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Portable Debian?

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  Portable Debian? Steve Matzura <sm@noisynotes.com> - 2016-04-25 12:30 +0200
    Re: Portable Debian? Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2016-04-25 16:20 +0200
      Re: Portable Debian? Steve Matzura <sm@noisynotes.com> - 2016-04-25 20:20 +0200
        Re: Portable Debian? Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2016-04-25 21:30 +0200
          Re: Portable Debian? Steve Matzura <sm@noisynotes.com> - 2016-04-27 16:50 +0200
            Re: Portable Debian? Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2016-04-27 20:10 +0200
              Re: Portable Debian? Steve Matzura <sm@noisynotes.com> - 2016-04-27 21:50 +0200
                Re: Portable Debian? Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2016-04-27 23:20 +0200
                  Re: Portable Debian? David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2016-04-28 05:20 +0200
                Re: Portable Debian? Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com> - 2016-04-28 00:10 +0200
                  Re: Portable Debian? Steve Matzura <sm@noisynotes.com> - 2016-05-11 15:20 +0200
                    Re: Portable Debian? emetib <chadbrabec@gmail.com> - 2016-05-12 01:00 +0200
                      Re: Portable Debian? Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com> - 2016-05-12 01:30 +0200
                      Re: Portable Debian? Oliver Briscbois <loki@zapto.roth.ca> - 2016-06-02 21:20 +0200
                        Re: Portable Debian? Glenn English <ghe@slsware.net> - 2016-06-03 00:20 +0200
    Re: Portable Debian? David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2016-04-26 04:10 +0200
      Re: Portable Debian? Steve Matzura <sm@noisynotes.com> - 2016-04-27 16:50 +0200

#167073 — Portable Debian?

My system that I built late last year/early this year is running
great, except for the occasional overrun of inbound ssh from such
addresses as 59.*.*.*, 213.*.*.* and others, but that's only because I
have not put any blockers in place, either on my home gateway device
or my Debian system, but that one's on me. I have no GUI desktops
installed, I run completely from CLI and use Speakup for all of it,
including and especially Image for Linux for backup and restore, which
I use on all my Windows machines..

I'd like to take the installed Debian system as it is, write it to a
CD or DVD, and use that as a talking backup/restore disc. Is this
possible? Or should I create a new installation and write it to an ISO
image, or just what should I do to accomplish the goal of creating a
basic talking Debian shell environment that includes a licensed IFL?

As always, thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

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#167079

On 25/04/2016 11:21, Steve Matzura wrote:
> My system that I built late last year/early this year is running
> great, except for the occasional overrun of inbound ssh from such
> addresses as 59.*.*.*, 213.*.*.* and others, but that's only because I
> have not put any blockers in place, either on my home gateway device
> or my Debian system, but that one's on me.

I run ssh on a non-standard port, and my router redirects to 22 of my 
server, alternatively ssh itself will listen wherever you tell it to.

I'm well aware, before anyone jumps in, that this provides *no* *extra* 
*security*, but it certainly keeps the logs clean.


 > I have no GUI desktops
> installed, I run completely from CLI and use Speakup for all of it,
> including and especially Image for Linux for backup and restore, which
> I use on all my Windows machines..
>
> I'd like to take the installed Debian system as it is, write it to a
> CD or DVD, and use that as a talking backup/restore disc. Is this
> possible? Or should I create a new installation and write it to an ISO
> image, or just what should I do to accomplish the goal of creating a
> basic talking Debian shell environment that includes a licensed IFL?
>

I have a sid installation on a portable USB [mechanical] hard drive 
which was installed as 32bit with all drivers, and therefore boots on 
just about any PC. I just plugged the drive into a 64bit desktop and 
made a new installation to the drive. You might get away with copying 
your existing installation if you have the right drivers installed to 
suit your target PCs.

I have done it with USB sticks, but they tend to be slow and unreliable, 
and not bootable everywhere. I've no doubt it could be done with a CD 
image, but I'd be afraid that such an installation, being non-writable, 
might have limitations of usage that a drive-based one would not. I'm 
more comfortable having something that behaves exactly like a desktop 
installation would, with persistent log files, email cache, etc., and 
where I can make small configuration changes without rebuilding and 
burning a new disc. And of course, more PCs are appearing without 
optical drives, particularly laptops.

