DynebolicFaq : dyne:bolic homepage

What is Nesting?

From the dyne:bolic manual:

• "The concept is simple: you cannot modify the operating system, you use it as it comes and you update it all in once with new versions, it is a whole compressed file, which is only readable. The writable part, where you store your data and settings, is stored in a separated way, inside another file of variable size which you can store on a usb key or an harddisk. This is a nest. If the nest you stored is found by dyne:bolic while booting, then you use its space for your /home and settings, which are then no longer lost in volatile RAM at the next boot."

Actually, that was totally true for the 1.x series of dyne:bolic. For the 2.x series, it's not...

... meaning that you can now also modify the operating system, by adding your own applications! Go to DyneModules and DynebolicPackaging to find out more. You'll be very glad you did.

On what kind of devices can I nest dyne:bolic?

You can create a nest for dyne:bolic on either PATA/SATA hard disks or USB keys. Dyne:bolic will retrieve the information from the nest on subsequent boots, i.e. each time a dynebolic CD runs on a compatible computer with a nest. Due to the minimum nest size of 32Mb, you cannot nest on a floppy... but, besides, they're slow, and who uses floppies nowadays?!

On what kind of filesystems can I nest dyne:bolic?

• For dyne:bolic 1.x: Nesting can occur on either a FAT32/DOSFS or (of course) ext2/ext3 (GNU/Linux partitions) as long as they're not SCSI devices. NTFS nesting is not supported.

• For dyne:bolic 2.x: You can nest on either a FAT32/DOSFS, ext2/ext3 (GNU/Linux partitions) and now also on NTFS filesystem! Yes, you can use your Windoze XP partition for more creative stuff! (Although ext2/ext3 are always the recommended filesystems).

How can I nest dyne:bolic?

• On dyne:bolic 1.x: You can nest dyne:bolic through the initial splash screen (which can be brought up by left-clicking on the desktop, then right-clicking on the first button on the menu), by selecting "Have More", then selecting "Nesting" and following the on-screen instructions.

• On dyne:bolic 2.x: You can nest dyne:bolic either through the initial splash screen by selecting the "Getting Started" tab, clicking on "Config and Nest", then clicking on "Nest" and following the on-screen instructions, or by right clicking on the desktop, selecting "Configure", then "Nest".

Where can I place the nest files?

Nest files (dyne.nst) should always be stored inside the dyne directory placed in the root of the filesystem (for example C:\dyne\ in Windows, not C:\Documents\dyne\ nor C:\Program Files\dyne\). That is the only place where dyne:bolic looks at boot. This behaviour may change in future versions.

Be careful, UNIX-like and GNU/Linux filenames and directories are case sensitive, so it's the "dyne" directory and the "dyne.nst" nesting file (all small letters), and not "Dyne", "DYNE", "dYnE" nor "dyn3"!

Ok, so how do I make a filesystem on hard disk that can receive a dynebolic nest?

Great! So you have a hard disk or partition to dedicate to dyne:bolic?

• If you have an unformatted hard disk, you must first create a partition table with fdisk. If you already have a partitioned hard disk, then please go directly to the next subparagraph to create a filesystem. Be VERY careful on WHAT operations you do fdisk! Refer to paragraph 2 later on for information on which device corresponds to which drive letter! CONTINUE ON YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY AND DON'T COMPLAIN IF YOU BREAK THINGS! If you have EVEN THE SLIGHTEST DOUBT ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE DOING stop immediately and read the Recommended Readings at the end of this paragraph! Lets suppose you want to create a unique partition occupying the whole hard disk /dev/hda, execute, in a terminal:

  fdisk /dev/hdX ...where X is the hard disk you want to partition. Inside the fdisk console, press n and Enter for a new partition, press p and Enter for a primary partition, 1 and Enter for the 1st partition number, twice Enter for choosing the whole hard disk size, then a, Enter, 1 and Enter to toggle the bootable flag on the new partition, then w and Enter to commit your changes and exit the fdisk partition utility.

• Create a filesystem:

  Be SURE NOT to have important, not backed-up data on the device you want to create the filesystem, because the filesystem and all the data of the device you choose WILL BE OVERWRITTEN! It's the same thing as doing "format" in DOS or Windoze machines! Ready? Go!

• Choose a filesystem:

  ext2/ext3 are the recommended GNU/Linux filesystems, but you can also choose FAT32 or DOSFS, which are dos-windows filesystems.

• Choose on what device the filesystem will reside; the hard disk device could be one of the following ones (first ones are parallel hard disks, second ones are SATA hard disks):

  • /dev/hda or /dev/sda

  • /dev/hdb or /dev/sdb

  • /dev/hdc or /dev/sdc

  • /dev/hdd or /dev/sdd

  In UNIX-like systems, each device is listed under the subdirectory /dev/, and each device of the IDE or SATA channels (which usually contain the cd-roms, dvd-roms, cd-rw drives and hard disks), is named after the scheme read from the bios-setup:

  • hda is the first device on the first IDE chain, called Primary Master device

  • hdb is the second device on the first IDE chain, called Primary Slave device

  • hdc is the first device on the second IDE chain, called Secondary Master device

  • hdd is the second device on the second IDE chain, called Secondary Slave device

  • sdX are SATA hard disks, where X could be a letter from a to z.

