Well it may not have been the last question, but it's the last issue.

What do you mean all that matters is what's preconfigured and packaged? The whole point of this is to customize.

But Python is just a language, so if they don't update it or even necessarily support it, it can still be used, whereas if motherboards are made incompatible with CSM then every program which is designed to boot with it can't possibly be run anymore!

Of course they now. But why should they care?
It's just removing a crufty legacy compatibility layer, not needed by recent HW, or SW except for an extreme niche.

I'm not sure you've thought this through. A couple of things you should keep in mind.

There are at least a dozen different BIOS systems out there due to different mobo manufacturers supplying their own awesome versions of them, and each has different paths to for example a CSM setting that is and is called something different. So what works for one, won't work for another, apart from some vague instructions like 'Somewhere around the boot section look for a UEFI/CSM setting and toggle that on and off and see what happens'. Which might work for someone well versed in bios settings, but hardly for anyone else. You yourself had great problems in the beginning I remember :)

And it's not just about taking a long time cloning a live iso whilst being in a live iso and copying some files - it's about where you're going to copy them to? You realise drives and partitions need to be mounted, right, in order to backup a drive and copy to another one? And their labels and UUIDs will be different for each user? They'd have to have a clever filemanager with an extension probably to be able to mount these conveniently, else they will have the pleasure of mounting through the terminal. Something that you seem to have trouble with apparently anyways :)

I'm not sure re-installing a distro just to install a package is a 'problem solved' haha. It's like using a nuke to settle a bar fight. But at least you could finally install the package.

Why wouldn't open source software have 'publicly availabe' information about its config files? If someone hasn't figured it out and it's not mentioned in its documentation, you could probably as a very good and experienced programmer figure it out by looking at the freely available open source code eventuallly.


No need to shout. And I thought you got your answer, but I guess not.

Was that even implemented in 2020? And wouldn't it only affect brand new rigs with the latest and greatest?

Some things to try in Cubic chroot: Create a non-root user, that should create a home directory (google Users and Groups in Linux - arch wiki, it's very simple with useradd command), with a password probably. Try mounting the lsblk -f checked partitions. Copying files is easy with the GUI as mentioned in docs or guides. 'clipboard' package might help copy pasting, but I'm not sure it will work in the separate chroot. Once you have a desktop folder check it for ubiquity shortcut and rm it.

You're right, but first of all, if I can get this Cubic method to do what I need then I've already verified that it's compatible with UEFI, and after I post this I'm going to test it with CSM. If that works too, then both methods are covered, which is one less variable to consider. Then, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the only other issues are to disable Secure Boot (though I'll test with it on just to see if that works, and if it does then that's one less concern as well), and making sure that USB drives are set to be allowed to boot. Well I think they always call it Secure Boot, and booting USB drives is somewhat self-explanatory in terms of how it would be worded. In any case, it's all in the "Boot" tab, usually within the Advanced Options, and if CSM is an issue then it's always either called BIOS/CSM/Legacy (I don't know it by any other name, but are any other's ever used?), so it should be easy to find once you know where to look. My problem initially was just that I hadn't the first clue where to look or what it was called or what I was even looking for in the first place.

Mounting isn't a problem. Whenever I run Mint it automatically lists the hard drives and USB drives on the left side of any folder, and if they're not already mounted I just click them and they mount automatically when they open. The process of making a backup is literally going to be just burning an ISO onto a new drive, and then copying the ISO onto the extra space of that drive so that it can be further duplicated the same way. I've already tested this and it's extremely simple. And it can be done while booted into the OS as long as toram is used. I don't know what all these other things you're talking about have to do with it.

In this case it does qualify as a problem solved, considering the fact that I have a 20 GB test partition set up for just these kinds of issues for creating a customized ISO, and I was going to use it anyway, so whether Cubic can install on my main partition or not is kind of irrelevant.

