Refracta Development, Scripts, etc.
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Using Refracta tools for my project - thanks

Wed Jun 18, 2014 9:23 pm

Hi all

Just wanted to pop in and say a big thanks for the development of the Refracta tools. I have been looking for an easy way to remaster Debian since Remastersys went out of development. I tried a couple of other tools, but they either didn't create bootable ISOs or the size was huge.

A while ago on a previous project I helped to create a liveUSB creator tool, so I will look forward to testing yours.

Anyway, I have started a theming website and I intend to put up a few ISOs in the future which will feature your tools:
http://linuxthemer.blogspot.com

In the meantime I have referenced your tools in my recent tutorial on creating an Xubuntu on a Debian base.

I have been using the most recent tools from testing and so far I can say that the snapshot tool works perfectly. It took me a while to work out that I need to upgrade Isolinux and Syslinux from the Sid repos first, but once I did that, the .debs installed correctly with no dependency errors.

Next to work out how to get a bootsplash in the live ISO snapshot :)

Thanks once again
Richjack

Re: Using Refracta tools for my project - thanks

Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:57 am

How: Starting with a net install, install the packages one by one, check dependencies, replace with alternative packages if available, then configure and theme like Xubuntu.

For the record:
It doesn't matter which installation media you take (CD, DVD, netinstall), as long you
*Deselect Debian Desktop Environment (I am deselecting this so that I can choose the precise components that I want to)


Every other day the installer of testing is broken, so installing stable and upgrading to testing is (usually) the recommended way to install testing (same for unstable). That doesn't matter as long the installer of testing works, of course.

free reports we are using 168MB of RAM whilst logged into the XFCE desktop with no applications running.

168? Hard to believe. But free seems to give different results than htop or ps_mem.py (which both differ from each other too). It's not much compared to a) Xubuntu or b) gnome or kde this way or the other.

I for one am done with anything related to Ubuntu. I don't even want to go in the details what they fucked this time anymore. It did big harm and keeps doing so and will keep doing so in the future too. But, as the saying is, to each his own.

Just a bit of off-topic chat. Your post was not about such "questions".

Re: Using Refracta tools for my project - thanks

Fri Jun 20, 2014 9:04 pm

Hi Nadir

Thanks for your reply. I just use the netinst ISO to avoid downloading packages that are out of date and then downloading them all over again. I haven't used Debian extensively over a number of years, but so far I have never had a problem with the testing installer, although it does state on the download page to use the Jessie Alpha 1 version. But I suppose once you've downloaded the netinst version, if everything works, there's not really any need to try another.

168? Hard to believe. But free seems to give different results than htop or ps_mem.py (which both differ from each other too). It's not much compared to a) Xubuntu or b) gnome or kde this way or the other.


I never know how to present memory usage, so I just took the most simple which is free -h and then take the +/- value under used. Not sure what you would expect, but either way, it was 25MB less than xubuntu which isn't loads, but might represent something worthwhile to users with low RAM systems...

I for one am done with anything related to Ubuntu. I don't even want to go in the details what they fucked this time anymore. It did big harm and keeps doing so and will keep doing so in the future too. But, as the saying is, to each his own.


Which is why I have created a Debian-based system. Whatever you think of the *buntus, they have progressed Linux in a lot of areas and it seems that Xubuntu especially is the one distro pushing forward development of XFCE and some related light-weight applications which unfortunately are not in Debian. Like I still can't believe I need to go to Jessie to get XFCE 4.10 when it has been out for 2 years!

Cheers
Richjack
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