Howto:
Install Klikit to a recoverable 3 partition install
Introduction
Under construction!
This howto shows how to install Klikit to 3 partitions, one for the "/" root folder where your system files are stored, one for the "/home" home folder where your settings and personal files, and email are kept, one called storage or whatever you want to call it, to store permanent files you wish to keep. The reason for this advanced install is to make the install easy to backup and recover, in case of some problem which makes your system unstable, unbootable or in case of hard drive failure.
Having your root and home directories on two different partitions means you could even do a reinstall of the original without wiping out all the data on your home partition. You would still have to reinstall programs, reset some settings and the like. Most of your settings though are stored in the home directory though and would still work. All of your email and browser stuff should also still be intact, with all their settings. So this is a good start to save you a lot of time and energy if for some reason you need to reinstall. You can also store a lot of your permanent data to the storage partition as well, in which case even if you had to rewrite the root and home directories all of that stuff would still be intact. The special added feature to this install method though is what you can do with it if you also use some kind of backup software. It also allows you to save your virtual machines if you are running any.
I do regular backups with remastersys backup. It allows you save your entire install to an iso file which can be written to a DVD and used as a live disc, or for doing a reinstall or an install to another computer. Remastersys saves all of your installed programs and all of your settings and files. The only drawback is that because it has to compress all of your files into an iso small enough to fit on a DVD and they are limited to 4 gigabytes for the iso. In spite of the compression, remastersys can only fit so much into the iso. My /home folder usually has a lot of stored files which just would not fit. It has a huge folder full of mp3’s, stored files, virtual drives for Virtual Box and many other permanent files that just can’t fit. So I create a big storage partition just for storing all of that stuff. This means that my system will easily fit onto about a 1.4 gigabyte DVD which remastersys can create in just a few minutes.
I set up remastersys to keep its working directory on the storage partition. That way when I use remastersys backup the iso file it writes is stored to the storage drive and it just overwrites the last backup iso with an updated copy every time I do a backup. You can do them as regularly as you feel is necessary. I do one from everyday to once a week depending on what new stuff I put on my system that I want to make sure is backed up. It only takes about 10 minutes for remastersys to run. Just in case of a hard drive failure I also backup the backup iso to another USB drive weekly. My storage partition is also backed up regularly to the USB drive regularly.
I will show you how to do the advanced install and then how to backup with remastersys. I will also show you how you can reinstall from the remastersys backup disc without losing any data, files, settings or anything, as long as it was up to date. Even in the case of a hard drive failure. ...cosbear
Howto:
Install Klikit to a recoverable 3 partition install
To start the install process, place the Klikit disc in the cd tray, and reboot your machine. The live desktop will come up. This is Klikit-ff-0.1-9RC1-G. If you are loading a previous or later version of Klikit the screen may look different, but all the procedures will be nearly identical. In the screenshot above, in the top left corner of the screen pointing to the install icon. Single click on the install icon to start the installer. Most everything in Klikit is single click. The following screen will come up.
Choose your language. Then click next and the following screen will come up.
Just pick the closest city to your own which is in your same time zone and then click next.
If you are using U. S. English on an U. S. English keyboard, you may just click next here; otherwise, choose the appropriate settings for your keyboard and click enter.
As you can see here, in this screen you should select manual and click next.
Here you see the partitioner screen of the install program. The yellow rectangle with the word free in it, is a visual representation of your hard drive. If your screen does not look like the above you may have missed the instructions above, telling you that if the hard drive you are using has something on it already you need to use a partition editing software like Gparted to remove everything from the disc. Gparted is available on this live disc, in the Launch Menu at Launch/System/Gparted. So if you need to clear your hard disc, close this installer now and remove any old partitions and data from your hard disc and start the installer afterwards. Right click on the line that says free space and select new partition. This next screenshot shows the gadget that pops up.
