- This topic has 23 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated Nov 23-12:12 am by olsztyn.
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olsztyn
I am almost confident that ISO-Snapshot is open source otherwise it would not be a part of antiX. However my question means to be more specific: Can ISO-Snapshot available to general Debian users or it is proprietary to MX/antiX?
This is a great program and would be useful to general Linux user base, not just antiX/MX, but I understand and respect if it is made proprietary to just antiX/MX.
Thanks and Regards.Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_ParametersAnonymous
Hello olsztyn,
on the github site
https://github.com/BitJam/ISO-Snapshotit states this in the license ….
BitJam/ISO-Snapshot is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0Thank you linuxdaddy for such quick turnaround.
So as I understand this declaration it can be made available to be installed on other Debian systems? It comes as deb package?…
It was disconcerting to me that I saw somewhere (Github?) a statement on MX version of ISO Snapshot that it can be used only on MX/antiX as other Debian systems do not have the necessary infrastructure…
Thanks again and Best Regards…Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parametersstatement on MX version of ISO Snapshot that it can be used only on MX/antiX as other Debian systems do not have the necessary infrastructure…
that statement is accurate.
Without extensive modification (and supporting “infrastructure”), the ISO Snapshot utility would be useless outside of antiX/MXFor starters, isosnapshot (package) depends on
https://gitlab.com/antiX-Linux/iso-snapshot/-/blob/master/debian/control#L14
“remaster-antix” and “iso-template-antix” packages
which bring further dependencies (“antix-libs” is one which springs to mind here)Without extensive modification (and supporting “infrastructure”), the ISO Snapshot utility would be useless outside of antiX/MX
Thank you skidoo…
This to me means also that antiX/MX is designed with infrastructure far superior to other Debian distros.
So just a theoretical questions out of curiosity:
– Is there a way to assemble such dependent infrastructure (dependencies via repos?) to support ISO-Snapshot in other Debian distros?
– It is surprising to me that other Debian based distros do not explicitly see this antiX/MX superiority and try to re-create such fundamentally important functions in their own distros.
– Is Timeshift much different from ISO-Snapshot or doing virtually the same?Thanks much and Best Regards…
Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters
Brian Masinick
Many distributions favor similarity to the popular commercial systems instead of favoring old hardware and that is why our niche has so little competition.
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Brian MasinickIs Timeshift much different from ISO-Snapshot or doing virtually the same?
What is the work product, the output, of Timeshift?
An ISO file? A mapped rsync directory tree? A backupdata.pqz archive file?
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Neither Timeshift nor BackInTime capture the state of the FULL operating system, per their default settings, IIRC.Is there a way to assemble such dependent infrastructure
“infrastructure” really isn’t an accurate term here.
I would say that the defining difference is one of “finesse” ~~ reasoning what to backup, vs what to include, vs what files to substitute (pristine copies of) in the produced output.[recognize] this antiX/MX superiority and try to re-create
Is it a matter of superiority, though, or just a matter of pursuing different goals?
(skimread, 45seconds)
https://live-team.pages.debian.net/live-manual/html/live-manual/about-project.en.html#86Porteus, Puppylinux, and others do have utilities similar to snapshot.
Usually the functionality overlaps (backup+remaster)
and attention to that, I reckon, is where the term “infrastructure” crept in.
(creation of “deb” or “sfs” packages, setup and maintenance of package repositories…)Booting puppylinux, at each boot you might pick-n-choose which bundles to load (not loading “stuff” you won’t need during today’s session, in order to achieve a smaller memory footprint) but you will lack the presumed benefit of having available a “package manager” which knows/tracks which programs are installed and are up-to-date (cannot guess//presume which currently unloaded sfs bundles may be downloaded and//or loaded). Rhetorically: Is that scenario comparatively superior, inferior, or just different?
Many distributions favor similarity to the popular commercial systems
Thanks masinick but as far as I know (as little as I know that means) there is no commercial product that would do what ISO-Snapshot does. I could be wrong but at least I am not aware of such.
If this is indeed the case then ISO-Snapshot is something that other distros must envy that antiX has such gem…
Regards…Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_ParametersBrian Masinick
I agree. antiX is one of very few distributions that has an ISO Snapshot and light, efficient software.
I do not know if any other distribution has both features.
Linux distributions, with a few exceptions, are not commercial, but they are open software. Some distributions try to mimic or copy the appearance of OS software sold with hardware, such as Apple MacOS and Microsoft Windows. antiX will never be like either of them.
