ASUS X205TA hardware support for any other OS

[harryharryharry]

It seems manjaro have altered their iso labels a little, so the script wasn't recognizing the isos as being manjaro isos anymore. I've updated the script (needed to remove literally 1 character ). Thanks for the feedback. Other feedback is always welcome via PM.

[Yochanan]

Thanks! Not a big deal, but for some strange reason, the ISO is owned by root instead of me:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root     root     2387427328 Jul  5 08:51 x205ta-harryskernel-manjaro-xfce-17.1.10-stable-x86_64.iso
-rw-r--r-- 1 yochanan yochanan 2282766336 Apr 19 13:08 x205ta-harryskernel-manjaro-xfce-17.1.8-stable-x86_64.iso

[harryharryharry]

Ah yes, because there are several actions (tweak files inside iso, mounting, formatting usb) that need root permissions, I've lazily added a root-check so the whole script can only to be run as root, that's why it also outputs a file with root ownership. I've added a chown command at the end of the script that changes ownership of the file to the sudo user that runs the script (and also some improvements to the usb formatting, sometimes the script created a usb stick that didn't boot because the stick wasn't properly formatted, I think I solved that now).

[bazzle2]

Hey guys I have a major problem I cannot install another distro on my X205ta because it won't pass (initramfs) screen. Did anyone encounter this and found a fix please?

[Yochanan]

...

I just tried creating a Manjaro Xfce 18 USB on my other laptop running Manjaro Cinnamon and noticed this error during the build:

==> Starting build: 4.19.2-sound-39
  -> Running build hook: [base]
  -> Running build hook: [udev]
  -> Running build hook: [block]
==> ERROR: Hook 'miso_shutdown' cannot be found
==> ERROR: Hook 'miso' cannot be found
==> ERROR: Hook 'miso_loop_mnt' cannot be found
==> ERROR: Hook 'miso_kms' cannot be found
  -> Running build hook: [filesystems]
  -> Running build hook: [keyboard]
==> Generating module dependencies
==> Creating gzip-compressed initcpio image: /boot/initramfs-4.19.2-sound-39.img
==> WARNING: errors were encountered during the build. The image may not be complete.

Verbose log
I changed this line so it would build in RAM:

WORK=$(mktemp -d --suffix=.${0##*/} -p /tmp)

I haven't tested the USB yet as my X205TA is in storage at the the moment.

[harryharryharry]

I looked into the error and it seems a new pacman version deprecated the use of --force as a flag. This option is used in the script to install some needed packages - in this case manjaro-tools-iso - to be able to create a bootable new kernel/initramfs. There doesn't seem to be a replacing option to overwrite all existing files and directories pacman encounters.

This means making a manjaro iso with an updated kernel using the script isn't possible anymore (at least it isn't a simple rewrite). However, you can still boot the resulting iso with the original kernel by choosing it in the grub menu. If you succeed in installing manjaro you can then install my kernel.See my next post

[freemedia2018]

This means making a manjaro iso with an updated kernel using the script isn't possible anymore (at least it isn't a simple rewrite).

Hi, automated remastering fan here.

Forgive my lack of familiarity with manjaro, if you can't --force couldn't you delete the files or folders that you wanted it to overwrite?

[harryharryharry]

Yes that's possible, but quite honestly it isn't worth the hassle.Last time I tried installing manjaro, the live-installer didn't work properly (crashed) with my kernel. So to install you have to use the original kernel anyway.

edit: I made another attempt and seems like it was easier than I initially thought. I've updated the script and made an image of manjaro minimal xfce (as stated before, installation might still fail (with my kernel), this is X205TA we are talking about after all )

[Yochanan]

That did the trick, I successfully created the image. Thanks! Yeah, the --force flag is depreciated and there's now --overwrite, but neither are recommended to use at all.

[harryharryharry]

Nice! Yeah you're right, it was a hacky way to get around certain Manjaro-quirks (rootfs is divided between 4 different squashfs-files) that led to errors when building a custom iso — which (to my surprise) isn't needed anymore. If you are on the installed version of Manjaro (or any linux really) you should (almost) never have to use the --overwrite/--force option of the package manager in question, as the package manager isn't aware what it might end up breaking.