Because as we've seen many times before, many things are just not documented worth a damn. And not only that, but though a lot of this stuff may be open source, I don't even know where to find the source code, I have no idea what language it's in, if it's one of these shell languages I only ever had rudimentary experience with it about 13 years ago and don't remember any of it, nor do I have any idea where to get and how to use a compiler if I wanted to change anything, but besides that, looking through hundreds if not thousands of pages of source code for some complicated program, in hopes of maybe if I'm very lucky finding some reference to a file that I don't even know what it's called in the first place, nor the names of any variables that reference it, so it's not as though I could do a text search and find it that way. The thing is, I'm a good programmer, but I'm not a mind reader, so I don't know how the developers structured their code and files, or where they put them, or anything. I work best on my own code, because I know what it does, because I wrote it. I've worked on other people's code as well, but at least they were either around to point me in the right direction, or they left documentation for other programmers to read to be able to find stuff in their code.

Yes, but I need this to be forward and backward compatible. I want something that will always work!

So you're saying to create a non-root user to create the home directory, because it doesn't even exist? But that doesn't make sense, because when I run in live mode from the default ISO I get a home directory! I read some about chroot but I'm still not sure how I'd use it, or for that matter, why. I mean it explained that it changes where the root seems to be, but I still can't figure out an actual purpose for doing that. And it seems dangerous. Like if I change the root to be /etc, for example (or any folder), then I'll no longer be able to access anything else outside of /etc, because it thinks that /etc is actually /, and anything outside of that doesn't exist, as far as the OS is concerned, right? It seems limiting, dangerous, and pointless - I'm not saying that it is any of those things, but it just seems to be, as far as I can interpret what it means.

And when I tried it I was attempting to mount the partitions that were listed in lsblk (I don't remember if I used -f). I didn't try copying files by dragging (as a video said to do) because I hadn't known about it at the time, but what "docs and guides" are you talking about? I can't find a single bit of official documentation for this Cubic thing. It was hard enough even to find the website for it at all - it's a very minimalistic one-page thing that seems to say, "Here, run this to download and install, and that's it!" Am I missing something?

Just so you know, I did make an extra user once and tried to boot, and it gave me a login screen, rather than doing auto-login, but it still allowed me to log in just by clicking on the password box. How dumb is that! I don't remember the exact context of this because I've done so many other things since then that it's kind of a blur, but I'm worried that the same thing might happen in Cubic. I'll try it, but I just don't know why it did that or whether it will do it again.

Are you suggesting that the clipboard isn't installed by default and I need a package called "clipboard"? Maybe I'm misunderstanding yet another thing, but if I'm editing the default Mint ISO then isn't it supposed to have everything that would be available to me if I were running directly in live mode from that very same ISO? I mean, why wouldn't it, considering that it's the same file and therefore must contain the same data representing the same programs/packages/files?

But I'll try all of that, but I need to reboot and test a couple of things, including some of this stuff, now. As for Ubiquity, ideally it would be nice to uninstall the whole program rather than just remove a shortcut, but I suppose if all it's even possible to do is remove the shortcut then I guess that will have to do.

Here's another update on my progress though:

I tried again to make a test ISO. I successfully installed the version of Java that I need, and I think I successfully installed Mono, but I'm really not sure, because it seemed to go a lot quicker than usual, and it seemed like the text that was printed may have been different.

I tried to make a user account using instructions from:

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/unix_commands/adduser.htm

It didn't work. Here's what I tried specifically just to test it:

adduser --home /home --password abc xyz

The instructions weren't super-clear but I think I'm supposed to put the user name (in this example xyz) at the end after everything else. In any case, here's what happened:

