All posts by adrian15

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 Release Candidate 5 released

Download, News, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk Beta

Please spread the word.

We need people to hard test this release so that we can release as an stable one !!! Hopefully in one month time.

Note: Previous release was 2.01rc3, that’s right. We have changed versioning back to previous method. 2.00s2rc4 means:

  • 2.00: Upstream Grub 2.00 version
  • s2 : Super Grub2 Disk scripts version (inside this Upstream Grub version)
  • rc4: Release Candidate 4

sorry for the confusion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTR7Pkrd-1g

This is a release candidate release so please comment any issue you find at the bug tracker.

Recommended download (Valid for i386, x86_64, and x86_64-efi):

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 rc4 Mac OS X entries
Super Grub2 Disk 2.00s2 rc4 Mac OS X entries (Image credit to: Smx)
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Main Menu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Main Menu

EFI x86_64 standalone version:

Floppy, CD & USB in one downloads:

Standalone versions:

Changelog

  • Fix OS X Boot thanks to Smx.
  • Add extra boot parametres for OS X kernels. Thanks to Smx which inspired the code from his own repo.
  • Quote menuentries or functions parametres to avoid problems with variables with spaces on them.

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.

Development miscelanea:

  • This release was built in a Debian testing system using 2.00-22 grub version.

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 Release Candidate 3 released

Download, News, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk Beta

Please spread the word. We need people to hard test this release so that we can release as an stable one !!! Hopefully in one month time. Latest RC2 version already did it by finding a new bug and fixing it in less than 24 hours.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTR7Pkrd-1g

This is a release candidate release so please comment any issue you find at the bug tracker.

Recommended download (Valid for i386, x86_64, and x86_64-efi):

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Main Menu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Main Menu

EFI x86_64 standalone version:

Floppy, CD & USB in one downloads:

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Spanish Main Menu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Spanish Main Menu

Standalone versions:

Changelog

  • EFI detection: Make sure to detect all the lower-upper case combinations of efi files.

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.

Development miscelanea:

  • This release was built in a Debian testing system using 2.00-22 grub version.

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 Release Candidate 2 released

Download, News, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk Beta

Please spread the word. We need people to hard test this release so that we can release as an stable one !!! Hopefully in one month time.

This is a release candidate release so please comment any issue you find at the bug tracker.

Recommended download (Valid for i386, x86_64, and x86_64-efi):

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Main Menu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Main Menu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Spanish Main Menu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 rc2 Spanish Main Menu

EFI x86_64 standalone version:

Floppy, CD & USB in one downloads:

Standalone versions:

Changelog

  • osdetect: Linux entry now shows its device
  • osdetect: Mac OS X/Darwin entry now shows its device
  • Fixed wrong EFI files detection
  • supergrub-meta-mkrescue now builds standalone images for: x86_64-efi, i386-efi, i386-coreboot and i386-ieee1275
  • Bug Fix: Fix gfxterm trigger. Now translation work as expected. Special characters are shown ok
  • Spanish (es) translation was updated to match the new options
  • Translations files were updated to reflect new strings
  • Code was fixed so that all the visible strings can be translated
  • Minor design improvements

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.

Development miscelanea:

  • This release was built in a Debian testing system using 2.00-22 grub version.
  • 2.01 Release Candidate 1 was not publicy release, that’s why you are seeing RC2 instead of RC1.

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 3 released

Download, News, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk Beta

This is a beta release so please comment any issue you find at the bug tracker. If you have non standard pc hardware please check Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 2 release so that you can give us feedback.

Recommended download:

 

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 3 grub.cfg Extract entries option
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 3 grub.cfg Extract entries option

 

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 3 Everything menu making use of grub.cfg extract entries option functionality
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 3 – Everything menu making use of grub.cfg extract entries option functionality

 

 

Changelog:

  • Added a new option: ‘grub.cfg – Extract entries‘. Now you can load your own grub.cfg entries even if you had setup a 0 seconds timeout by default
  • New Exit menu that let’s you halt or reboot your machine
  • Several improvements to the UI. Now you can see what option you have choosen and it is easier to return to previous menu.

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.

Development miscelanea:

  • The release an standalone release which might be useful for some EFI systems is still pending.
  • There’s no too much coding left. Just the part of making sure translations make sense. Although it is not difficult it will take some time.
  • This release was built in a Debian testing system using 2.00-22 grub version.

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 2 released

Download, News, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk Beta

This is a beta release so please comment any issue you find at the bug tracker. If you use any of the images for the specific hardware please comment in this same post.

