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i don't see why not. this could definitely be a fork for someone else to work on. basically, it would need a custom interface and include scripts to automate the installation of any program that the user wanted (apt, wget a source tar, etc).

if someone wants to start writing an application/script to do this, please let me know. if you want, i can provide an ISO with a basic desktop environment from which you can work from.

This is something that I could do. If you are using zenity I could even do dialogue boxes. I can start writing scripts that will do installs and once i get better internet, I can start modifying a bare iso
 
This is something that I could do. If you are using zenity I could even do dialogue boxes. I can start writing scripts that will do installs and once i get better internet, I can start modifying a bare iso

awesome! working with a bare iso, you could add whatever you needed to create the custom installer.
 
You might want to look at including y-cruncher. I haven't heard of many people using it, but its pretty sweet IMO. The Linux version is 64-bit only, though I'm not sure if that's really a problem -- haven't got the ISO yet.

Best of luck man!

JigPu
 
i'll have to take y-cruncher for a spin sometime. right now, there isn't a 64 bit build but one is in the works for a future release. thanks!
 
TBQH, I don't see the point of a 32bit build. Everything from the past five (?) years is 64 bit capable...
 
TBQH, I don't see the point of a 32bit build. Everything from the past five (?) years is 64 bit capable...

while i see your point, i want this to be a tool that can also be used for troubleshooting, data recovery, etc and it is often older machines that you need to perform those functions on.
 
bentley, do you have an .iso copy? :shrug: our district policies restrict the use of live cd's for security purposes.
 
bentley, do you have an .iso copy? :shrug: our district policies restrict the use of live cd's for security purposes.

sorry, i'm not sure what you mean by "an .iso copy". overclockix only comes in .iso format. do you mean "does it come with an installer?"
 
sorry, i'm not sure what you mean by "an .iso copy". overclockix only comes in .iso format. do you mean "does it come with an installer?"

yeah sorry I didn't word that right. i just need a format that the hardware students can install it on the older machines and test from there. we can't actually run any other form of OS on the dedicated machines.
 
right now i have not included an installer from the livecd. at the moment, it is pretty much just debian with a custom list of packages as seen above.
 
sounds good! it wouldn't be a bad idea to just setup a farm of computers with debian installed on them and then load Overclockix onto the machines.. i am over thinking it :)
 
yeah, basically all you would need to do would convert the list into an 'apt-get install...' string and it would install 'overclockix' as it is right now. i do have a few custom packages (should be indicated as such in application lists) but most of it is straight from the debian repos.
 
- added mprime (runs from command line, just type 'mprime')

That's Prime95, right? I would identify it as such somewhere since it seems to be such a standard for stress testing.

I also recommend to add the packages for the boinc manager. I have found that some of the DC programs can uncover instabilities that don't affect Prime95.

Is there anything additional required on a bootable CD in order to convert it to a bootable USB? (I use the program that comes with Ubuntu to do that.) And beyond that, what about persistent storage on the USB? I've usually only used USB for installation (or rescue ;) )so I never concerned myself with persistent storage. Users who want to explore Linux might be interested in ability to save stuff between sessions. It would be even better if additional packages and configuration would be saved.
 
That's Prime95, right? I would identify it as such somewhere since it seems to be such a standard for stress testing.

I also recommend to add the packages for the boinc manager. I have found that some of the DC programs can uncover instabilities that don't affect Prime95.

Is there anything additional required on a bootable CD in order to convert it to a bootable USB? (I use the program that comes with Ubuntu to do that.) And beyond that, what about persistent storage on the USB? I've usually only used USB for installation (or rescue ;) )so I never concerned myself with persistent storage. Users who want to explore Linux might be interested in ability to save stuff between sessions. It would be even better if additional packages and configuration would be saved.

yes, mprime is a command line version of prime95, there is no gui. i could simply add a symlink of prime95 to resolve the name difference issue.

in order to turn the iso into a bootable usb drive, you just need to follow the instructions in the first post. right now there isn't any persistent storage configured but it is something that could be looked into.
 
should have it up and running tonight! :salute: once i get the install down i will show the class and we should have a farm of thirty computers or more running Overclockix! :thup: tell me i am good :)!
 
when i get home tonight, i am going to check out Universal USB Installer which i saw in c627627's thread to see how well persistence would work on USB drives. it ought to work since overclockix is based on debian live which is listed as being supported. if it works, i will add instructions on how to set it up. you can currently set up persistence as it is something the end user would have to setup on another drive/device for storage.