Unknown option: password
adduser [--home DIR] [--shell SHELL] [--no-create-home] [--uid ID]
[--firstuid ID] [--lastuid ID] [--gecos GECOS] [--ingroup GROUP | --gid ID]
[--disabled-password] [--disabled-login] [--add_extra_groups]
[--encrypt-home] USER
Add a normal user

adduser --system [--home DIR] [--shell SHELL] [--no-create-home] [--uid ID]
[--gecos GECOS] [--group | --ingroup GROUP | --gid ID] [--disabled-password]
[--disabled-login] [--add_extra_groups] USER
Add a system user

adduser --group [--gid ID] GROUP
addgroup [--gid ID] GROUP
Add a user group

addgroup --system [--gid ID] GROUP
Add a system group

adduser USER GROUP
Add an existing user to an existing group

general options:
--quiet | -q don't give process information to stdout
--force-badname allow usernames which do not match the
NAME_REGEX[_SYSTEM] configuration variable
--extrausers uses extra users as the database
--help | -h usage message
--version | -v version number and copyright
--conf | -c FILE use FILE as configuration file

I also tried it with -p instead of --password (because that's supposed to be equivalent) and it gave me the same error except with the first line saying unknown option: p.

Anyway, I did figure out how to copy in files, and even copy and paste text (it turns out I have to right-click and choose the menu option rather than Ctrl-Shift-C/V).

But I also found out (and verified by tweaking things and checking the results) that the file where LibreOffice stores the settings is:

/home/[user]/.config/libreoffice/4/user/registrymodifications.xcu

I'm not even sure what an xcu file is, but it looks like markup. In any case, notice that it's in the home folder so I'll really need to get access to that, which means that I'll need to create a user, which I'll need anyway, for a password to login.

Then after all that I decided to test creating the ISO. When I did so it ran out of disk space and caused an error. I hadn't realized that all the junk files were still there from the previous one in compressed and uncompressed format, so I deleted them and tried running Cubic again. This time when I tried to choose my project directory it wouldn't even enable the Next button so I couldn't proceed! I tried it a couple of times with the same results. It looks like it's time to reformat the partition and reinstall Cubic again, before I can do any further testing.

EDIT: Well I just realized one stupid thing: evidently there's an "adduser" command and a "useradd" command, and I mixed up the two and used the parameters for one in the other one. D'OH! Actually, the stupid tutorial page says it's for adduser but then all the instructions are for useradd!

EDIT: Well, good news and sort of possibly bad news. First of all I deleted some dependent files and it seemed to let me use Cubic and proceed to the text interface again. Then I got adduser to work and it created a home directory, but then inside of the user directory in it, I used ls -f and it said:

. .local .bashrc .. .profile .gtkrc-xfce .config .bash_logout .gtkrc-2.0

So there are only hidden folders and none of the usual ones like Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures... How do I get those? Also, even inside of .config I don't see anything but caja, hexchat and qt5ct, so how can I get to the libreoffice folder to modify that file?

EDIT: Then I was going to try to build another ISO and noticed that I had less than 2 GB free (it seems to always take 2 GB when I do it), so I uninstalled a ton of different programs and was able to get back like 200 MB, which was maybe enough, so then I found more than 2 GB in the trash can and emptied it, and had more than 4 GB, so I made the ISO (with GZIP format like I did before) and it went through the compression stage and had no problem, and several other stages until the second-to-last stage called "Generate the customized disk image", where it said "Error: Not enough space on the disk." YOU'RE KIDDING ME! How much space does it need?!?!?! I gave it as much as I know that it needs, but it just keeps wanting to hog more and more space for absolutely no reason, until it fills the whole drive!

EDIT: This thing is reporting the partition as having about 8 GB used and about 2 GB free even though I KNOW it's 20 GB! And even when I delete stuff the space is still used, so it just keeps using more and more, and never giving it back, even though the trash can is empty! I think I have to increase the size of this partition, reformat it and start again.

The SKEL Directory on whatever system you are using just contains the basic files/hidden folders needed for a user id to function correctly.
https://techpiezo.com/linux/etc-skel-directory-in-linux/

All the folders like Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, etc that "missing" on your new userid are optional fluff not required for userids to function correctly. You can either add those folders manually to your new user id or modify the SKEL directory on your system, (typically /etc/skel or something similar) to have those folders created by default when creating new userids using the useradd/adduser commands.