-- 
Joe

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#167089

Joe:

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 15:17:08 +0100, you wrote:

>I run ssh on a non-standard port, and my router redirects to 22 of my 
>server, alternatively ssh itself will listen wherever you tell it to.

That's probably what I should be doing. As you say, it keeps the logs
clean and the riff-raff at bay.

>I have a sid installation on a portable USB [mechanical] hard drive 
>which was installed as 32bit with all drivers, and therefore boots on 
>just about any PC. I just plugged the drive into a 64bit desktop and 
>made a new installation to the drive.

That's the ticket, yes. I'll get me one of those USB-powered drives
and build an installation on it.

>You might get away with copying 
>your existing installation if you have the right drivers installed to 
>suit your target PCs.

That's a chance I'd prefer not to take. It's easy enough to make
another piece of boot media as you suggest.

So, do I start with the running installation and run something to
create the new media, or boot from the distro itself and create the
new system on the target USB device? I'd rather the former, as now
that I have everything running correct, I probably answered some basic
configuration questions wrong and corrected them later, so I'd prefer
not to have to go through that mess again unless it's really
necessary.

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#167095

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 14:07:09 -0400
Steve Matzura <sm@noisynotes.com> wrote:

> Joe:
> 
> On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 15:17:08 +0100, you wrote:
> 
> >I run ssh on a non-standard port, and my router redirects to 22 of
> >my server, alternatively ssh itself will listen wherever you tell it
> >to.  
> 
> That's probably what I should be doing. As you say, it keeps the logs
> clean and the riff-raff at bay.
> 
> >I have a sid installation on a portable USB [mechanical] hard drive 
> >which was installed as 32bit with all drivers, and therefore boots
> >on just about any PC. I just plugged the drive into a 64bit desktop
> >and made a new installation to the drive.  
> 
> That's the ticket, yes. I'll get me one of those USB-powered drives
> and build an installation on it.
> 
Portable USB SSDs seem to be slow in appearing, but I'm getting the
occasional disc error, so I'm heading that way at some point. At the
moment, Verbatim 128GB drives seem to be on the edge of affordability.

I do use the drive a fair bit, as I couldn't face trying to dual-boot
my Win8 laptop, though it was originally made as an exercise in running
my netbook a bit faster than its unbelievably slow first-generation SSD
could manage. 

> >You might get away with copying 
> >your existing installation if you have the right drivers installed
> >to suit your target PCs.  
> 
> That's a chance I'd prefer not to take. It's easy enough to make
> another piece of boot media as you suggest.
> 
> So, do I start with the running installation and run something to
> create the new media, or boot from the distro itself and create the
> new system on the target USB device? I'd rather the former, as now
> that I have everything running correct, I probably answered some basic
> configuration questions wrong and corrected them later, so I'd prefer
> not to have to go through that mess again unless it's really
> necessary.
> 

I've found that a minimal installation, then dpkg --get-selections and
--set-selections and a bit of judicious /etc copying, to be a fairly
painless way to get a clean near-copy of an existing installation. I
migrated a server, I think lenny or squeeze, from 32bit to 64bit
hardware that way, and it had years of configurations built up by then,
having started life as sarge. I did actually try a straight copy and
then an in-place 32bit to 64bit upgrade, but the complexity quickly
outran my gumption, and I cheated.

-- 
Joe

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#167151

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 20:22:48 +0100, Joe wrote:

>I've found that a minimal installation, then dpkg --get-selections and
>--set-selections and a bit of judicious /etc copying, to be a fairly
>painless way to get a clean near-copy of an existing installation. I
>migrated a server, I think lenny or squeeze, from 32bit to 64bit
>hardware that way, and it had years of configurations built up by then,
>having started life as sarge. I did actually try a straight copy and
>then an in-place 32bit to 64bit upgrade, but the complexity quickly
>outran my gumption, and I cheated.