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Brian MasinickNeither Timeshift nor BackInTime capture the state of the FULL operating system, per their default settings, IIRC.
Thanks skidoo for overall extensive analysis…
My term ‘superior’ can be undoubtedly qualified as subjective in reference to ISO-Snapshot, as it depends on what you are looking for in such utility. It happens so however in my case so I was curious why other distros did not try to implement it for their purpose.
My use case is very simple:
– After you put together your perfect system, including detailed configuration you want to create a faithful ISO reflecting such running system.
– In my understanding ISO-Snapshot is using squashfs. The entire running system is being compressed into squashfs, and not some other format. This is where Live antiX comes into play in result, as from such Snapshot image of existing system in squashfs format it is a very short way to running it as Live. Perfect! Very nicely designed… Looks to me no other distro gave much thought about such important aspect…
The other pieces of this masterpiece design are Live USB Maker and Remaster…
Thanks again and best Regards…Live antiX Boot Options (Previously posted by Xecure):
https://antixlinuxfan.miraheze.org/wiki/Table_of_antiX_Boot_Parameters> Porteus, Puppylinux, and others do have utilities similar to snapshot.
> Usually the functionality overlaps (backup+remaster)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SquashFS
Squashfs is used by the Live CD versions of Arch Linux, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo Linux, HoleOS, Linux Mint, Salix, Ubuntu, Clonezilla and on embedded distributions such as the OpenWrt and DD-WRT router firmware. It is also used in Chromecast<sup id=”cite_ref-2″ class=”reference”>[2]</sup> and for the system partitions of some Android releases (Android Nougat -). It is often combined with a union mount filesystem, such as UnionFS, OverlayFS, or aufs, to provide a read-write environment for live Linux distributions. This takes advantage of both Squashfs’s high-speed compression abilities and the ability to alter the distribution while running it from a live CD. Distributions such as Debian Live, Mandriva One, Puppy Linux, Salix Live and Slax use this combination. The AppImage project, which aims to create portable linux applications, uses squashfs for creating appimages. The Snappy package manager also uses squashfs for its “.snap file format”.
</p><p>Squashfs is also used by Linux Terminal Server Project and Splashtop.aside (because the quote mentions Slax):
WARNING: the latest Slax ISO ships a pre-installed bitcoin miner
~~ a Chromium addon which silently installs/updates when you launch the browser.
This Slax “feature” is undocumented.BobC
When I boot other OS’s, I miss the ISO-Snapshot and Live-USB-Maker combo., especially the Personal/General option, which really gives it the power to create respins.
Brian Masinick
> Porteus, Puppylinux, and others do have utilities similar to snapshot.
> Usually the functionality overlaps (backup+remaster)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SquashFS
Squashfs is used by the Live CD versions of Arch Linux, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo Linux, HoleOS, Linux Mint, Salix, Ubuntu, Clonezilla and on embedded distributions such as the OpenWrt and DD-WRT router firmware. It is also used in Chromecast<sup id=”cite_ref-2″ class=”reference”>[2]</sup> and for the system partitions of some Android releases (Android Nougat -). It is often combined with a union mount filesystem, such as UnionFS, OverlayFS, or aufs, to provide a read-write environment for live Linux distributions. This takes advantage of both Squashfs’s high-speed compression abilities and the ability to alter the distribution while running it from a live CD. Distributions such as Debian Live, Mandriva One, Puppy Linux, Salix Live and Slax use this combination. The AppImage project, which aims to create portable linux applications, uses squashfs for creating appimages. The Snappy package manager also uses squashfs for its “.snap file format”.
</p><p>Squashfs is also used by Linux Terminal Server Project and Splashtop.aside (because the quote mentions Slax):
WARNING: the latest Slax ISO ships a pre-installed bitcoin miner
~~ a Chromium addon which silently installs/updates when you launch the browser.
This Slax “feature” is undocumented.The other distributions that are available certainly have their own followers and a set of features, pro and con, taking into consideration the project goals and features. Most distributions I’ve used have some useful software, though even today, some make things as simple as connecting to a network the kind of challenge that can take hours or days of research, reading, learning from the written frustrations of others, etc. before landing at a solution.
It’s not that we don’t have a certain set of things that we’ve chosen that don’t trouble other people too. However, in my case, and hopefully in the cases of most of us that have stayed with, used, suggested changes, (and if we had the skills) even offered either an idea or a tool to improve whatever state the project was previously in. Today, even as some things have greatly improved, there is always something else that leaves someone else behind. I’d therefore like to write a few words to say what we have done and successfully accomplished.
