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Sourceforge was a bloated forge and its forge software seemed to be outdated (I don’t think the same right now on 2014 with their Allura software).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 The wikipedia page for comparing open source software hosting facilities it’s outdated (links to an inexistent terms of use page).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:

 

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00 beta 6 released

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

Alternatively you can also obtain Super Grub2 Disk 2.00 beta 6 included in Rescatux 0.31 beta 4.

This is the changelog:

  • FreeBSD boot wasn’t working ok. Fixed.
  • Added default boot loader entries for FreeBSD at OS detection script

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.
This is a beta release so please comment any issue you find at the forum.

Development miscelanea:

  • Jordan Uggla has said he would have some spare time to work in SG2D. Let’s hope it’s true.
  • Thanks to nox- from irc for the FreeBSD testing and fixing.
  • Thanks to Niall Walsh for his current work on trying to improve the OS autodetect feature.

(adrian15 speaking)

As a side note the current HEAD at git says that SG2D version is 2.00s1-beta5 while it’s actually 2.00s1-beta6. Next beta should be the 7th one.

Rescatux 0.31 beta 4 released

Download, News, Rescatux, Rescatux, Rescatux Beta

Rescatux 0.31 beta 4 has been released.
Update: I add a video from Bóson Treinamentos em Tecnologia which describes quite well the Rescatux 0.31 beta 4 release. Video audio is Portuguese.

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

New features:

  • Better handle of /boot/grub2 in Fedora installations when running grub-install or update-grub options
  • Update Grub should work in any Grub2 system (previous version only worked on Debian or Ubuntu distributions)
  • New option: Promote a Windows user to Administrator
  • XFE is the new file manager instead of qtfm
  • New option: Unlock a Windows user to re-enable it
  • LVM and RAID support for Restore Grub and Update Grub options (It seems it already worked from 0.30.2)

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 0.31b4 size is about 427 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:

I think that making Rescatux 0.31 stable is more defined than ever. The keyboard support needs to be there so that Gnu/Linux password change is done with the right password and not another one, and also so that people are not annoyed when trying to use chat. Improve the documentation so that there’s nothing missing and nothing more.

There are also these new easy options that combine individual options functionality into one just to make live easier for everyone also but that doesn’t seem too complex to develop and it will encourage to reuse code and thus improve the rescatux_lib library.

This release uses SG2D 2.00 beta 6, which it will be released soon. That means that it supports both BIOS and EFI boot hopefully. You’re invited to test that functionality too.

Thank you and happy download!

Rescatux for the sysadmin – Linkat’s example

News, Rescatux

Linkat is an educational Gnu/Linux distribution from Catalonia (Spain). Thanks to the Departament d’Ensenyament institution they offer an adapted Ubuntu version specially aimed at education at their region.

One recurrent sysadmin task in those educational centers is restoring the master image to all the computers in the different classrooms. However, sometimes, the machines refuse to boot.

In such cases you can Restore Grub thanks to the Grub (+) -> Restore Grub option, change root password (now that you are at it) and even setup the right user for the sudoers file (Usually this step is not needed but the video shows how manteniment account is choosen as the sudo default account).

The video that has been made by Cròniques d’Amarok Recuperant GRUB ( Rescatux) people shows how thanks to Rescatux in less than 1 minute 40 seconds you can perform these described sysadmin tasks… even if you are not a sysadmin ;). More than this you are using only one GUI for all of these tasks.

Actually it’s not everything as good as it might seem because I haven’t managed to add LVM support in the Rescapp GUI. It’s my next task in my TODO list ;).

Enjoy the video!

Rescatux 0.31 beta 3 released

Download, News, Rescatux, Rescatux, Rescatux Beta

Rescatux 0.31 beta 3 has been released.