  How these devices are setup depends on how they are connected to the IDE chains, but don't worry about opening up your pc yet, since you can do either of two things to identify them:

  • First method (easier, but requires the pc to be rebooted):

    Go to the BIOS setup menu, which can usually be accessed by pressing Delete,F1 or F2 during the early stages of boot up of the pc, and then look in "Standard CMOS Setup", "Standard CMOS features" or similar for the order in which the BIOS recognizes the various devices; or you could, with some really good karma, try to read how your devices are displayed by the BIOS, in the few milliseconds when they fly by your screen in the BIOS boot up sequence.

    For example, if your Primary Master device in the BIOS setup is your main hard disk, it will be named /dev/hda, if your Secondary Master device is your cd-rom it will be named /dev/hdc and so on. Accordingly, the first SATA channel will be /dev/sda, the second will be /dev/sdb and so on.

  • Second method (easier if you know well enough names of the connected devices): In your terminal line (which can be brought up with Alt+Ctrl+Enter on dynebolic 1.x or by right clicking on the desktop and selecting "Terminal" on dyne:bolic 2.x systems), type in the following:

    • dmesg |grep hdX (for parallel ATA/PATA devices)

    or

    • dmesg |grep sdX (for serial ATA/SATA devices)

    where hdX is one of the four devices, either hda, hdb, hdc, or hdd, and sdX is one of the SATA hard disks. Among other things you should be able to recognize what ide channel is it on (ide0 for Primary, ide1 for Secondary), and what device is it. For example:

    • dmesg |grep hda {{{ide0: BM-DMA at 0xd400-0xd407, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA hda: IC35L080AVVA07-0, ATA DISK drive}}}

    which means that on the Primary IDE channel I have an IC35... ATA DISK drive (which, in this case, is an IBM hard disk).
• The next step is to create the filesystem on the hard disk that you have chosen.

  VERY IMPORTANT!!! Please type man mkdosfs or man mke2fs on the command line and READ the manuals before executing such operations, especially if you've never had experience on GNU/Linux systems before!This could save you from a lot of frustration, errors, wasted time and computers thrown out of windows, for the mere cost of 20 or less minutes of careful reading.

  The command to use for creating an ext3 (journaled, recommended) filesystem is:

  mke2fs -j /dev/hdXY or mke2fs -j /dev/sdXY

  the command to use for creating an ext2 (recommended) filesystem is

  mke2fs /dev/hdXY or mke2fs /dev/sdXY

  while the command to use for creating a DOSFS filesystem is:

  mkdosfs /dev/hdXY or mkdosfs /dev/sdXY

  where, of course, X is the hard disk and Y the partition that you want to use for Nesting. Your hard disk led should light up for some time, depending on how large the device or partition is; then, the device is ready to receive a dyne:bolic nest!

Recommended reading for in-depth GNU/Linux filesystem and partition specifications are in the "Filesystems HOWTO" and the "Linux Partition HOWTO".

How can I check a nest and troubleshoot it? (dyne:bolic 1.x)

There are several reports of people with trouble saving their configurations on a nest in dyne:bolic 1.x. The most common is when they try to save it on a NTFS partition (frequently found on WinXP, Win2k and WinNT). Remember: nesting on dyne:bolic 1.x only works on ext2 or FAT32/DOSFS partitions.

If you're certain that your partition is ext2 or FAT32/DOSFS then check:

• If the dynebol.cfg and dynebol.nst files are present in your hard disk partition or USB key. If not, the nest has been never created.
• Look inside /boot/dynebolic.log after booting, to find out if anything happened during the autodetection phase.

If the problem comes while doing the nesting, you should have a look in /var/log/setup/nidifica.log which is the log of "taschino", the software doing the nesting.

If you can't figure out what your problem is, subscribe to the mailing list and post a question; hopefully somebody will chime in with the respective solution, or at least with some suggestions that can get you closer to the solution.

Are there any alternatives to nesting?

Yes! And neither of these alternatives require a dyne:bolic CD to run. Check out:

• Docking - Copying the entirety of dyne to your harddrive

• DyneOnUsb - Installing dyne to a USB drive

I've never used GNU/Linux before and I'm using Win98... Can you give me a quickie?

• Boot from win98 CD.
• Fdisk
• Reboot
• Boot from win98 CD.
• Format

• Reboot with dyne:bolic

• Create a nest with the size of the entire disk.

Not elegant, but effective.

DynebolicFaq : dyne:bolic homepage

Nesting faq started on 28-10-2003 by Tommy Drum for the community, please update the info where needed!