Disk space issues:
A Disk Free "df -lh" command will show you where all the storage on that 20GB partition is going to. Those "missing" 10GB on your system are probably all system files in the /var, /etc, /sys, /usr, /opt, /tmp, etc directories/


Use a bigger system partition or create/use a dedicated 10GB /home partition.

Thanks for the tips, but the weird thing is that all of the extra folders in the home folder do show up in the ISO once I put it on a USB and boot it, even though they're not there when I'm in the Cubic terminal!

I've found most of the essential information that I need for the configurations that I need to do in Cubic, but I'm still not sure how exactly to deal with this skel stuff, and for some reason, I'm having a terrible time trying to find information about where the keyboard shortcuts are stored! I've looked into this:

gsettings get org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.media-keys custom-keybindings

But it just says this:

@as []

That implies that it's an empty list/array! I also checked out localectl, but it seems to have more to do with the configuration of the keyboard itself rather than the shortcuts.

I also still have my suspicions about whether the login password will work or not, but I'll try it. I'll test all of this stuff soon but I have to go for now.

And this is why I trust Gnome with nothing regarding competence. Even regarding their own internal standards, they can't keep their pants in the designated space. It's probably actually shoved away in some Dconf database somewhere because Gnome hates user facing options.

What linux terminal emulator/what terminal shell are you using/what shells/terminal emulators do the new userid ids you create use?
NOT ALL SHELLS & TERMINAL EMULATORS IN LINUX USE THE SAME SETTINGS OR THE SAME CONFIG FILES.
NOT ALL LINUX DISTROS USE THE SAME TERMINAL EMULATORS OR SHELLS.
Bash shell, Bourne shell, Z shell, etc all use direct config files. Gnome & KDE have weirdo terminal emulators that use weird GNOME/KDE non-standardized code

What environmental variables are you pre-configuring/gsetting in the skel firectories?
aka look at the ENV settings on your test accounts vs what your master fully configured account has.
What are the default $PATH settings being used by your main id & the all testids you are creating?


As a programmer, most of these things should already be known to you, at least under different terminlogy. AKA you can't successfully build or compile programs correctly unless all the required lbirary files are llinked and programs won't execute if built to run under different environments.
.

I'm using Mint 20 with Cinnamon, and the shell is Bash I'm pretty sure (whatever the default is). I didn't configure anything - I just simply ran the command above and got back a list of nothing, but I'm not certain that's the right place to get it in the first place; it was just a guess, because I don't know where to get it. I just learned of the existence of skel today and I'm still not exactly sure what it is. I didn't see any ENV settings (and don't know where they are) or $PATH settings. As a programmer, I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about, because if it's different terminology then how would I recognize it? If you're talking about linking stuff like DLLs and so forth, I've done that before on occasion but it's always a huge pain and I usually have to deal with a weak of headaches before the damn program understands what I'm trying to do and I stop getting compilation errors. Most of the programming that I do or have done involves websites, databases, logical/mathematical algorithms (compression, cryptography, artificial intelligence, etc.), but not so much this kind of stuff, and I still have trouble understanding some of the convoluted Linux junk, but in any case, that's all the information that I know. If you want something more specific then tell me how to query for it and I'll tell you what it is.

So here's an update: I still have one big problem and a smaller one, and an idea which might fix them, but I"m not sure.

The big problem is that I made a new user, and I'm able to log into that account, but once I do, any time I want to do something that asks me to enter a password (and that even includes mounting, unmounting and ejecting drives, for some reason), the password never works! This is even though I used the same password to log in! My suspicion is that it might somehow be conflicting with the default "mint" user, though I've tried leaving passwords blank (because it's blank for that user) and that doesn't work either. So basically it's like I'm locked out of superuser mode... actually, I just realized that maybe I must also add super user privelages... well I'll try that too, but what I was going to try is to delete the default user, which I really should do anyway, because I don't want there to be a user account that can log in without a password! In any case, am I on the right track, or am I way off?