We started out more than a decade ago as little more than an offshoot of another distribution that took the Linux community by (positive) surprise and quickly rose to the top of the DistroWatch charts. The distribution we grew out of was MEPIS, renamed Simply MEPIS in 2004. The MEPIS distribution was based on a desktop environment, the original KDE. Comparing it to what Xfce has evolved into in the current generation, KDE 2 was similar in resource consumption to Xfce. Therefore, for aging machines of that time frame, something lighter was needed. The parent distribution of MEPIS, Debian, had the pieces necessary – a light window manager (Fluxbox), a series of light browsing and editor tools, such as links and geany, and lightweight file management tools, like Rox. Anticapitalista shared his derivative work with the MEPIS team and the founder, Warren Woodford, asking for permission to initially make it available through MEPIS channels, which was also granted.
The two communities have long cooperated with one another, sharing tools, ideas, community members and even a few developers who have contributed to works for both projects.
When Warren Woodford decided to take his expertise into legal patent and other commercial endeavors, he agreed to leave his prior works available. MEPIS was without a release for a while, but eventually an MX Linux team emerged, and anti has contributed to some of their work. Meanwhile antiX had taken on it’s own identity, adding tools and it’s own sites and community supporters. AntiX has always been open to new ideas; some of them are included into the final work; not everything is, but the entire architecture lends itself well to personal customization, and therefore any of us who wish to create our own works, either a slightly modified personal edition or a derivative work need only to follow the usual licensing patterns – if the work is personal only, nothing else is needed. If it’s shared, credit goes to antiX and the other owners of specific developments, but the choices are still there.
As for antiX and what’s happened, we’ve added several light to moderate weight window managers over the years; IceWM was chosen as the default, including others for the experienced hobbyist to tailor the system as desired. Similarly as applications have changed or been added, so have applications been changed and added.
I like antiX better than the other alternatives because it perfectly offers the kind of tools I like in the systems I like to tweak. Like MEPIS I enjoy MX Linux as the perfect “turn it on and run it” distribution and I find it’s able to handle several of my aging systems; only the oldest and slowest crave the lean and mean character of antiX for the conservative use of system resources. All of the systems appreciate both of them for sound design and principles that suit their respective user communities well.
As for the other light options, Puppy and others certainly have their compelling features too. Maybe it’s because I’ve been so close to these two efforts for so long; I simply identify with them easier and I’m able to better tune them for my own personal needs. That’s probably a significant reason why many of us are here too. Still, choice is good; we’ve picked up ideas, tools, and technologies from many diverse systems including Puppy and Absolute Linux, as well as Debian and MEPIS, and undoubtedly benefit from some of the early works from KNOPPIX and other fine works of the past few decades.
What we’ve come up with suits my interests very well.
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Brian Masinick
Xaver
Iso-snapshot-antix does work fine with Refracta 10, which is based on Devuan 3. It seems to need SysV and does not work on Debian with systemd.
So I wonder: Would iso-snapshpt-antix work on antiX with runit as init software?- This reply was modified 2 years, 5 months ago by Xaver.
> When I boot other OS’s, I miss the […] power to create respins.
(from 2012!) topic: refracta-installer-and-snapshot-used-on-other-distros
skidoo == thwak
.
(search in page: refracta)
http://www.extix.se/
http://ftp.svenskalinuxforeningen.se/distributions/exton/
.
devuan + TrinityDesktopEnvironment (KDE3) + refracta snapshot/installer
http://exegnulinux.net/As has been previously discussed in antixforum (and, as notated within script header comments) the antiX snapshot utility forked from refractasnapshot antixlinux.com/forum-archive/antix-test-versions-to-play-with back around 2012.
Here is an excerpt of content from the most recent refractasnapshot release:
(pasted to pastebin)
— the bash script
— default conf file
— readme doc
— copy of the liveboot “F1” help menu text, page 3 (packed within the provided initrd)a separately packaged “gui” version (employs yad dialogs) is available from the refracta project site at sourceforge
It seems to need SysV and does not work on Debian with systemd.
Would iso-snapshot-antix work on antiX with runit as init software?You would need to unpack the initrd (a cpio archivefile)
( on antiX, see: /usr/local/lib/cli-shell-utils/bin/unpack-initrd )
and examine/edit the live init.
As a final operation, the live init script “hands over” (exec pivot_root command) control. As written, it (both the antiX and in Refracta versions) hands off to /sbin/init
.
If you want “runit” or “systemd”, you would need to edit the script to “hand off to” whichever executable shall launch PID1.
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