issues with creating partitions / Installing ToriOS in a VM

[uaneme]

I tried to install ToriOS in a VM

I followed the instructions in the help document but the install fails at the point after the partitions are detected.

I created /root and /swap as stated in the help doc. also labelled them accordingly.

Maybe i'm missing a step? the OBI procedure feels a bit strange, maybe that's where things went wrong.

[Israel Dahl (israeldahl)]

Hi please add a bit more information.
What is the exact ISO you are using, we have a few available.
Please provide the link to the one you downloaded.

did you prefix the partitions:
root partition (/) named obi-root
swap partition named obi-swap
in gparted.

obi is an unusual installer it works by unpacking a tarball directly to the root partition and then configuring the system around it. This is much different than the traditional installers of other distros which use a chroot and build the OS from packages.

We would like to make OBI very clear and easy to use, so your feedback is essential

[Israel Dahl (israeldahl)]

I have tested the gparted/obi feature in the ToriOS Debian Jessie 1.5 ISO. So I cannot fix this unless you provide me more information, as it appears to fully work

[uaneme (manostienen)]

Hi Israel,

ToriOs1.5 and OBI:

I asked a friend who has no experience with installing Operating systems to
install ToriOS. And had a look how that went.

He found the OBI button
then the menu popped up and that turned out to be unclear

He picked the first option. Did not have a clue what a tarball supposed to
be in the digital world. :-)
Here he seemed tu run into a brick wall not knowing what to do / try next.

he looked at the menu but the install option didn't seem to register.

I would say change the menu

and only present i, h, t, c, q, r and p or even less if possible. and an
'advanced buton' to go to this complete menu

essential would be to place the i option t the top

Then the second menu
it's not clear somehow that the first option has to be selected. To

As we are in europe the locale menu causes some confusion eventough default
will just be ok.

PAE

installer sees that the VM is PAE capable, and warns it can take long
depending on connection speed.

if someone doesn't know what PAE is then this causes FUD. :)

rpcbind gave a failed message

select device for bootloader menu
seems clear to me but for a novice user its not clear what action is
expected.

however i don't know how to make it better.

reboot

login

menu install browser / firefox
this one works just fine :-) even for a noob who just got used to this menu
system :))) slowly overcoming the FUD

update

ok

menu disapeared, a bit unexpected but no big deal

Panels

trying to add a panel at the bottom but also in 1.5 this fails

change theme

this looks a bit strange
I choose Ambiance, but actually making the selection felt odd.

and then the most of the menu is gone, also the reload menu button does not
help to bring it back

only options are
about ToriOS
Reload Desktop
Shutdown

reboot

after reboot still no menu

hmmmm

cant open a terminal since there is no menu

i can send key in VMM ctrl+alt+f1

mouse gone could not go back to main system had to go into ctrl+alt+f1 on
main machine to kill the VM

so i can't do much to lookup the files that you requested as i need to kill
the machine to get back to this textfile..

I defenately can see many improvements to the ToriOS1.0 ISO. But the main
issue still seems to be present.

Loosing the menu and not getting it back
AND
i just noticed
if i right click on the desktop i get kicked out and i need to login again
and this keeps happening, rightclick-> POOF logged outof the GUI

i hope this helps in any way

Kind regards

Mano

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[uaneme (manostienen)]

turned out to be ToriOS1.0 not booting correct somehow causing all kinds of odd issues

[Israel Dahl (israeldahl)]

These are the OBI specific issues ONLY:

Ok, I began working on the issues you mentioned. I am changing some of the project info, because this mostly effects the installer (OBI)

OBI already has a basic/advanced selection. So I reordered the menu and simply remove things from the basic menu. This should make it more simple.

menu #2 the device selection menu:
I modified the text to read:
"Choose the drive to install to:"
IF the user only has one drive it may still be confusing,though... I don't want to automatically choose any device to install to, so changing the text is going to be the best fix we can do here.

I tried to make the PAE messaging more clear:
"Do you want to install the PAE kernel now?
If you are UNSURE you can always do this later, it is not needed."
hopefully this will rid OBI of FUD :)

bootloader selection menu
I added:
"If unsure choose this device:"
and use the device variable from the device the OS was installed onto earlier. This should clear things up, I hope.

[uaneme (manostienen)]

Hi Israel,

Those changes may indeed make things less confusing.

