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Re: Memory comparisons

Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2017 11:57 pm
by kraileth
ASX wrote:Yes I use and love FLTK, and there is a tool already ready which I wrote myself:
a tool to trasfer ISO/IMG files to USB stick and/or SD card, most likely it will be firstly deployed on next GhostBSD; the tool is supposed to detect the memory stick by monitoring the "plug in" action.
That's looking great! What is it written in? C++ as most FLTK applications? Or did you use Python (as far as I know PyFLTK is the only language binding for FLTK that's in good shape)?
(and btw, I have written it to be portable to Linux too).
Portability never hurts - especially not when it comes to a tool like that! Would you like others to do some testing? If so I'd definitely give it a whirl instead of always dd'ing things.

Re: Memory comparisons

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 5:17 am
by ASX
Technically speaking is written in C++, in practice is really written in C and compiled with a C++ compiler. ;)

As for testing, of course I will need help on that: it is working for me on 10.3 and 11.0 as well as on Linux (at least on those Linux distros that provide libudev), but basically it was tested against USB sticks only.

SD card readers support need to be included, and that's the area that would greatly benefit from additional feedback, because there are a range of device available out there, some works on top of USB stack, other are PCI devices, thus different drivers and different device names.

Then there is another aspect to carefully evaluate: USB devices are really user accessible in GhostBSD, due to some rules added to devd.conf, but not on Linux and I didn't checked about pure FreeBSD so far.

I will publish the code on my github account very soon (few days).

@ericbsd,
at least once I published a link about the tool on #ghostbsd .... most likely you missed it. Your fault ! :mrgreen: :D

@macondo,
my "minimal ISO" was small, but I was unable to make it fit a CD size, ~900 MB is what I was able to achieve, but sure, we will try again. ;)

Re: Memory comparisons

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 6:09 am
by kraileth
ASX wrote:Technically speaking is written in C++, in practice is really written in C and compiled with a C++ compiler. ;)
Ah, I see. Fair enough! That actually increases the chance that I will be able to understand parts of it as that's exactly the kind of "c++" that I've written in the past. :lol:
SD card readers support need to be included, and that's the area that would greatly benefit from additional feedback, because there are a range of device available out there, some works on top of USB stack, other are PCI devices, thus different drivers and different device names.
Never had to work with those. One of my laptops has a slot, though. And as far as I know cards are not exactly expensive these days so I may be able to test that, too.
Then there is another aspect to carefully evaluate: USB devices are really user accessible in GhostBSD, due to some rules added to devd.conf, but not on Linux and I didn't checked about pure FreeBSD so far.
I have one vanilla FreeBSD machine here so I could try that one out, too. No, I'm lying; I actually have one laptop with FreeBSD 11 and one workstation, too.
I will publish the code on my github account very soon (few days).
Sounds good!
my "minimal ISO" was small, but I was unable to make it fit a CD size, ~900 MB is what I was able to achieve, but sure, we will try again. ;)
I have doubts if it's possible to fit anything with programs like LibreOffice and a browser onto a CD these days. Hm. Maybe we can aim for a "Net Install" iso that pulls packages from the net once our repo is in place?

Re: Memory comparisons

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 7:27 am
by ASX
I have doubts if it's possible to fit anything with programs like LibreOffice and a browser onto a CD these days. Hm. Maybe we can aim for a "Net Install" iso that pulls packages from the net once our repo is in place?
I've worked on these with convbsd some months ago, out result was:
- a "nox" ISO, text only, ~500 MB - that would need to write a text installer
- a "xorg" ISO, using fluxbox, including a full Xorg server ... ~900 MB, of course all non essential packages were removed and basically was meant to test the installer. I'm sure it can be stripped down further ... but the time is what it is.

You can find those ISOs/IMGs here, from our brother project:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/deskto ... BSD%202.0/

Re: Memory comparisons

Posted: Mon Jan 09, 2017 12:55 pm
by macondo
ASX wrote: @macondo,
my "minimal ISO" was small, but I was unable to make it fit a CD size, ~900 MB is what I was able to achieve, but sure, we will try again. ;)

The 10.3 FreeBSD Disk 1 for 64 bits goes at 696 MB . Just the base apps.

Re: Memory comparisons

Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 10:24 am
by ASX
kraileth wrote:
ASX wrote:Yes I use and love FLTK, and there is a tool already ready which I wrote myself:
a tool to trasfer ISO/IMG files to USB stick and/or SD card, most likely it will be firstly deployed on next GhostBSD; the tool is supposed to detect the memory stick by monitoring the "plug in" action.
That's looking great! What is it written in? C++ as most FLTK applications? Or did you use Python (as far as I know PyFLTK is the only language binding for FLTK that's in good shape)?
(and btw, I have written it to be portable to Linux too).
Portability never hurts - especially not when it comes to a tool like that! Would you like others to do some testing? If so I'd definitely give it a whirl instead of always dd'ing things.
I have delayed this a bit because I want to implement a couple of additional features:
- reused USB sticks may hold a previous GPT partition, I want to delete it before imaging over the new ISO
(very often the secondary GPT partition remain there, and that may cause issue with some system)
- optionally gpart recover should be run to place the secondary GPT at the right place (end of the media), to prevent problems like described here: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/59425/