de la tête de lecture, ce qui consomme du temps.[...]
Ce gain se répercute sur le système installé sur le disque dur. ☺ (il est plus faible dans ce cas, bien entendu)"
peux-tu expliquer en détail comment on fait ça? ça a un rapport avec le fichier priorities.list? tu dis que ça marche aussi sur le disque dur, de façon moins visible, mais si on a déjà installé la RC1, on n'a pas cette amélioration?

De toute façon, dès que tu mets à jour, les fichiers ne sont plus super-dans-l'ordre…
Oui, c'est bien dans l'ordre de priorities.list.

Je l'ai écrit en observant le boot avec un petit programme (readahead-watch) hacké.
Après, il fallait être un peu futé et ne pas prendre les fichiers variables/temporaires/aléatoires en dépiautant la liste. Selon les cas, soit j'ai regroupé, généralisé, ou pas inclus.
Tant que le boot se passe toujours pareil c'est facile (sur une machine donnée), mais pour faire du général, tu as plusieurs possibilités.
Et là, impossible de faire linéaire, alors il faut calculer les distances minimales moyennes à parcourir par la tête dans tous les cas puis décider en fonction… les tests aident.

L'effet sur le disque dur est certes bénéfique (si ça avait ralenti le boot une fois installé, ce serait bof), mais très faible.
Là où ça change vraiment, c'est sur CD.

Congratulations and best wishes ~

I have 0.7 64bit installed on my SSD.

-> 8 seconds boot (grub to desktop) - excellent!

In my quest for boot speed increase I tried modifying initscripts as per Arch wiki;

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Improve_Boot_Performance#.2Fetc.2Finittab

However,
changing 'wait' to 'once' for initscripts resulted in a boot to console login (user/password/startx)
Maybe this was pushing things too far for the boot sequence??
Any ideas?

0.7 64bit performing very nicely.
Keep up the good work.

You can't parallelize things like mounting filesystems and at the same time start running programs that are on them.
It's impossible to run X even before you mounted your root partition with write access, do you understand that?
That's why it doesn't work.

Note that even if you run things in parallel, the problem is that it won't take less time.
Everything still has to be run; if you run several things at a time, they slow each other down.
Worse, they cause the hard disk's head (if it's a hard disk and not a SSD) to read a few data for one task, move (wasting time), read a few data for another task, etc.

The deliberate choice in ctkarch is to dedicate the whole machine to running every boot task one after another, occupating the hard disk at the maximum possible for *this* task so it ends faster.
Remember that the files are ordered on the disk, too. So, if you parallelize, you lose time.
I have been trying to improve the bootup process for 2 years, and I came to the conclusion that sharing the machine between several tasks is slower than running them one at a time. In any case.

If you want to have ctkarch booting faster, you will have to remove things from the bootup process. Running them in parallel will never fasten your boot. Tested and confirmed…

So, what you can do:
You can avoid starting wicd. It's convienient (some say indispensable) for wi-fi connections, but if you use the “network” daemon instead (they have no GUI config), it will start faster (expect a ~1-2s gain).
You will maybe gain ~0.3s by running ln -sf /sbin/modprobe /lib/udev/load-modules.sh too.

Apart from this, I'm afraid you can't do more. I've done almost everything possible to make it light, you know…

Just installed 0.7.Boots very quickly on my older PC and looks great.Excellent job - thanks

Just read about it on Distrowatch and looks good.  I love the "nomad" install thing... handy.

I am an avid Arch user and love openbox on my laptop... will download and try today!

Will be good to install on friend's machines who need a light system (they are always asking me to get them into Linux).

Thanks for your hard work and keep it up!

Don't forget to show to your friend how to install with pacman on the commandline, and give him the archlinux wiki's url.

I am stuck at grub installer,when it finishes it says that i need to check some lines for problems,i scrool text down and i dont know how to exit that.Please help me,btw distro is great .

the editor is nano, the commands are at the bottom of the window ("^" means Ctrl); to save, type "Ctrl-O", and to exit, type "Ctrl-X"; you can also use Esc: type 2 times on Esc, then "X".

Quote: Cereal-Killer at Apr 13, 2011 10:27:44 am

---

the editor is nano, the commands are at the bottom of the window ("^" means Ctrl); to save, type "Ctrl-O", and to exit, type "Ctrl-X"; you can also use Esc: type 2 times on Esc, then "X".

---

Tnx,it worked.

Testdisk doesn't work on my HD-installation (G45 chipset  X4500HD onboard graphics). On any of my three SATA-disks testdisk hangs on "Quick Search".

First I tried an older version 6.11 by recompiling it from source to no avail.

Repairing the partition table of one my disks with testdisk was no problem under Debian (Antix).

Can anyone confirm or deny this?

P.S. Testdisk of ctkarchlive-0.6 does not have this bug. 

It's the same version of testdisk on the two versions, 0.6 and 0.7.
Since it hangs, it must come from the kernel.

You should continue investigating/reporting that on the Arch linux bugtracker, or so.

[testdisk problem solved]

Quote: Calimero at Apr 21, 2011 8:26:35 pm

---

It's the same version of testdisk on the two versions, 0.6 and 0.7.

---

right.

Quote: Calimero at Apr 21, 2011 8:26:35 pm

---

Since it hangs, it must come from ...

---

a malfunctioning
(1) kernel
  or
(2) ncurses library (testdisk depends on ncurses as well)

ad (1) it's not the kernel.

(ctkarch-0.6 HDD-installation)
Having installed the kernel 2.6.37-ARCH of ctkarch-0.7 under 0.6 

Quote:

---

#uname -a
Linux ctkarch 2.6.37-ARCH #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Mar 25 14:35:13 UTC 2011 i686 Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9400 @ 2.66GHz GenuineIntel GNU/Linux

---

testdisk works normal.

ad (2) ncurses: the culprit!

(ctkarch-0.7 HDD-installation)
After downgrading ncurses on 0.7 to version 5.7 testdisk works as well.

ncurses 5.7 used for test

P.S. Please compare my results with:
[testdisk] segfaults after ncurses upgrade to 5.8

You're just beat me with that!!
This is a near relative of Archbang ( in fact I heard some rumours that Will based the first AB on a CTKArch 0.5 build).
I installed 0.6 once which went quite satisfactory, although configuration is not so much to my liking as Archbang.
For example you had to establish the internet connection yourself, instead of it being preconfigured.

Well, the choice of not automatically running a dhcp request on any of the network interfaces in the liveCD at bootup is a desired behaviour.

As I use it it test hardware and networks, there are three reasons for this:
- pentesting. when you send a dhcp request, everybody sees it, and you may not want that.
- defective hardware. if the network card crashes the system, it better not be used by default.
- boot speed. you may not need to configure the internet connection for any reason (you don't have one, or don't need it)
Since you may not need it, it's not started by default in the live system, but an add-on or an additional line in a persistent home can change that.

Archbang and CTKarch are both liveCDs of the Arch Linux distribution, each with its choice of packages and default configuration.
scripts from ctkarch are used in archbang, yes, after I told them to have a look at them and see if they could be useful to them.