The smaller (though still annoying) problem is that I'm trying to disable sound (or just mute it by default). I've tried:

amixer set Master mute

But I just got an error, which I don't remember exactly (sorry), but the gist of it was that it can't find some file or something, which might have something to do with the fact that like half of the folders are missing (I'm still not sure I understand why). I think I'll try:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.sound event-sounds false

Because that seems like it might work. If anyone has a better idea please post it!

Other than that, I think I might have all the necessary stuff figure out but I still need to test it tomorrow. As it turns out, when I create a new user, I get a home directory, without much in it, but fortunately it puts the .config folder in there, and inside of it, there's a libreoffice folder and a dconf folder. If I set these up in Linux which is already installed, and just copy these folders in, I think they'll fix the settings for LibreOffice and almost everything on the desktop, respectively.

And I think that will pretty much take care of everything. Wish me luck!

At this point I seem to be able to do absolutely everything that I need EXCEPT give the user root permission (and I'm not sure about the firewall preferences because I need root access to check them, but I suspect they're correct).

I've tried creating a new user and setting it to the root group like this:

adduser abc

usermod -u 0 abc # that doesn't work because the user called "root" is already assigned ID 0

usermod -G root abc # that works

usermod -f -1 abc # disables the automatic inactivation of the account (but doesn't change anything because that seems to be the default, anyway)

deluser --force root # that should delete the "root" user so that it doesn't get in the way of abc, but I get an error that I can't delete the user who I currently am

usermod -p [password] root # I tried setting the same password to the "root" user as abc, so that perhaps I might get root access with the same password that I use for logging in

But then when I build the ISO and boot it, I can log in with the password (though I'm not actually certain whether I"m logged in as "root" or "abc", because I guess they have the same password), but then when I try to do anything that requires root permission, it doesn't ever accept the password and won't give me access!

So what am I missing?

sudoers

Fine, but that's incredibly ambiguous, because:

- If I type man sudoers I get a manual for some "plugin" but it doesn't say whether it's a command or if so, which parameters it supports or what they do.

- There's a sudoers file in the /etc directory (this is in my normal running Linux), and the part of it which looks like it might be used for what I want is:

# User privilege specification
root ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

Like if I were to add my new user under there in the same syntax as that second line but with a different user name, that might possibly work, except in this case, I can't tell if where it says "root" it's talking about the user called root (which for some reason likes to put its home directory in /home/mint rather than /home/root - go figure), a group called root, or just root permissions in general.

I just read something here:

https://www.linux.com/training-tutorials/configuring-sudo-explaination-example/

It seems to imply that the line is supposed to give sudo access to all users. But then I went into Cubic and checked the file, and by default it contains that line. Actually here's some stuff that it contains:

# User privilege specification
root ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Allow members of group sudo to execute any command
%sudo ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

In any case, it looks like it should already allow access, doesn't it? But it doesn't work.

- I've found a website which talks about sudoers:

https://www.sudo.ws/man/1.8.12/sudo.conf.man.html

But it mentions a /etc/sudo.conf file which doesn't exist at all, and all of the instructions seem to center around this ghost file.

- Then there's this visudo command which claims to edit the /etc/sudoers file, but all it seems to do is check it or otherwise open it in a document editor to let you edit it manually, which I could do myself so I'm not sure how that's any better/easier/more advantageous.

So with all of these interpretations, I'm not sure which is correct/relevant, and in any case, none of them actually seem to solve or even attempt to solve the problem.

EDIT: I just tried one more thing: I added the line:

abc ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

I'm thinking that maybe if it is actually referring to the "root" user then if I duplicate the same line but make it for the user that I actually want to use then hopefully that will work. I'll burn it and try it now....