Linux Format forums

morrison

The latest DVD has CrunchBang which I had used for a while with an earlier version. The DVD boot menu does not have a "Hard disk Install" item so it can only be used as a "live" version.

The resulting live version has no icon or menu item to install the system to a hard disk which is pretty useless.

Has the team at LXF boobed or is there a solution to the problem that I have missed.

Morrison in Melbourne

Ben · Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2012 11:42 am Posts: 25

Hi Morrison,

Distros aren't designed to be put on multiboot DVDs. Most have hard-coded links to particular directory structures which are incompatible with each other. Sometimes these can be changes using undocumented boot flags, other times then can be changed in undocumented files in the ram disk. And sometimes (no matter how much you swear, beat the computer, or cast hexes upon the developers) they refuse to work. Such was the case with the CrunchBang installer.

We included the distro to give people a chance to test out that style of desktop, but there is not a way of installing it.

Ben

morrison · Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2012 4:52 am Post subject: Can't install CrunchBang

CrunchBang 9.04 was included in LXFDVD123 and it was installable. There is no excuse for the new version 10 on LXFDVD 157 not being installable.

Furthermore it would help if the magazine or the disc indicated that would not be installable and only to be used as a "live" system.

The screenshots available of the boot screen show "Graphical Install to a Hard Disc" as an option. This should have been followed by LXF. Black mark to the DVD compilers.

morrison · Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 4:16 am Post subject: Cannot install CrunchBang Linux

I have just looked at the distrowatch page for CrunchBang and note that it states the best way to evaluate it is to install it to a hard disk.

Just what you cannot do with the LinuxFormat supplied distro!

nelz · Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 11:00 am Post subject:

That rather depends on your definition of "best". If your is "go to all the trouble of repartitioning your hard disk, run through the install process and risk the bootloader no longer giving access to your existing distro" that statement may be true. For most people I would say that booting from a live disc is a far better way of gaining a quick overview of what the distro is like.

If the makers of the various distros actually bothered to document how their boot scripts work and what arguments to pass them, there would be more installable distros on multiboot DVDs, but they don't and sometimes it is just not possible to work out how to do what you want, even if it could be done with a previous release.

Edited to put an "r" in makers towy71 Razz

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Ben · Joined: Wed Feb 01, 2012 11:42 am Posts: 25

Hi Morrison,

It is a fair point that we could have marked it as live-only to avoid confusion. In future, if there are any distros that can't be installed, then we will make that clear in the text.

Ben