Sounds like a plan. I'll look into the external disk thing first. One
final question: Is it even possible to build an all-hardware system?
Different machines have different audio cips, disk controllers, etc.,
so what's the best way to ensure one of these portable builds will run
on as many varieties of hardware as possible? Or is that not a valid
consideration? Maybe what I should be doing is to build the system on
the specific piece of hardware I want to run it on? That way I know it
will run correctly.

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#167157

On Wed, 27 Apr 2016 10:44:31 -0400
Steve Matzura <sm@noisynotes.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 20:22:48 +0100, Joe wrote:
> 
> >I've found that a minimal installation, then dpkg --get-selections
> >and --set-selections and a bit of judicious /etc copying, to be a
> >fairly painless way to get a clean near-copy of an existing
> >installation. I migrated a server, I think lenny or squeeze, from
> >32bit to 64bit hardware that way, and it had years of configurations
> >built up by then, having started life as sarge. I did actually try a
> >straight copy and then an in-place 32bit to 64bit upgrade, but the
> >complexity quickly outran my gumption, and I cheated.  
> 
> Sounds like a plan. I'll look into the external disk thing first. One
> final question: Is it even possible to build an all-hardware system?
> Different machines have different audio cips, disk controllers, etc.,
> so what's the best way to ensure one of these portable builds will run
> on as many varieties of hardware as possible? 

I've found one PC my system won't boot on, but it wasn't worth the
effort of finding out why. I'm guessing that the problem was very
fundamental, that the BIOS was unwilling to boot from a USB-based hard
drive. There was absolutely no attempt to access the drive, even when
the BIOS boot settings were such that it should have tried.

> Or is that not a valid
> consideration? Maybe what I should be doing is to build the system on
> the specific piece of hardware I want to run it on? That way I know it
> will run correctly.
> 

At some point in the installation, you are asked whether you want
drivers for just the detected hardware, or all current drivers. Also,
there are still 32-bit computers around (my netbook is one) so a 32-bit
build will be a little more versatile at the cost of a small amount of
speed on 64-bit hardware.

The most versatile system that I know of is Debian-based Knoppix, but
the development effort goes into hardware detection and driving, with
the result that it is not maintainable. It is installable to a hard
drive, but you throw it away and install the next version when that
becomes available, there is no carefully-designed upgrade path as with
straight Debian.

So I don't think it's possible to make a long-term boot-anywhere
installation, but a 32-bit all-drivers Debian goes a long way towards
the goal.

-- 
Joe

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#167160

Joe:

On Wed, 27 Apr 2016 19:05:26 +0100, you wrote:

>The most versatile system that I know of is Debian-based Knoppix, but
>the development effort goes into hardware detection and driving, with
>the result that it is not maintainable. It is installable to a hard
>drive, but you throw it away and install the next version when that
>becomes available, there is no carefully-designed upgrade path as with
>straight Debian.

Either I'm smarter than I think (LOL), or you're psychic. I looked at
Knoppix earlier this morning. I didn't know about the throwaway aspect
of it, though, so that is now out the window and I'm back to straight
Debian, from which I probably should not have strayed in the first
place.

>So I don't think it's possible to make a long-term boot-anywhere
>installation, but a 32-bit all-drivers Debian goes a long way towards
>the goal.

Right. That's what I'll do. I'm using it primarily for backup and
restore, so it's going to be really slimmed down. As long as it talks
(with Speakup) and I can put IFL on it, I'm happy. I've tried it
before with other distros such as Arch Linux but wasn't happy with the
results. Do you still think I should go the mech drive route and not
put it on a USB key?

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#167161

On Wed, 27 Apr 2016 15:43:08 -0400
Steve Matzura <sm@noisynotes.com> wrote:

> Joe:
> 
> On Wed, 27 Apr 2016 19:05:26 +0100, you wrote:
> 
> >The most versatile system that I know of is Debian-based Knoppix, but
> >the development effort goes into hardware detection and driving, with
> >the result that it is not maintainable. It is installable to a hard
> >drive, but you throw it away and install the next version when that
> >becomes available, there is no carefully-designed upgrade path as
> >with straight Debian.  
> 
> Either I'm smarter than I think (LOL), or you're psychic. I looked at
> Knoppix earlier this morning. I didn't know about the throwaway aspect
> of it, though, so that is now out the window and I'm back to straight
> Debian, from which I probably should not have strayed in the first
> place.

