aspire one linpus linux boot process
Dec. 15th, 2008 09:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solipsistnationOkay, so the Aspire One linux setup is... strange. It's not only stripped-down and weirdly single-user (that is, you set a password when you turn it on for the first time but after that you only type the password for software updates and, well, sudo (except that sudo doesn't require a password for "user." More on this later.)-- also your username is "user" and you can't change it without lots of potential weirdness), but the whole boot process is gutted.
There are, in /etc/init.d (and /etc/rc?.d and so on), what look like the normal assortment of init scripts, if the system had been set up by somebody who didn't really care about logging or network services, which is fine for this kind of system. (Too much logging would decrease the life of the SSD drive, and you don't necessarily need network services on a glorified portable web browser.) They are, however, not used.
Instead, the system boots up through the normal inittab process, which points off to /etc/rc.S, which bounces you to rc.last, rc.last.ctrl. rc.S sets up a few things and starts X(!), but most of the important stuff is in rc.last, which encapsulates much of the normal init script process and installs a bunch of kernel modules. rc.last.ctrl finishes off by setting a bunch of kernel parameters and so on. At that point, X has started and the user is seeing stuff show up, like a window manager (xfce, which is pretty cute) and the desktop icons. Note, however, that among the things NOT started yet are:
- the network
That's right, the whole thing boots up and starts X WITHOUT starting the network or any of the network management stuff.
That stuff is all started using the xfce "Start programs on login" system, from /etc/init.d/slim/nowait.sh. It consistes of a lot of calls to /etc/init.d/whatever, using sudo. The fourth line is "/etc/init.d/network start". I'm not kidding.
So you get your windows, icons, and a Windows-like bar across the bottom, which then starts to fill up with little icons. It's very familiar-looking from a Windows standpoint, but very weird from a unixy point of view. This is the point where the lack of logging or useful errors becomes pretty obvious-- I managed to break my setup so it would come up and complain "Internal Error: Failed to Initialize HAL" and could never figure out what was doing that. Stuff seemed to still work, but it was strange.
From when I first got it, I spent a lot of time tweaking, installing stuff, removing stuff, messing with compilers and packages and so on. There are a bunch of specially-built libraries on this thing, not the least of which is the gsynaptics driver and config system for the touchpad. I managed to break that quite thoroughly somehow (probably by messing with the original gtk libraries) and that's why I ended up reimaging the thing and starting over. I'm on the second install, and I've managed to get it all working pretty much the way I like without causing anything to break. I've installed Firefox 3 and assorted plugins (oldbar, adblock plus, and a theme that uses up less vertical screen real estate), set up the icons the way I like (having a Terminal icon is MUCH more important than having a Hotmail icon), set up Compiz and fusion-icon and 4 virtual desktops so the tiny screen seems like less of a handicap, and so on. I even managed to boot it to a partedmagic desktop so I could remove the swap partition and resize the primary partition. 8 gig free, whoo!
Also, weirdly, /var/log is full of logs. They're mostly from April and May of 2009, from, I'm guessing, the people building the system. They could have saved a bunch of space by removing those and the things that never get used from /etc, but it would make it harder to work on...
Overall, it's a useful little system. It is definitely what it is, and won't be much more than that, but it's already been really useful when working on stuff in the data center here-- it saved me having to track down a cart with a monitor or terminal, and it's a good size for hauling around. Even my 15" G4 got heavy after a while, but I hardly notice this thing. Also, it has a fairly quiet keyboard for typing during meetings, but a very clicky mouse button. I'd switch it to use tapping, but tapping is annoying...
There are, in /etc/init.d (and /etc/rc?.d and so on), what look like the normal assortment of init scripts, if the system had been set up by somebody who didn't really care about logging or network services, which is fine for this kind of system. (Too much logging would decrease the life of the SSD drive, and you don't necessarily need network services on a glorified portable web browser.) They are, however, not used.
Instead, the system boots up through the normal inittab process, which points off to /etc/rc.S, which bounces you to rc.last, rc.last.ctrl. rc.S sets up a few things and starts X(!), but most of the important stuff is in rc.last, which encapsulates much of the normal init script process and installs a bunch of kernel modules. rc.last.ctrl finishes off by setting a bunch of kernel parameters and so on. At that point, X has started and the user is seeing stuff show up, like a window manager (xfce, which is pretty cute) and the desktop icons. Note, however, that among the things NOT started yet are:
- the network
That's right, the whole thing boots up and starts X WITHOUT starting the network or any of the network management stuff.
That stuff is all started using the xfce "Start programs on login" system, from /etc/init.d/slim/nowait.sh. It consistes of a lot of calls to /etc/init.d/whatever, using sudo. The fourth line is "/etc/init.d/network start". I'm not kidding.
So you get your windows, icons, and a Windows-like bar across the bottom, which then starts to fill up with little icons. It's very familiar-looking from a Windows standpoint, but very weird from a unixy point of view. This is the point where the lack of logging or useful errors becomes pretty obvious-- I managed to break my setup so it would come up and complain "Internal Error: Failed to Initialize HAL" and could never figure out what was doing that. Stuff seemed to still work, but it was strange.
From when I first got it, I spent a lot of time tweaking, installing stuff, removing stuff, messing with compilers and packages and so on. There are a bunch of specially-built libraries on this thing, not the least of which is the gsynaptics driver and config system for the touchpad. I managed to break that quite thoroughly somehow (probably by messing with the original gtk libraries) and that's why I ended up reimaging the thing and starting over. I'm on the second install, and I've managed to get it all working pretty much the way I like without causing anything to break. I've installed Firefox 3 and assorted plugins (oldbar, adblock plus, and a theme that uses up less vertical screen real estate), set up the icons the way I like (having a Terminal icon is MUCH more important than having a Hotmail icon), set up Compiz and fusion-icon and 4 virtual desktops so the tiny screen seems like less of a handicap, and so on. I even managed to boot it to a partedmagic desktop so I could remove the swap partition and resize the primary partition. 8 gig free, whoo!
Also, weirdly, /var/log is full of logs. They're mostly from April and May of 2009, from, I'm guessing, the people building the system. They could have saved a bunch of space by removing those and the things that never get used from /etc, but it would make it harder to work on...
Overall, it's a useful little system. It is definitely what it is, and won't be much more than that, but it's already been really useful when working on stuff in the data center here-- it saved me having to track down a cart with a monitor or terminal, and it's a good size for hauling around. Even my 15" G4 got heavy after a while, but I hardly notice this thing. Also, it has a fairly quiet keyboard for typing during meetings, but a very clicky mouse button. I'd switch it to use tapping, but tapping is annoying...
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-15 06:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-15 06:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-15 06:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-15 06:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-15 07:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-15 07:41 pm (UTC)I briefly considered reworking all the init script stuff, but, um, naw.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-16 12:32 am (UTC)Silly, you can go into grub and tell it to run /sbin/init rather than /sbin/fastinit, and this does the normal boot process. I've not tested this, but googling around says the system doesn't completely come up; I guess the traditional boot files weren't properly customised for the Eee :-)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-15 07:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-15 08:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-12-15 07:56 pm (UTC)