You will see here I have selected Primary for the type of partition. 4000 megabytes, or 4 gigabytes, in other words, for the size of the partition. Since I am working on a virtual drive in VBox with a drive of only 20 gigabytes for the purpose of the demonstration I’m using smaller partitions than I usually would. You can make your own partitions any size you wish, depending on the space you have on your drive. For instance on my main install which is on a 250 gigabyte hard drive my root or "/" partition is about 30 gigabytes, the home directory or "/home" partition is about 35 gigabytes, the Storage partition is about 100 gigabytes and the swap partition is about 4 gigabytes. That is a lot of space to make for them, but I like a lot of elbow room. Your root partition could be as small as 4 gigabytes, but it doesn't leave you a lot of space for adding new programs and stuff. I would suggest at least 6 to 10 gigabytes. For the /home partition I would suggest 10 to 25 gigs. You will also note that I have selected the location for the new partition as the beginning. I have chosen the format for partition as ext3 and typed in a "/" as the Mount point, to tell the partitioner to put the root directory in this partition. Now you can click the OK button. The popup will disappear and another progress bar popup will come up and then go away. Wait and another popup progress bar will come up and also disappear and then the Partitioner screen will change to reflect the changes you have made.
Now you can see that a green rectangle with the marking sda1 is now at the left of the visual representation of the hard drive. If you are using a serial ATA hard drive it will say the same, sda1. If you are using an IDE hard drive it will probably say hda1. Either way it means hard drive a, partition 1. You will also note that there is a line now that didn’t exist before which says /dev/sda1 under device, ext3 under type, / under Mount Point and under Format? You will note a box with and X in it. That means that when the installer installs it will format the partition to an ext3 format. Under Size you see it lists a size of 3997 MB. Don’t worry that the number is slightly smaller than the number we actually put in, that’s normal.
The yellow representation has now moved to the right and represents the unused space left on the hard drive. I’m going to do the same with it’s listing line as I did before with the free space line, but this time I will use different settings. So right click on the free space line and select New Partition.
Once again I have chosen a primary partition, set the size to 4000 megabytes, starting at the beginning of the partition, and set it to format to ext3. This time you will note; however, I’ve set the Mount Point to /home. Now you can click OK. Once again the progress bar will come up twice before the changes are displayed in the partitioner screen, reflecting the changes you just made.
Once again you can see the results of the settings you have made. Once again right click on the bottom line marked free space and select new partition.
This partition will be the storage partition, so I want it to be bigger for storing permanent items safely. Once again I’ve selected Primary, I’ve made this partition 10000 megabytes or 10 gigabytes in other words. I’ve chosen Beginning and ext3 for the format. This time for Mount point I’ve chosen /media/Storage. Media for the directory in the root directory called Media, and Storage for the name of the new partition. Storing a hard drive partition in the Media directory may seem a strange choice, but there is a reason for this. Because it is mounted in media it will mount automatically every time the machine boots. Also although it’s permissions will be set to root, I’ll show you an easy point and click way to set the for read and/or write permissions for your user name or those users in the root group, or for all users, after the install and reboot are over. Now you may click OK.
Once again you can see the changes you have made, and you just one partition left to create in the left over free space, which will be a swap partition. Once again click New Partition.
This time you will see I’ve left all the remaining free space for the size which will be around 4 gigabytes for the swap partition. You will note I’ve chosen for Use as: swap. You will notice that under Mount point: the window is empty, which is because the partitioner will take care of that automatically. Now you can click OK.
Now you can see all the changes we have made. None of them have actually happened yet but they will when we complete this section of the installer and tell it to install. You can see all four of the partitions we have created have all their information. Don’t worry that the format box is not checked for the swap partition, the installer knows already that it needs to be formatted and will do it. Now you can click next.
