Sat Oct 26 07:49:39 2019 UTC

Frequently asked questions

How to register to the Mailing Lists

It's done in a few steps:

  • Send an email to one of <mailing_list_name>-request@nutyx.org (nutyx-support-request@nutyx.org for example) by specifying: subscribe as the subject.
  • You will receive a confirmation mail. Check your spam mail.
  • Simply answer this last email by choosing "Reply" on your favorite email software.
  • After a few minutes, you will receive an email that confirms you are registered on the mailing-list
Available Mailing Lists:
nutyx-supportnutyx-support@nutyx.orgTo get some support about NuTyX
nutyx-annoncenutyx-annonce@nutyx.orgTo get news about NuTyX
nutyx-devnutyx-dev@nutyx.orgTo discuss about development and future of NuTyX

The archives are available at: https://listengine.tuxfamily.org/nutyx.org/

NuTyX is not a multi-lib

It takes much more time to build up a multilib distribution. Normally all the libraries need to be compiled in both 64 and 32 bit.

Today, it's not possible to produce a multilib because there are links created at construction / installation of NuTyX (lib64->lib) under /lib and /usr.

The installer doesn't allow me to specify a separate /home partition

This question has been asked many times. I will try to answer it as clearly as possible.

Modern users often have a lot of data on their computers. The size of the home folder can quickly become very large. MP3 files, photos and videos are big files.

Imagine that you have a 250 GB hard disk. You say "OK, I'll take 100 GB for the system and 150 GB for my personal data." Great! You just cut your disk into two pieces, and the home partition will fill up more quickly in proportion to its size than if you had retained a single partition. It would be nice if we could reinstall NuTyX when we wanted without having to cut the hard disk into separate partitions to preserve personal data. That's exactly how the NuTyX installer works.

  • The installer will never format a partition that is already formated, without manual intervention.
  • If you have a distribution (NuTyX or any other) with personal data and the system on the same partition, the installer will tell you during the installation process that there is already a distribution there but will not offer to format the partition. You will need to delete the /var, /proc, /sys, /usr, /sbin, and /etc folders, but other folders such as /home and /MP3 will not be touched. So your data is safe.
  • Today it is very easy to configure a file server based on NFS, so that users could have their home folders on a remote server.
  • To summarise: creating a separate home partition today is unecessary, at least with NuTyX. It's worth asking why Apple's MacOS operating system never recommended this.

Building packages in a chroot. When and Why ?

The NuTyX ISOs install a base system which gives the user a choice between two scenarios in using the distribution:

NuTyX can be considered as a "binaries" distribution.

The user installs the needed binary packages by downloading them from the remote server.

Once the base system is installed, the user installs their favourite applications as explained in the online documentation.

A typical installation looks like:

get lxdm xfce4 xfce4-extra firefox gvfs ntfs-3g transmission thunderbird

All the binary packages are split into base packages and sub-packages (devel, doc, man, etc); in most cases, only the base package will be installed. It means:

[Important] if the user wants to compile a package not available in binaries, he (she) will have to compile those packages in a chroot, otherwise the compilation will always fail because of missing dependencies.

NuTyX can be considered as a "sources" distribution

The user compiles all the packages they need on the local machine.

Once the base system is installed, the user installs the development tools:

get cards.devel

He (She) downloads the availables recipes:

sudo ports -u

He (She) adjusts the /etc/cards.conf configuration file as:

dir /usr/ports/desktops
dir /usr/ports/gui-extra
dir /usr/ports/gui
dir /usr/ports/cli-extra
dir /usr/ports/cli
dir /usr/ports/base
base /usr/ports/base
logdir /var/log/pkgbuild
And can now compile the required packages without being in a chroot. So, for example, to compile the graphical server xorg:
sudo cards depcreate xorg-server

Is it possible to upgrade NuTyX (prior to 10.0) to NuTyX 10.X without reinstalling everything?

No. The number of changes is too great. The package manager has changed, the initrd has changed, the installer has changed, and the ports location has changed.

How to activate the root account ?

As default, NuTyX does not activate the root account but, if you wish to compile your own packages, it may be a good idea to activate the root account. It's very simple, type:

and choose root as user

Figure 1: Specify the root account

choose a new password

Figure 2: Specify the password

and confirm the new password

Figure 3: Confirm the password

and you're done.