If there is interest in this, I would need testers and feedback.
I was excited to try this out. I gave it a go on my Windows 7 64 bit
machine. Here is what happens:
Output folder: C:\Sage-Live-511-46
Extract: lupq-511.sfs... 100%
Extract: vmlinuz... 100%
Extract: initrd.gz... 100%
Extract: readme.txt
Output folder: C:\Sage-Live-511-46
Output folder: C:\Backups
Output folder: C:
Extract: grldr... 100%
Extract: grldr.mbr... 100%
Execute: "bcdedit" /export "C:\Backups\BCD Backup"
Then it just sits there and the progress bar stops. It hasn't moved
for 10 minutes, so I think it is stuck. I can't think of a reason why
it should stop here.
By the way, the machine is relatively freshly installed, about a week
ago, with nothing more than Chrome, WinSCP, Putty, MSVC Express and
Cygwin on it.
I can try it on my Windows Vista 32 bit machine. But I don't use it
very much as Vista is about 20x slower for most things and the
keyboard on that machine is broken. Actually, I've just noticed the
download on that machine stopped at 0.2mb and it says it will be
finished downloading in 22 days.
Bill.
> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sage-windows" group.
> To post to this group, send email to sage-w...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to sage-windows...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-windows?hl=en.
>
>
Not at all. You are the one who has done the hard work here, so
certainly no inconvenience for me.
> I assume you checked the md5sum after download
No.
> and you started the
> installer with admin privileges.
Maybe not. There is one user only on this machine though.
>
> I also assume you know that this is about changing you boot
> configuration, so it is not risk free (at least at this stage)
Actually I didn't realise this. However, if it *only* screws up my
bootloader and not my Windows partition then I know how to fix this.
Yes. Me too.
>
>> Execute: "bcdedit" /export "C:\Backups\BCD Backup"
>
> bcdedit is the programm Vista and Windows 7 use to manage the
> bootloader.
>
> some information how to use it
> http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2676-bcdedit-how-use.html
>
> The installer should backup the bootfile in the root of the
> bootpartition (probably C:/bootmgr)
There are two files there, boot and bootmgr.
> and then installgrub4dos. This will change the bootfile to grldr.
> I have the files:
> grldr
> gtldr.mbr
> menu.lst
I don't have any of those.
>
> in C:/
>
> Do you also have those?
>
>
>>
>> Then it just sits there and the progress bar stops. It hasn't moved
>> for 10 minutes, so I think it is stuck. I can't think of a reason why
>> it should stop here.
>>
>> By the way, the machine is relatively freshly installed, about a week
>> ago, with nothing more than Chrome, WinSCP, Putty, MSVC Express and
>> Cygwin on it.
>
> Right at the moment I just can think of 23/64 Bit issues, I would be
> very happy if you could send me details on what files
> were created.
>
>> I can try it on my Windows Vista 32 bit machine. But I don't use it
>> very much as Vista is about 20x slower for most things and the
>> keyboard on that machine is broken. Actually, I've just noticed the
>> download on that machine stopped at 0.2mb and it says it will be
>> finished downloading in 22 days.
>
> if your new windows 7 is still working
It is.
> and you can move over the
> installer file with usb or so to the Vista machine then I would be
> very happy if you try it there (because its 32 Bit). If that works you
> should also experience a performance increase in the sage system
> compared to Vista.
>
I'm downloading it again. I don't have a usb stick. It has two more
hours before it downloads on that machine (I restarted the download).
Bill.
I should be able to try my Vista 32 bit machine in a few hours.
Bill.
Bill.
I have Cygwin, which has md5sum. So I checked with that.
All fine.
>
> If the md5sum is ok try to run the installer again with right-click
> "Run as administrator", it will recognise that the programm files are
> unziped, so it should continue with the backup of the C:/bootmbr and
> then put grldr and grldr.mbr in the C:/ directory
OK, trying as administrator. Back in a minute.
>
> if this will not work I would like to ask you to try some commandline
> work to try to backup and install the grub bootloader manually.
>
> regards
> emil
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Yes, this is a security feature. It is to stop those dirty, filthy
rabid free sof... er I mean virus writers from taking control of the
machine.
(Actually I really don't know why they did this.)
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
extendedinput Yes
default {current}
resumeobject {c279be75-9b51-11de-9b93-a29d207e6d0e}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30
customactions 0x1000085000001
0x5400000f
custom:5400000f {a158c575-ef54-11df-a032-99cb5e6bc3f8}
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {a158c575-ef54-11df-a032-99cb5e6bc3f8}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {c279be75-9b51-11de-9b93-a29d207e6d0e}
nx OptIn
Bill.
Bill.
I'll try to do all that this evening and report the results.
Bill.
Sorry I didn't get this done last night. I was working on a talk and
needed my computer for that so I didn't want to restart it.
Below are the results of the new experiments:
On 25 November 2010 08:48, emil <emil.w...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
It still hangs at the same place.
>
> what does it say? - has the output of rcdedit changed?
It is identical (assuming you mean bcdedit, not rcdedit).