Boot-repair, Os-uninstalle, Photorec and
Boot-repair, Os-uninstaller, Photorec and Testdisk were added as expert options to Rescapp

Changelog:

  • Razor-qt desktop was updated from 4.x version to 5.x version
  • Added a frame so that embedded webpage is seen inside a grey square.
  • Now xchat nickname shows Rescapp version so that accurate help can be given in the chat.
  • Added the following expert tools:
    • boot-repair
    • clean-ubiquity
    • os-uninstaller
    • testdisk
    • photorec
  • Rearranged as an expert tool:
    • gparted
  • Added these CLI programs for experts:
    • extundelete

Downloads:

Rescatux 0.31b3 size is about 424 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:

Some little thoughts
I’ve added these expert tools because, basically, I don’t have to implement boot-repair functionality into Rescapp wizard (And the idea is one or two years old :(). Another reason might be because testdisk, photorec and extundelete can be useful in some situations but… again… I would rather include its functionality into Rescapp script (instead of adding disconnected apps).

Not everything is bad because adding these tools has made me add the Expert tools options menu to Rescapp. Now you can find Gparted inside of Rescapp instead of having to search for it in the Start menu.

I’m not sure if I want to freeze 0.31 beta 3 as it is right now or if I’m going to add one of these things: 1. Add more chntpw-ng functionality to rescapp. 2. Improve the Restore Grub and Update Grub to be able to detect Logical Volumes (LVM).

Thank you and happy download!

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00 beta 5 released

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

This is the changelog:

  • Added x86_64-efi support so that EFI files are detected and can be booted

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.
This is a beta release so please comment any issue you find at the forum.

Expect a new froze in SG2D development because the last days development was very unusual 🙂 🙁 ;).

Thanks to Niall Walsh for the EFI implementation and testing.
(adrian15 speaking)

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00 beta 4 released

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

This is the changelog:

  • (Devel) searchindevice function was improved by using brackets and making code more clear
  • Make sure to remove console output when using gfxterm output. This should solve some strange problems when selecting various menus options from SG2D.
  • Loopback detection now also detects: /bootisos, /boot/booisos, /BOOTISOS and /BOOTISOS directories so that FAT file name compatibility is assured
  • (Devel) Changed ~ to – in version filename so that filenames can be uploaded ok to forges

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.
This is a beta release so please comment any issue you find at the forum.

Thanks to the #grub guys we have managed to improve the code on searching device to make it clearer and some Grub2 code will be eventually fixed so that complex tests are done ok (precedence of -a over -o wasn’t ok it seems). And we also managed thanks to them to avoid two graphical modes at the same time. This way you won’t see strange phenomena when highlighting options.

Actually I haven’t been able to test that last fix in an actual machine where I know it happens, but this is a BETA, you’re supposed to test it as an user too ;). So feedback is welcome as always.
(adrian15 speaking)

Super Grub2 Disk 2.00 beta 3 released

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

This is the changelog:

  • Removed innecessary floppy seek
  • Fixed berlios #18907 bug. Now both /boot-isos and /boot/boot-isos directories should work

If you want to translate into your language please check TRANSLATION file at source code to learn how to translate into your language.
This is a beta release so please comment any issue you find at the forum.

Well, I wanted to release version an special secret version of Super Grub2 Disk and in the meanwhile I did find some innecesary floppy seeks when using it in an actual machine and I did want to fix that. Fix is not complete but it improves SG2D usage. I also fixed that /boot-isos and /boot/boot-isos error (where only the first directory was searched) for those of you that try to use SG2D for booting loop-boot capable distributions. I’m not providing GZ or ZIP files because I think I will release another SG2D beta soon. I’ve become quite addicted to develop SG2D. I don’t like SG2D myself because I see that the future is Rescatux but… when you get into developing it… knowing the Grub2 scripting stuff and its insights it’s fun and addictive!

More than this I want to release an stable version of SG2D soon because it’s too long with the beta versions hanging around. And, of course, the special secret version needs an stable SG2D version so that I don’t have to release it twice.
(adrian15 speaking)