*edit: so far upon initial testing, it doesn't seem that the universal usb installer is seeing the overclockix iso as able to support persistent storage but i am going to be doing some further work to allow for it either through the universal usb installer or by some sort of operation from within in the live system itself.

*edit2: i am, however, able to get persistent storage working just fine on a separate device, whether it be another USB drive or an actual hdd. i would still like to be able to create persistent storage on a secondary partition of a usb drive so that only a single USB drive is needed.

*edit3: i found the exact problem i am having when trying to create persistent storage on the same usb drive:
http://lists.debian.org/debian-live/2011/03/msg00000.html
it looks like the solution is to use an image type of 'usb-hdd' instead of 'iso-hybrid' which will probably make it so that it can only be written to a usb device and not written as an .iso, but i will test that ASAP to be sure...

*edit4: ok, last edit, i swear. i tested out a quick build using 'usb-hdd' and it worked great. i was able to add a partition to the usb drive and make it persistent storage. now the bad news... the usb-hdd images can't be written to optical media, as i figured they wouldn't. :bang head now there is another decision to make i suppose...
 
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TBQH, I don't see the point of a 32bit build. Everything from the past five (?) years is 64 bit capable...

There are a few machines I use that are 32bit only, mostly they are old 775 perscott cpu's. Also someone with a 1st gen atom device is only going to have 32bit support. I think a 32bit is still warranted. Granted I think 64bit should be the primary form, but 32bit still is needed.
 
i've spent most of the day modifying my scripts and directory structure to accommodate both i386 and amd64 builds. within the next few weeks, i want to select a desktop environment. i am only going to maintain two versions, one for i386 and another for amd64. maintaining three is a big enough pain. maintaining six would be a waste of time from my point of view.

please vote in the poll to make your choice known. the poll will close on 04-11-11
 
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i've spent most of the day modifying my scripts and directory structure to accommodate both i386 and amd64 builds. within the next few weeks, i want to select a desktop environment. i am only going to maintain two versions, one for i386 and another for amd64. maintaining three is a big enough pain. maintaining six would be a waste of time from my point of view.

please vote in the poll to make your choice known. the poll will close on 04-11-11

voted! :thup:
 
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ok, i have ran into another issue on which i need feedback for. i have found a fairly major 'problem' where the images i have created can't be used to create usb boot drives with persistent storage (keeps data between boots).

there is another type of image (usb-hdd) which i can create that allows you to create usb bootable images that can be modified to allow for the creation of a persistent storage partition but that means that you can't burn the image to a CD. if i maintain both types, that would mean that i would be maintaining a total of 4 distributions, which i could do fairly easily since the package lists would be identical for each architecture but i would like to keep this as simple as possible.

now for the question. would you like to see:

1.) iso-hybrid only
2.) usb-hdd only
3.) both

i know that the easy answer is 'both' but i wanted to see what everyone thinks about this. i know that not everyone has extra usb drive lying around and some systems simply will not boot from usb (typically older systems).

another option (i suppose) could be creating both for the i386 branch and usb-hdd for amd64 as any system that is amd64 compatible ought to support booting from usb devices but i would like to see things as uniform across the platforms as possible.

to me, the biggest benefit of usb-hdd builds is that the size limit is only that of the usb drives used. it is very common to have 2-4+ GB flash drives these days. i would just like to get some more feedback from the community before i make any real decisions.

i may end up making this a poll as well...

*edit: one problem i am running into is that the usb-hdd images have to be disassembled and reassembled in a different manner than that of the iso-binary images so that will take some time to figure out how to do properly. after investigating further, i may have to abandon the idea of having a usb-hdd install as the customization that would be required for this would be a pretty major undertaking but i still intend to consider & investigate it further.
 
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