>
> if that is not going to work,
>
> I ask you to try to backup your bootfile manually:
>
> so open a command window (goto Start/Accessories/cmd right click it to
> "run as admin") and try a backup:
>
> bcdedit /export "C:\BCD Backup"
> any error messages?
It says "The operation completed successfully."
> On my installation the Backup is then situated in
> the directory C:\BCD Backup.
There is now such a file. It's a binary file.
> It should also create a log on the
> backup!
I don't know what that means. I don't see any log file.
>
> if that works we can create a bootmenu entry:
>
> bcdedit /create /d "Start Sage Live" /application bootsector
>
It say the entry was successfully created and gives me an ID.
> This command returns an ID, (it is rather long, be sure to make no
> typos when using it).
> The installer gets the ID. Now this can be added to the bootmenu
> You have to use the { } brackets for it to work.
>
> bcdedit /set {Insert ID here} device "partition=C:"
Completed successfully.
> bcdedit /set {Insert ID here} path \grldr.mbr
Completed successfully.
>
> bcdedit /displayorder {Insert ID here} /addlast
> (adds it to the menu)
Completed successfully.
>
> bcdedit /timeout 10
> (sets the timeout to 10 seconds)
Completed successfully.
>
> now the bootloader should be added.
>
> check with bcdedit, there should be an entry now!
>
Seems to be there.
> At last we have to create the plain
> textfile menu.lst
>
> the content is
>
> title SageLive 511-46
> find --set-root --ignore-floppies /Sage-Live-511-46/initrd.gz
> kernel /Sage-Live_511-46/vmlinuz psubdir="Sage-Live_511-46"
> initrd /Sage-Live_511-46/initrd.gz
> boot
>
> save it in C:
Done.
>
> this are the manual steps to create the boot entry. Does anyone of
> steps give an error?
> Probably it is the 1st one with the /export
>
No errors. Now restarting machine to see what happens.....
> kind regards,
> emil
>
> PS: I saw yesterday that there is a nice free application called
> easybcd, which allows to manage boot entries in a gui. I have not used
> it, but maybe this is handy
>
I might try fiddling with some of the underscores and dashes to see if
they are wrong....
Bill.
However, if I type precisely those commands (with dashes instead of
underscores) at the Grub command line, it boots into Puppy Linux!
I checked again that I had typed precisely the right thing into
menu.lst, and I have.
Anyhow, so I can get into Puppy Linux manually.
There are unfortunately two problems however. The mouse is unusable.
It random clicks buttons as I move it around the screen, meaning all
manner of menus and options come up.
Also the notebook doesn't work on this machine. There is no evaluate
button to click and the cells don't do anything when evaluated with
any combination of shift-enter, control-enter or alt-enter.
Sage itself works from the command line.
It also asked me upon shutting down if I wanted to save my settings
(the mouse sensitivity and keyboard locale were set incorrectly for my
hardware, so I had adjusted these). Upon clicking "Save Settings" it
promptly told me that "Settings have not been saved".
I don't know if it is feasible that some of these problems might be
rectified. Apart from the keyboard locale and the mouse sensitivity,
on my other machine I didn't have these problems.
Bill.
Indeed, what you have below is precisely what I have in my menu.lst.
But this fails to work for me, without a specific error message that
might give a clue.
It surely has to do with line endings somehow. I'll try semicolons and
see if that helps.
Bill.
some progress:
At the Grub prompt I looked at the C:\ directory and noticed there was
no menu.lst file. I booted back to Windows and I was able to edit this
file. So I scratched my head a bit and decided it was some kind of
permissions thing. I tried changing the permissions on the file, but
that didn't work.
Then I had the idea to create the file in Cygwin after **running
Cygwin as Administrator**. This did the trick. It now gives me the
appropriate Sage Live option and it boots into Puppy Linux.
The issues with the mouse and notebook still remain, but this time
when I restarted it offered me the option of creating a save file.
However it said I should not do this without defragmenting my Windows
partition. This makes me a little nervous. I can't see why it should
need to defragment to create a save file. So I chose not to do this
until I understand this a bit better.
Bill.
That is solved now. See my other email which crossed with yours in the aether.
>
>>
>> Anyhow, so I can get into Puppy Linux manually.
>>
>> There are unfortunately two problems however. The mouse is unusable.
>> It random clicks buttons as I move it around the screen, meaning all
>> manner of menus and options come up.
>
> Thats unfortunate, I suppose this is really a brand new machine and
> maybe there are some new drivers which are not included in the base
> release (the base distro is 2 months old).
It is a very new machine, < 1 year.
> I just can guess.
> try open console and type
> mv /etc/modprobe.conf /etc/modprobe.d
> modprobe usbhid
>
>> Also the notebook doesn't work on this machine. There is no evaluate
>> button to click and the cells don't do anything when evaluated with
>> any combination of shift-enter, control-enter or alt-enter.
>
> On sage devel there was a similar problem with the evaluation of
> cells, there it was just, that at first startup it asks for a password
> in terminal window and the browser windows goes over this terminal
> window and "hides" it. Until the password is not set you can not edit
> cells. I will try to change the default popping coordinates.