I did actually try it a few years ago, but (at that time) Knoppix
was using much of unstable but not the kernel, and the Knoppix
repositories are not updated much, so it proved impossible to keep it
up to date. To be fair, somewhere in the Knoppix FAQs it was stated
that a hard-drive installation was possible but not recommended.

The latest CD is always useful to have around, though. If Debian has
trouble with hardware, you can usually figure out what's needed with
Knoppix, and usually install the solution into straight Debian.
Sometimes it's just a detection issue, Debian already has the driver
but doesn't know that it's needed.

> 
> >So I don't think it's possible to make a long-term boot-anywhere
> >installation, but a 32-bit all-drivers Debian goes a long way towards
> >the goal.  
> 
> Right. That's what I'll do. I'm using it primarily for backup and
> restore, so it's going to be really slimmed down. As long as it talks
> (with Speakup) and I can put IFL on it, I'm happy. I've tried it
> before with other distros such as Arch Linux but wasn't happy with the
> results. Do you still think I should go the mech drive route and not
> put it on a USB key?
> 

I've been happy with the drive, but as I said, I'm looking for a SSD
replacement soon. I've found typical USB sticks to be slow, but
something I haven't tried yet is one of the faster microSD cards
(class 10) in a USB reader. A Raspberry Pi is noticeably brisker
with a class 10 card than with a typical class 4, but of course that's
direct, not through USB.

Also, even a 160GB hard drive (which mine is) is way ahead of even
today's USB sticks in capacity, so it can store a fair amount of backup
material as well. Actually, if Samsung was still making the drive I'd
buy another one, but it's a long-obsolete S1. The USB is on the drive
PCB, and the drive is 1.8", so it's really small, much smaller than
their current M3. Most portable drives are at least four inches long
and some need two USB ports for the power, and I don't think anyone
makes 1.8" drives now.

-- 
Joe

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#167168

On 04/27/2016 02:10 PM, Joe wrote:
> On Wed, 27 Apr 2016 15:43:08 -0400 Steve Matzura <sm@noisynotes.com>
> wrote:
>> Do you still think I should go the mech drive route and not put it
>> on a USB key?
>>
>
> I've been happy with the drive, but as I said, I'm looking for a SSD
>  replacement soon. I've found typical USB sticks to be slow,

I use SanDisk Ultra Fit 16 GB USB 3.0 flash drives for system drives (a
poor man's SSD).  I really like the compact form factor -- very little
drive sticking out to break off.  Read performance is good, especially 
random reads -- boot, desktop startup, and application startup times are 
noticeably faster than 7200 RPM mechanical drives.  But, writes can 
cause Xfce to stutter (sometimes for several seconds).  I don't know if 
it's Xfce, X Windows, Linux, the flash drive, or what, but for $10 it 
works good enough for low-end servers.


> but something I haven't tried yet is one of the faster microSD cards
>  (class 10) in a USB reader. A Raspberry Pi is noticeably brisker
> with a class 10 card than with a typical class 4, but of course
> that's direct, not through USB.

My assumption has been that the insides of microSD cards and USB flash
drives are much the same.  I have an SD to USB adapter and my laptop has
an SD card port -- it would be interesting to run some benchmarks the
next time I buy an SD card.


> Also, even a 160GB hard drive (which mine is) is way ahead of even
> today's USB sticks in capacity, so it can store a fair amount of
> backup material as well.

The SanDisk Ultra Fit is available in 16, 32, 64, and 128 GB.


For my file server and my backup server, I put the Debian install on
SanDisk Ultra Fit 16 GB USB 3.0 flash drives and I put the data,
backups, etc., on 3 TB desktop drives in mobile docks.  Moving the
flash drive and HDD to another machine is easy.


David

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#167162

On Wednesday 27 April 2016 20:43:08 Steve Matzura wrote:
> Either I'm smarter than I think (LOL), or you're psychic. I looked at
> Knoppix earlier this morning. I didn't know about the throwaway aspect
> of it, though,

Did you discover the Adriane version?  Now available as an alternative boot on 
the mainstream disk.  It is specifically for the blind and partially sighted, 
and has things like Daisy Player there, as well as screen readers and speech.  
Adriane is Karl Knopper's wife, and is in some way visually disabled.  He 
originally did the Adriane version for her, and it was originally completely 
separate.