Recommended download:

Additional downloads for very specific hardware:

 

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 2 featuring 'Everything +' option
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 2 featuring ‘Everything +’ option

Changelog:

  • Most every option was rewritten in a library way:
    • That makes easier to update Super Grub2 Disk
    • It also makes it easier to have a consistent UI
  • New option: ‘Everything +‘
    • Which initially loads LVM, RAID, PATA, USB and also tries to mount encrypted volumes
    • Then tries to find all the bootable entries thanks to Everything entry
  • Most of the options now have a consistent UI

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.

Development miscelanea:

  • We might also release an standalone release which might be useful for some EFI systems.
  • There’s no too much coding left. Just make sure translations make sense and probably the Exit menu for halting or rebooting the computer.
  • This release was build in a Debian testing system using 2.00-22 grub version.

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 1 released

Download, News, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk, Super Grub2 Disk Beta

This is a beta release so please comment any issue you find at the bug tracker.

Download:

Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 1 - Main menu
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 1 – Redesigned Main menu

Changelog:

  • New option: ‘Everything‘ to boot most anything with a single enter
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 1 - Everything option in action
Super Grub2 Disk 2.01 beta 1 – Everything option in action
  • UI redesign of final boot options so that they are clearly distinguished
  • UI redesign of extra options into submenu
  • UI redesign of manual options into submenu
  • New script: supergrub-meta-mkrescue for building several target+platform combinations
  • New boot technology based on conditional AFD
  • Improved build documentation

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.

Development miscelanea:

  • Expect to come two new options:
    • Everything + Extra functionality
    • Everything + Extra functionality + Extra Search

Thank you developer.berlios.de !!!

News

Around 2009 I was searching a new forge for Super Grub Disk . I finally chose Berlios because I knew that Bulmages project used it. According to Super Grub Disk Berlios forge summary page it was registered on 2009-May-27 20:42.

Later that same ayer I added Rescatux project to developer.berlios.de. The exact date was: 2009-Sep-21 16:12 . Now the reasons for adding the Rescatux project were a bit different. I probably liked the fact that GIT was available in Berlios while in most of forges at that moment it was not available. Don’t be mistaken, I did not know how to use GIT but I knew it was the right SCM to use and the future of them.
The other reason is being able to upload big ISOs (more than 500 GB) without too much hassle. I already knew that some distributions had their files in BerliOS without too much problem.

In the other hand there was forjamari.linex.org where my former Super Grub Disk project page was found. It had too many problems at the moment and somehow I thought that I had to choose another forge.

Sourceforge was a bloated forge and its forge software seemed to be outdated (I don’t think the same right now on 2014 with their Allura software). I’m not sure if it was around these days but I was also concerned about Sourceforge not making public its own forge source code.

And finally there was the restricted countries as Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan and Syria. I did not agree with that policy. The wikipedia page for comparing open source software hosting facilities it’s outdated (links to an inexistent terms of use page). The new terms have not changed too much.

So, my two open source projects were hosted on Berlios. There was even some time where Super Grub Disk web hosting was also on Berlios. Now it can be found at bTactic hosting.

One day I had a quota problem although I did not understand too much why. It seems that Berlios quota was based on users and not in projects as I knew from the old Sourceforge. They made my user quota bigger without too much problems.

One of the things that I like the most about developer.berlios.de is that they let you upload your file via ftp so that you could later add it to your file release section. That avoided problems when uploading a file via the html POST command like the probable timeouts.

The other thing was that Berlios was a very innovative platform. Instead of just trying to update their forge platform they added full apps to the system. Instead of having a mysql forge module they had phpmyadmin. Additionally to the default forge issue tracker you could add mantis to it.

Another big point is that was an European forge and I happen to be European too :).

Berlios seemed to be closing on 2011 but it did not.

Then there was the help for file mirroring from Sourceforge that should have warned us that the actual end of BerliOS forge (as we knew it) has come . Some instructions on how to migrate your project to other forges have been published.

Just for reference here there are the total downloads for both of the projects at 1st March 2014:

Super Grub Disk: 1,659,397
Rescatux: 834,404

I remember one day to have 25,000 downloads (previous day total downloads) on Rescatux project but I think that was a mistake of the stats system.

So that was developer.berlios.de for me. One of the best forge where to host my projects website, git and file releases.
We will miss you.

Thank you developer.berlios.de and all the team behind it for all these years!!!