I actually noticed this and changed the password. In fact it would not
allow me to log in to the notebook without doing this, so I don't
think this was the issue. I put a password in and it still didn't
allow the evaluation of cells. Note that I did the exact same
procedure on my 32 bit machine and it worked fine there. I'm puzzled
as to why the behavior should be different on this machine as
presumably the Linux runs in 32 bit mode anyway. It should be exactly
the same. But for some bizarre reason it isn't working.
>
>>
>> Sage itself works from the command line.
>>
>> It also asked me upon shutting down if I wanted to save my settings
>> (the mouse sensitivity and keyboard locale were set incorrectly for my
>> hardware, so I had adjusted these). Upon clicking "Save Settings" it
>> promptly told me that "Settings have not been saved".
>
> Upon the 1. shutdown it should ask to create a "savefile" which is by
> default 512 MB.
> Maybe it refuses to write this file because an inconsistency in the
> NTFS Filesystem is detected.
That's possible. I didn't defragment, as I didn't understand why a
filesystem included in a file on my NTFS partition without making a
new partition for it should require a defragment. I see now that it
wants to create the savefile outside of the existing files created by
the Windows installer.
Is it possible to have the Windows installer create the savefile? This
would be much safer. As this is my primary machine I don't want to do
anything too risky.
> If so this could be rectified with defragmentation of the harddisk.
> Try going to (in win 7)
> to [Start]->[Computer[]->[Disk C: ]"right klick" and select
> [properties]->[Tools]->[Defragment now]
> and then to
> [Start]->[Computer[]->[Disk C: ]"right klick" and select [properties]-
>>[Tools]->[Check now]
> if there is no error it should be possible to create the save file at
> shutdown.
> Maybe it is also related to the 64 bit Windows.
It did offer to create the file the second time I used it. It may have
been due to the fact that it didn't boot into Puppy Linux
automatically from the menu the first time around. The second time I
tried it was after I fixed the menu.lst permissions issue.
>
>> I don't know if it is feasible that some of these problems might be
>> rectified. Apart from the keyboard locale and the mouse sensitivity,
>> on my other machine I didn't have these problems.
>>
>> Bill.
>
> As a last resort for the mouse issue you could try the following:
>
> leave the graphical "X-Windows" environment by pressing
> Ctrl-Alt-Backspace (simultanly)
>
> type "xorgwizard"
> at the commandline
>
> You should come now in a setup tool for the Xorg environment.
>
> There is a menu point which reads "test"
> choose it, then you should have the option to probe your video
> resolution or to probe the mouse.
>
> after finnishing the xorgwizard type "xwin" at the command prompt to
> restart the X-server (the Gui).
>
> Bill, the sum of problems (with the confirmed problem of the
> installer.exe hanging at the backup of the bootfile) let me come to
> the conclusion that right at the moment it is too early to seriously
> consider to support a install on a 64 bit windows 7. It worked on all
> 32 bit system so far I know of, with maybe minor cosmetical issues.
OK. I am sure Puppy Linux will improve their support over time.
>
> I will direct my work:
> 1) I will make a version with built in JRE (because sage needs it for
> 3d plotting)
> (currently i have a patch online to include that)
> 2) I will make a better documentation, and How To for the installation
> process
>
> I already started at:
> http://boxen.math.washington.edu/home/emil/doc/en/home.htm
>
> Any comments and contributions are welcome, I will improve as time
> allows.
Thank you for the hard work you've done on this!
>
> kind regards
> emil
>
Bill.
thanks for the explanation. So, essentially the defragmenting is for
performance reasons so that the file can be contiguous. It isn't
because the ntfs driver is flakey. I was aware of the proprietary
nature of ntfs and that no one really knew for sure how it worked. I
recall some BSD or linux distributions which refused to write to NTFS,
they were read-only because they didn't trust the drivers to not screw
ntfs up.
So it sounds safe enough to create a savefile, and it will work better
if I defrag. Once it is successfully created, little can go wrong
unless it needs to resize the file, at which point it will ask me.
I might try defraging and allowing it to create a save file next time
I restart my machine.
Thanks again for your help.
Bill.
Well, "using" is a state of mind. The 32 bit machine is not really
usable because it has Vista which is incredibly slow compared to
Windows 7. Also on that machine my keyboard is broken. Some keys don't
work properly, e.g. the "d" key.
So basically I'd have to use the 64 bit machine. But that is not
really usable either because of the mouse and notebook issues.
But my comments above are in relation to the 64 bit machine.
> Did you give up on the 64 bit one?
> I just have the question if sound was working on that machine. I made
> the observation that sound was not working out of the box with the 2
> windows 7 machines I tested.
I'll test this the next time I restart and find some time to play some more.
>
> Normally it should run fine with a bit older hardware - 1GB Ram is
> fine to do some basic work.
>
> Maybe check the java package on my download site, to enable 3d
> plotting :). I really like it - it looks so cool!!
Cool.
Bill.