In this screen the installer has you choose your user name. In the first box you can put what you want. Your whole real name or whatever you want. In the second box you have to put in the user name you want your login to be. The third and fourth boxes are for your login password. Unless you change it later, after the install, this password will also be your root password. The password must match in both the boxes. The final box is for a name for your computer, you can call it whatever you want, and it will be the name for the computer seen over the network if you create shares for a lan. You can now click the Next Button.
Here the installer program explains exactly what it is going to do when you hit the Install button. This gives you a chance to check that you have set everything correctly. If something doesn’t seem right, you can click the back button and correct the error. In this case it is all right so we can go ahead and Click Install. And away she goes.
A progress bar shows how far the install has gone and what its doing at any given moment. You can go get a cup of joe, or to the bathroom, this will take about 10 to 15 minutes depending on the speed of your hardware. Don’t try to do anything else on the computer while the install process is going on, or try to shut off the computer as this could cause damage to you hard drive. When it is finished installing you will see this next screenshot.
Now the install is complete, you can click the ok button and the whole installer window will close and you will be back to the desktop. Go to Launch/Logout and then choose restart and your machine will reboot. When it has shut itself down far enough it will eject the live DVD and instruct you to remove the disc, shut the tray, and press the enter button then the machine will reboot. When it comes back up you will be at a login screen. Put in the user name you gave earlier and also the password and it will come up to your new desktop.
So here is your new desktop. You will note the partitions we created in the installer program on the task bar. You can see them better here below.
You see that the sda1, 2, and 3 partitions show here on the taskbar. The progress bars show how much of the partitions are full, and the numbers to the right show how much room is left on each partition. Now to set the Storage folder so you can have read and write access to the partition. You only have to do this once and from then on you will always have those permissions.
As you can see I’ve gone to the launch button on the taskbar in the lower left corner of the screen, and then to System, and then to Root’s Actions, and am selecting Konqeror – Superuser mode. This is a file manager that will pop up which allows you to interact with the file system as if you were logged in as Root. First it will popup a requestor asking for your password.
Type in your password and click OK and a Konqueror window with open shortly and show you the Root Directory.
Here we are as Root in the root directory. Notice the white hand pointer on the media folder. Remember that is where we set the Storage partition to mount to. Remember just single left click to open this folder
Now we are in the media folder. Right click on the Storage folder and choose Properties, see below.
Now right click on Permissions and this screen will come up.
Note in Access Permissions that the owner can View and Modify Content, and the owner is root. That means that root can read and write data on this partition. Because you are acting as root right now you can change these settings. You will notice that Group and Others can only view data, but not modify it like root can. If you want any user to be able to read and write to this partition, you just change the settings for group and others to Can View & Modify Content. Also check the Apply changes to all subfolder and their contents button. If you only want users who are members of the root group to have read/write privileges, just change that one.
If you already set it to allow all users in the last step, just go ahead to the last sentence of this paragraph. If you are only giving some users access click the OK button in this screen and the one in the first screen, and close the Konqueror window. You will have to go to the Launch button and then KControl.
Click on Sytem Administration.
Click on the User Management.
Click on Adminitrator mode and enter your password in the popup requestor.
Now click on the Groups tab.
Then click to select the box next to Show system groups.
Click on root to select.
Click on the modify button.
Scroll to your user name and click to select and then click Add to add yourself to selected accounts. If you have already set up user accounts that you also want to have access scroll to those and click add as well. When your done adding users click on OK.
Click the OK button. If you haven't clicked on the update button on the taskbar yet, you should do that. Just follow the instructions and install the updates, and if it says you have to reboot go ahead and do that. When your done come back to the Advanced Installation links page and click the link to set up remastersys backup, if you are going to use it for backing up your system. In that section I will show how to save a backup iso file that can be used to write to disc and be used as a live disc on any computer, or to reinstall, or install to another computer. This is the end of this section, that wasn't so hard now was it. .... cosbear
Howto: Install Klikit to a recoverable 3 partition install
Set up Remastersys to backup your system to your Storage Partition
Comments, advice, info or questions to cosbear