Lisi

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#167728

On Wed, 27 Apr 2016 23:00:53 +0100, Lisi wrote:

>Did you discover the Adriane version?  Now available as an alternative boot on 
>the mainstream disk.  It is specifically for the blind and partially sighted, 
>and has things like Daisy Player there, as well as screen readers and speech.  
>Adriane is Karl Knopper's wife, and is in some way visually disabled.  He 
>originally did the Adriane version for her, and it was originally completely 
>separate.

No, I did not. Better take another look! Thanks for the tip there.

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#167755

I know this is a little off topic, yet I wrote this a while back because of script kiddies messing with ssh on my server at the time. 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1voXlQpos4uI0qhndcIunBew1mmQbwTPl07xG5JF8bNM/edit?usp=drive_web
It checks your auth.log for people trying to get in that don't belong and sends an email to the isp hosting their ip address. 
Every little bit helps to keep the net safe.
Take care. 

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#167756

On Wednesday 11 May 2016 23:30:52 emetib wrote:
> I know this is a little off topic, yet I wrote this a while back because of
> script kiddies messing with ssh on my server at the time.
> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1voXlQpos4uI0qhndcIunBew1mmQbwTPl07xG5JF
>8bNM/edit?usp=drive_web It checks your auth.log for people trying to get in
> that don't belong and sends an email to the isp hosting their ip address.
> Every little bit helps to keep the net safe.
> Take care.

What a lovely script!  Thank you.

Lisi

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#168443

On 2016-05-11, emetib <chadbrabec@gmail.com> wrote:
>I know this is a little off topic, yet I wrote this a while back
>because of script kiddies messing with ssh on my server at the time.

Thanks for that.

Oliver

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#168448

> On 2016-05-11, emetib <chadbrabec@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I know this is a little off topic, yet I wrote this a while back
>> because of script kiddies messing with ssh on my server at the time.

Use ssh key logins and a packet filter to allow only certain IP(s)/user(s) to access your server(s)?

-- 
Glenn English

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#167108

On 04/25/2016 03:21 AM, Steve Matzura wrote:
> My system that I built late last year/early this year is running
> great, except for the occasional overrun of inbound ssh from such
> addresses as 59.*.*.*, 213.*.*.* and others, but that's only because
> I have not put any blockers in place, either on my home gateway
> device or my Debian system, but that one's on me. I have no GUI
> desktops installed, I run completely from CLI and use Speakup for all
> of it, including and especially Image for Linux for backup and
> restore, which I use on all my Windows machines..
>
> I'd like to take the installed Debian system as it is, write it to a
> CD or DVD, and use that as a talking backup/restore disc. Is this
> possible? Or should I create a new installation and write it to an
> ISO image, or just what should I do to accomplish the goal of
> creating a basic talking Debian shell environment that includes a
> licensed IFL?
>
> As always, thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

If your motherboard firmware and Debian version support booting and
running from USB, you could clone your existing system drive to a USB
drive -- flash drive, HDD, SSD, SSHD.


Alternatively, make your own Debian Live images (hybrid ISO -- can put 
on optical discs or USB drives):

     https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-live/


On 04/25/2016 11:07 AM, Steve Matzura wrote:
> So, do I start with the running installation and run something to
> create the new media, or boot from the distro itself and create the
> new system on the target USB device?

I power-down the computer, connect a USB 3.0 flash drive, boot the
Debian 7.10 Xfce CD, partition the flash drive manually, and install
onto the flash drive as usual.  Upon reboot, I configure the CMOS setup
to boot from the USB flash drive.


David

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#167152

On Mon, 25 Apr 2016 19:04:40 -0700, David Christensen
<dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> wrote:

>Alternatively, make your own Debian Live images (hybrid ISO -- can put 
>on optical discs or USB drives):
>
>     https://www.debian.org/devel/debian-live/

Good solution. It solves the drivers problem for sure.

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