Rescatux 0.31 beta 5 released

Download, News, Rescatux, Rescatux, Rescatux Beta

Rescatux 0.31 beta 5 has been released.

Rescatux 0.31b4 new options: Promote Windows user to Admin and Unlock Windows user
Rescatux 0.31b4 new options: Promote Windows user to Admin and Unlock Windows user

Fixed bugs:

  • Hard disk detection was improved when non standard partitions such as LVM or encrypted ones are present.

Internal improvement:

  • Added cryptsetup packages to default build so that we can mount LUKS partitions later.

Known bugs:

  • Handling of directories with spaces when detecting Windows SAM files is not optimal
  • Double-clicking on directories on desktop opens Iceweasel (Firefox fork) instead of a file manager
  • Bottom bar does not have a shorcut to a file manager as it’s a common practice in modern desktops

Pending features or bugfixes for 0.31 stable release:

  • Select keyboard from Grub2 boot or Isolinux boot so that you can type your correct password when resetting Gnu/Linux password
  • New option: Easy Grub fix: Runs both Restore Grub and Update Grub options
  • New option: Easy Windows Admin that runs: unlock user, promote user to admin and blank admin user password so that you can straight-forward as a windows admin user.
  • Rewriting of Windows chntpw based options so that source code is not repeated

Downloads:

Rescatux 0.31b5 size is about 430 Megabytes.

Distro facts:

Feedback welcome:
I’ve tried myself the distro in my dev environment for the new options, not the old ones and they seem to start ok. Another thing is doing a full test about their complete functionality. Please test the ISO and report back if something that worked on previous stable versions no longer works in this beta version.

Don’t forget that you can use:

Help Rescatux project if you cannot wait:

I am very busy right now at work. So you should expect two, three or four months of Rescatux development stalling. These are some of the funny tasks that anyone can easily contribute to: Making a youtube video for the new options. Make sure documentation for the new options is right. Translate the documentation of new options to Spanish. Make snapshots for new options documentation so that they don’t lack images.

If you want to help please contact us here:

Some thoughts:

Just another iteration in Rescatux development. Now it seems that a big bug has been detected. In some hard disks setup Rescapp was not able to parse all the hard disk names and its sizes correctly. That’s only two lines of code changed but a new release needs to be made public.

The addition of cryptsetup package is for 0.32 or 0.33 development. Don’t expect something related for the final user in the short term. Somehow in the future I will add LUKS support to Rescatux. You can check my personal blog post on Rescatux Development: Detecting LUKS encrypted partitions to help me on that subject.

As I had already said for 0.31 beta 4 version this release uses SG2D 2.00 beta 6 that means that it supports both BIOS and EFI boot. You’re invited to test that functionality too.

Thank you and happy download!

Improving documentation

News, Rescatux, Super Grub2 Disk

One of the most recurrent complaints about Super Grub Disk site is either the lack of documentation, either the documentation being outdated or even being wrong.

I have started to write what I have named Wizard pages which are kind of like the old fashion howtos but split in several pages so that each one of their sections can be reused by various Wizards. You just click on every option and they are opened on new windows (or tab if your browser is recent) as needed.

Finally there’s a place where it is explained how to put a Rescatux ISO in a USB when using Windows without having to format it and that it works.

I still have to complete the Restore Grub with Rescatux wizard explaining the several ways you can boot from your media and then how to use it. This is not very urgent because Rescatux has built-in instructions with these steps.

Once I would have written every step on this first wizard I will try to do the same thing for Super Grub2 Disk wizards.

And, yes, I will add snapshots some day and, maybe one video or another, but from the ones I have already made. I won’t have enough spare time to make new ones.

I am planning on release a Super Grub2 Disk 2.00 RC version and then a final version because although I don’t like developing Super Grub2 Disk for one reason or another I don’t like the old 1.98s1 version being the current stable one. Check Super Grub2 Disk mailing list link below if you want to help on this release.

Rescatux 0.31 will have to wait for 2014. I don’t discard to release another beta before the end of the year though. If you cannot wait so long please check this message that I already wrote from last Rescatux 0.31 beta 4 release:

Help Rescatux project if you cannot wait:

I am very busy right now at work. So you should expect two, three or four months of Rescatux development stalling. These are some of the funny tasks that anyone can easily contribute to: Making a youtube video for the new options. Make sure documentation for the new options is right. Translate the documentation of new options to Spanish. Make snapshots for new options documentation so that they don’t lack images.

If you want to help please contact us here: