Re: the tragedy of Fedora Live USB conversion and what we can do about it

[Thomas Gilliard]

>  What about offering liveusb-creator at the first place instead of
>  ISO?
>  Actually, this might be a great idea. Not "instead", but if we
>  provided two buttons instead of one:
>
>  [Download DVD image]  [Download USB installer]
>
>  people would immediately saw the difference. If they were after USB
>  installation media, they wouldn't download a DVD image and then
>  wonder what to do with it (as they do now), no, they would
>  immediately click the second button. Our USB installer is already
>  capable of both reusing an existing image and downloading a fresh
>  one, so this goes well hand in hand. And the page serving you the
>  file could be tailored to the particular method, so DVD download
>  would show you basic DVD burning instructions, while USB installer
>  download would show you basic USB conversion instructions.
>
>  Mairin, I guess you're the best person to talk about fp.o design,
>  what do you think? (Please read the start of this thread). Thanks. 
Resent after
being rejected by list as not suscribed
-since corrected

Previous post:
"A  problem is that the .iso versions offered for download in the
liveusb-creator  GUI always seem to lag behind."

more testing:

I just tested on Yoga Pro 2 running native resolution and Widows 8.1
OS and the liveusb-creator is postage stamp size on the screen.
It needs to be run in compatability mode as an administrator to work.
Most of the functions appear to work but using the update button I
got Soas  f17 x86_64   and did not download in the 25 minutes I
tested it. I tested on a second USB that was written previously with
fedora live with dd. It was not writable. the terminal command
liveusb-creator --reset-mbr did not run in Windows terminal.(It
worked in linux gparted with create new partition table and format
fat32 label LIVE boot flag.) I could then use the windows 8.1
liveusb-creator to write an existing soas.iso downloaded earlier in
windows firefox.

In short there are a number of things that need to fixed in the
windows version of liveusb.creator before offering it on the fedora
download options.
1-) detect screen resolution and properly display GUI
2-) run in compatability mode (run as administrator)
3-) run as liveusb-creator --reset-mbr by default  (this can be done
in linux by editing the icon command)
4-)Fix the Download button on the GUI to work and be up to date.

the tragedy of Fedora Live USB conversion and what we can do about it

[Adam Williamson]

On Fri, 2014-08-01 at 12:06 -0700, Thomas C.Gilliard wrote:

>  Previous post:
>  "A  problem is that the .iso versions offered for download in the
>  liveusb-creator  GUI always seem to lag behind." 
So a technical note on this one: luc can actually retrieve an up to date
list of ISOs from the mirror server, but it doesn't do so when you start
it. You have to click the Refresh button next to the image list (which
it initially populates from a hardcoded fallback list inside luc). I
tried to fix this and failed, so I filed a bug instead:

https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/ticket/819

but lmacken obviously hasn't been able to get to it yet.

>  more testing:
>  
>  I just tested on Yoga Pro 2 running native resolution and Widows 8.1
>  OS and the liveusb-creator is postage stamp size on the screen. 
Obviously an interface scaling issue; I don't know the details of what
an app has to do in order for Windows to automatically scale it up on
hidpi displays, though.

>  1-) detect screen resolution and properly display GUI
>  2-) run in compatability mode (run as administrator)
>  3-) run as liveusb-creator --reset-mbr by default  (this can be done
>  in linux by editing the icon command)
>  4-)Fix the Download button on the GUI to work and be up to date. 
yeah, these are the kinds of reasons I'm reluctant to promote luc too
strongly.
-- 
Adam Williamson
Fedora QA Community Monkey
IRC: adamw | Twitter: AdamW_Fedora | XMPP: adamw AT happyassassin . net
http://www.happyassassin.net

the tragedy of Fedora Live USB conversion and what we can do about it

[Thomas Gilliard]

On 8/1/2014 12:45 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:
>  On Fri, 2014-08-01 at 12:06 -0700, Thomas C.Gilliard wrote:
>
> > Previous post:
> > "A  problem is that the .iso versions offered for download in the
> > liveusb-creator  GUI always seem to lag behind."
>  So a technical note on this one: luc can actually retrieve an up to date
>  list of ISOs from the mirror server, but it doesn't do so when you start
>  it. You have to click the Refresh button next to the image list (which
>  it initially populates from a hardcoded fallback list inside luc). I
>  tried to fix this and failed, so I filed a bug instead:
>
>  https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/ticket/819
>
>  but lmacken obviously hasn't been able to get to it yet. 
It did not work for me
in M$ 8.1 tried repeatedly to update list. So not 
yet fixed.
> > more testing:
> >
> > I just tested on Yoga Pro 2 running native resolution and Widows 8.1
> > OS and the liveusb-creator is postage stamp size on the screen.
>  Obviously an interface scaling issue; I don't know the details of what
>  an app has to do in order for Windows to automatically scale it up on
>  hidpi displays, though.
>
> > 1-) detect screen resolution and properly display GUI
> > 2-) run in compatability mode (run as administrator)
> > 3-) run as liveusb-creator --reset-mbr by default  (this can be done
> > in linux by editing the icon command)
> > 4-)Fix the Download button on the GUI to work and be up to date.
>  yeah, these are the kinds of reasons I'm reluctant to promote luc too
>  strongly. 
The Sugar on a Stick spin obviously requires a user friendly way to 
create a persistent USB for booting.

This works to make a persistent USB in Fedora [1]

Desktop$ sudo ./tools_livecd-iso-to-disk.sh --reset-mbr --overlay-size-mb 500
--home-size-mb 700 --delete-home --unencrypted-home Fedora-17-Beta-x86_64-Live-SoaS.iso
/dev/sdb1

and if --efi is added it should boot on EFI systems (not tested recently)

Desktop$ ./tools_livecd-iso-to-disk.sh --format --efi --overlay-size-mb 300 --home-size-mb
175 --delete-home --unencrypted-home Fedora-17-Beta-x86_64-Live-SoaS.iso /dev/sdb1

[1] http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Testing/Reports/livecd-iso-to-disk

the tragedy of Fedora Live USB conversion and what we can do about it - dd + script?

[Philip Rhoades]

People,

On 2014-08-02 05:06, Thomas C.Gilliard wrote:
> > What about offering liveusb-creator at the first place instead
> of
> > ISO?
> > Actually, this might be a great idea. Not "instead", but if we
> > provided two buttons instead of one:
> > 
> > [Download DVD image]  [Download USB installer]
> > 
> > people would immediately saw the difference. If they were after USB
> > installation media, they wouldn't download a DVD image and then
> > wonder what to do with it (as they do now), no, they would
> > immediately click the second button. Our USB installer is already
> > capable of both reusing an existing image and downloading a fresh
> > one, so this goes well hand in hand. And the page serving you the
> > file could be tailored to the particular method, so DVD download
> > would show you basic DVD burning instructions, while USB installer
> > download would show you basic USB conversion instructions.
> > 
> > Mairin, I guess you're the best person to talk about fp.o design,
> > what do you think? (Please read the start of this thread). Thanks.
>  Resent after being rejected by list as not suscribed
>  -since corrected
>  
>  Previous post:
>  "A  problem is that the .iso versions offered for download in the
>  liveusb-creator  GUI always seem to lag behind."
>  
>  more testing:
>  
>  I just tested on Yoga Pro 2 running native resolution and Widows 8.1
>  OS and the liveusb-creator is postage stamp size on the screen.
>  It needs to be run in compatability mode as an administrator to work.
>  Most of the functions appear to work but using the update button I
>  got Soas  f17 x86_64   and did not download in the 25 minutes I
>  tested it. I tested on a second USB that was written previously with
>  fedora live with dd. It was not writable. the terminal command
>  liveusb-creator --reset-mbr did not run in Windows terminal.(It
>  worked in linux gparted with create new partition table and format
>  fat32 label LIVE boot flag.) I could then use the windows 8.1
>  liveusb-creator to write an existing soas.iso downloaded earlier in
>  windows firefox.
>  
>  In short there are a number of things that need to fixed in the
>  windows version of liveusb.creator before offering it on the fedora
>  download options.
>  1-) detect screen resolution and properly display GUI
>  2-) run in compatability mode (run as administrator)
>  3-) run as liveusb-creator --reset-mbr by default  (this can be done
>  in linux by editing the icon command)
>  4-)Fix the Download button on the GUI to work and be up to date. 

If we are not talking about trying to be compatible with a third party 
script / app, why don't we just produce a script / batch file that 
downloads the ISO and uses a bundled dd to put it on the USB?

Regards,

Phil.

-- 
Philip Rhoades

GPO Box 3411
Sydney NSW	2001
Australia
E-mail:  phil(a)pricom.com.au