What is "nesting"?

From the dynebolic [http://dynebolic.org/manual-in-development/ manual-in-development]: "The concept is simple: you don't need to install the whole operating system and applications on your harddisk anymore; the tools you use are reside on the CD and are accessed from it. What you really need to be able to modify and save is just your home directory and your configuration settings! With dyne:bolic, you can simply store them in a nest and find them back at every boot."

Where can I "nest" dynebolic?

You can create a nest for dynebolic into hard disks or USB keys, retrieving the information from the nest each time a dynebolic CD runs on a compatible computer with a nest on hard disk or a USB key.

How can I "nest" dynebolic?

You can nest dynebolic through the initial splash screen (which can be brought up by left clicking on the desktop, then rightclicking on the first button on the menu), by selecting "Have More", then selecting "Nesting" and following the on-screen intructions.

Is there anywhere in particular I've got to place the nest files?

Nest files and their configuration should always be stored in the root of the filesystem where the nest is placed. That is the only place where dyne:bolic looks at boot. This behaviour may change in future versions.

Can I nest on xxx filesystem?

Although nesting doesn't present problems on either a FAT32 or (of course) on linux partitions, as long as they're IDE devices or USB keys, currently NTFS nesting is not supported, due to the unsafety or possible danger in writing to an NTFS filesystem with a gnu/linux OS; there seems to be capability in latest linux kernel versions to support NTFS, but there's always the "(EXPERIMENTAL)" or "(MAY BE DANGEROUS)" tag besides the "NTFS filesystem write" in the kernel's configuration, thus the decision to not support NTFS for the time beeing. Maybe in future versions of dynebolic?

How to check your nest and troubleshoot it

There are several reports of people with trouble saving their configurations on a nest. The most common is when they try to save it on a NTFS partition (frequently found on WinXP, Win2k and WinNT, can't tell about Win2003 but I'm almost sure it uses NTFS as the default filesystem). Remember: nesting only works on ext2 or fat partitions.

If you're certain that your partition is ext2 or fat then you can follow the next 2 steps proposed by jaromil on the mailing list:

1) if the dynebol.cfg and dynebol.nst files are present in your USB key (or your target partition, wherever it may be) (if not, the nest has been never created)

2) look inside /boot/dynebolic.log after booting, there you'll find a boot logfile that can tell you what happened during the autodetection phase.

Read that /boot/dynebolic.log and if you can't figure out what your problem is, post it to the list and hopefully somebody will chime in with the respective solution, or at least with some suggestions that can get you closer to the solution.

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 dynebolic? You must first create a filesystem on it:

Be SURE to NOT 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 machines or Windoze.

First of all, you should choose your filesystem; to my knowledge, two filesystems are surely compatible with dynebolic (PLEASE UPDATE THIS):

FAT32 or DOSFS and ext2. The first ones are dos-windows filesystems, while the third one is a linux filesystem, and is surely recommended.

Secondly, you must choose in what device will the filesystem reside; the hard disk device could be one of the following ones:

• /dev/hda

• /dev/hdb

• /dev/hdc

• /dev/hdd

In UNIX-like systems, each device is listed under the subdirectory /dev/, and each device of the IDE 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

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

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

• You'll just have to go to the bios setup menu, which can usually be accessed by pressing Delete or F1 (PLEASE UPDATE) during the early stages of power-on of the pc, and then looking in "Standard CMOS Setup", "Standard CMOS features" or similar (PLEASE UPDATE) for how the bios recognizes the various devices; or you could be very concentrated and try to read how your devices are displayed by the bios, in that few milliseconds that 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 Primary Slave device is your cd-rom it will be named /dev/hdc and so on.

Second method (easier if you know fairly good the names of the devices):

• Type, in your terminal line (which can be brought up with Alt+Ctrl+Enter on dynebolic systems) the following:

• dmesg |grep hdX

  where hdX is one of the four devices, either hda, hdb, hdc, or hdd. 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 my case, is an IBM hard disk)

The next step is to create the filesystem on the hard disk that you have chosen.

The command to use for creating a DOSFS filesystem is:

mkdosfs /dev/hdX

while the command to use for making an ext2 filesystem is:

mke2fs /dev/hdX

where /dev/hdX is the hard disk that you want to use for nesting. Your hard disk should light up for some time, depending on how large the device or partition is; then, the device is ready to receive a dynebolic nest!

IMPORTANT!!! Please type man mkdosfs and man mke2fs on the command line and READ the manuals before doing this operation, especially if you never had experience of linux before. This could save you from a lot of frustration, errors and time badly-spent, for the mere cost of 20 minutes of reading.

If you want to read in-depth specification on filesystems in linux please read the following HOWTO: [http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Filesystems-HOWTO.html Here].

...or the HOWTO on creating partitions inside hard disks: [http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Partition/index.html Here].

I know this FAQ isn't complete, it would be nice to have other things added to it, so please do.

Back to DynebolicFaq

Dynebolic [http://dynebolic.org homepage].

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