Now i think of it, he person who i asked to do the installation is not
a native english speaker.
AND non technical. Most people who want to install a 'non-minstream'
OS will most likely have a more technical mindset. Allthough I have
seen people struggle even with the main Ubuntu 16.04 installer.

For non technical people the Device menu will be the biggest hurdle.
I have to think back to the days when I first started to install
alternative OS's
RedHat presented many roadblocks. And eventually i discovered Debian. :-D

The difference with Debian was that the way the wording was chosen it
was more easy to understand, or translate to other languages.
Now i'm not sure how this works for other languages, with different
grammar rules.

The Boot menu also improved.

I hope these little changes make it more easy for novice users.

I still have to try to dig up that file to see what's happening with
the disappearing menu and the non working panel2.
The annoyance is that i can't copy and paste from VMM client to the
host. And with the half empty menu i don't see a way to launch a
terminal from GUI. I'll install ssh-server
and access it from there. Just need some time without distractions. I
have all kinds of bullshit on my plate the last couple of days.

BTW What is the preferred architecture in KVM?
I was wondering if this could perhaps be messing with the menu
somehow, i guess not.

I used the default that VMM uses

At first the menu works fine, but im not sure if it was after the
update or after i manually tried to chance something when it
disappeared.

I ran the VM on a Lenovo laptop with a i5 CPU

Kind Regards,

Mano

On 12/18/17, Israel Dahl <email address hidden> wrote:
> These are the OBI specific issues ONLY:
>
> Ok, I began working on the issues you mentioned. I am changing some of
> the project info, because this mostly effects the installer (OBI)
>
> OBI already has a basic/advanced selection. So I reordered the menu and
> simply remove things from the basic menu. This should make it more
> simple.
>
> menu #2 the device selection menu:
> I modified the text to read:
> "Choose the drive to install to:"
> IF the user only has one drive it may still be confusing,though... I don't
> want to automatically choose any device to install to, so changing the text
> is going to be the best fix we can do here.
>
> I tried to make the PAE messaging more clear:
> "Do you want to install the PAE kernel now?
> If you are UNSURE you can always do this later, it is not needed."
> hopefully this will rid OBI of FUD :)
>
>
> bootloader selection menu
> I added:
> "If unsure choose this device:"
> and use the device variable from the device the OS was installed onto
> earlier. This should clear things up, I hope.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1736959
>
> Title:
> issues with creating partitions / Installing ToriOS in a VM
>
> Status in OBI:
> In Progress
> Status in ToriOS:
> New
>
> Bug description:
> I tried to install ToriOS in a VM
>
> I followed the instructions ...

[Israel Dahl (israeldahl)]

Hi,
I do hope these fixes make it more clear. I agree about the whole Red Hat Debian thing, I experienced the same change. Debian was much more inviting and easier to install/use, but Ubuntu changed everything... it became the easiest OS to install of any.

I do hope the wording fixes issues of clarity. I have gone through a few iterations, and have found some older bugs that caused issues in fringe cases. I also spent some time trying to improve the sizing of windows so the titles can be read.

I added the default device to install GRUB to in the window text above the list, so I think this makes it much easier and clearer.

I also have a Lenovo i5 running VMM. There are a few simple ways you can do it. using the ssh server you can easily use pcman file manager (pcmanfm comes in LXDE usually) or probably others to use sftp to open your VM's directories. You can also use a USB stick and setup a USB redirect (Info->Add Hardware->USB Redirection) then plug in a USB stick, and from the VMM window menu choose Virtual Machine->Redirect USB Device
choose your device and copy to it from inside the VM, and then stop redirection and copy it from your host machine.

To get to a terminal use Ctrl+Alt+T

You might try reloading the menu

jwm-menu --reload && jwm -reload

I will test adding a panel soon (once I get OBI where I want it) and start working on the next set of issues :)

[Israel Dahl (israeldahl)]

I just tried adding a panel to the bottom and it worked fine.
It may be simply that that older ISO is a bit messed up. I did it from a fresh install from a very recent ISO I built (earlier this morning).
So I do not think that this issue is an issue anymore. Can you post the output of
apt show jwm-settings-manager

in my VM I have
2.0.3ubuntu1+162~ubuntu14.04.1

So if you are running a previous version than this is the problem.

I will remove that older ISO as soon as I get OBI fixed up nicely.