| User Guide for larch-5.3 | Download | User Guide for larch-7 (under development) |
As faunos development has ceased, please contact me via e-mail: 'gradgrind at online dot de' or use the Arch "Community Contributions" forum. The current thread is: larch-5.3 released
Further work on larch-7. There is now also a command-line interface.
The new version of larch, larch-7, is beginning to take form. It is radically different in design - it is now mostly witten in python and has a pyqt gui - though the live systems it produces are only quite a small step from previous versions. It is still at quite an early stage, but I have produced some working results. If you want to test it, grab the larch package from here, unpack it somewhere convenient and run the 'larch' script in the 'opt/larch/run' directory. The documentation is just beginning to take form (see link at top of page). Let me know if there are any problems ...
There is no longer a need for an extra aufs2 package as the current Arch kernel26 includes a suitable aufs module - also session merging should work. Since the /dev changes, though, the automatic starting of Xorg in the example profiles probably won't work. It should be quite simple to fix, but I don't have much time at the moment...
I've fixed a few things so that it should work a bit better with the changes that have happened in the kernel over the last few months. For i686 there is an aufs2 package which overwrites the kernel's built in module. This is just a temporary hack (I hope) to get session merging working again. With a bit of luck a cleaner solution should soon be possible (but that depends on the Arch kernel and aufs updates). You don't have to use the aufs2 package, but if you don't then session merging won't work (the simple session saving should still work). A few changes to larchin were also necessary. Please test and report bugs.
Various tweaks and fixes:
larch2hdd is now in the larch-live package.
Added create-iso script to larch package (builds an iso from a
syslinux larch usb stick).
Example profiles have new default xorg.conf, disabling input hot-plugging.
xkmap can now edit (suitably structured) xorg.conf.
Added 'nocd' boot option, to prevent booting from CD.
Added 'usbdelay=' option, to wait (time in seconds) before trying to
mount 'root=' device.
xmaxi profile now includes gdm - and will use it when installed to hdd,
though the live system doesn't use it.
Updated gen_fstab (larch-live) to create special entries for ntfs-3g and
vfat.
Documentation updates.
Main change: added larch2hdd, to install a running larch live system to a hard disk (etc) partition. This is a so-call "poor man's install", the live system is installed as is, it is not unpacked as larchin does.
Added 'pacman-packed.tar.gz' (pacman binary with all needed libraries)
so that building on non-Arch systems works again.
Adapted larch-setup script to use this.
Added dlarch theme for gdm to repository.
inpacs (used by mklarch) now gets base package list using 'pacman -Sg base'. Unfortunately building on non-Arch systems is now broken again, because pacman.static is no longer available.
Fixes so that larch should work (again) on non-Arch hosts. Tested on ubuntu.
Moved larchin-6 to main (larch5.3) branch, and to larch5.3 repository. Minor updates to larch package.
The new larchin (version 6) - larch hard-disk installer - is now available for testing in svn trunk. It is the same sort of idea as larchin-5 but I hope the code is not quite so impenetrable. larchin-5 has been moved to 'pasture' (though it is still at present in the larch-5.3 branch and repository).
Updated the download page a bit.
The official Arch aufs package in 'extra' has now been fixed for kernel 2.6.25. As it is also configured with the 'SHWH' (show whiteouts) option used by larch's overlay merging, this package is now suitable for use in larch systems. So I have removed my own aufs package from the larch repository. Unfortunately the official package has the same name as my latest one, so you might get a 'corrupt package' message. If you have used my latest package (200080527), deleting it from the package cache beforehand will avoid this. For the moment I have left my PKGBUILD in svn trunk, in case it is needed sometime, somewhere ...
larch-5.3 available, including aufs for kernel 2.6.25. Now also included are packages for xkmap (gui for xorg keymap setting), luser (gui for simple user management tasks) and localed (gui for locale handling).
larch-5.2 available. I have decided to call this the current version, as of today. It is still relatively untested, but it includes a number of desirable new features, including two-level session save, allowing more flexibility and speed, and a graphical hard disk installer (a new version of larchin). Session save to CD/DVD is no longer supported (to simplify the system, and I hope no big problem because of the advantages of USB sticks), 'mklarch' has been split into two scripts, 'mklarch' and 'larchify' (the latter for building from existing installations), and many internal details have changed - so please do read the documentation! The most actively maintained example profile is now 'xmini', so that is recommended for testing purposes.
larch-4 and the development version, larch-5, are now in SVN. A newly packaged larch-4 release is also available (see download page). The source code includes simple build instructions for a larch repository.
Apart from the changed build system the main change is the retirement of the klibc-larch package (no longer needed as rc.shutdown2 is now a small binary). In the example profiles I have (where appropriate) replaced xorg-video-drivers in addedpacks by a full driver list, to avoid conflicts (a couple being commented out).
Start of move to berlios.
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