xiange_install_iso

Xiange Linux Live-CD (iso) installation guide

1. Burn iso file to a USB disk under Linux

USB disk greater than 4GB is required to burn Xiange Linux. Assume /dev/sdb is your USB disk: run following command to burn iso file to USB disk:

dd if=xiange-liveCD-x86_64-wayland-2023.07.24.iso of=/dev/sdb

or

pv xiange-liveCD-x86_64-wayland-2023.07.24.iso > /dev/sdb

pv is better, it can show progress bar when burning.

be careful, it's /dev/sdb, NOT /dev/sdb1. iso file includes GPT table and loader. wait about 20 minites, reboot your computer with USB disk and enjoy.

2. How to burn Xiange iso file to USB under Windows:

a raw disk write tool is required to write xiange.iso to whole usb disk(include MBR/GPT and loader).
http://sourceforge.net/projects/win32diskimager is the tool but i never tested. Reboot with USB disk after image writing and enjoy.

3. Default account:

you can login with username xiange and password xiange. root password is xiange. for Xiange-linux-2023.07.24, user xiange will be logged in automatically.

4. How to simulate with qemu

Since Xiange Linux use wayland/sway as main window manager, it requires 3D acceleration. qemu should be compiled with --enable-virglrenderer.

qemu-system-x86_64 -smp 2 -m 4096 -device virtio-vga-gl -display gtk,gl=on -net nic,netdev=net0 -netdev user,id=net0 -accel kvm -cdrom /root/release/xiange-liveCD-x86_64-wayland-2023.07.24.iso

5. How to install Xiange Linux to hard disk

1) Prepare a disk partition, at least 16GB. it can be GPT or MBR partition.
2) format disk partition with ext4:

                makefs.ext4 /dev/XXX

3) mount iso file to /mnt/cdrom
mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom -o ro if you boot with xiange iso file
mount /path/to/xiange.iso /mnt/cdrom -o ro if you boot with USB disk.

4) locate xiange squash image at /mnt/cd/xiange

    ~~~
      #pwd
    /mnt/cdrom/xiange
    #ls -lh
   total 2.6G
   -r-xr-xr-x 1 root root 2.6G Jul 24 11:56 xiange-sqroot-X86_64-2023.07.18

~~~

5) mount squash image file to /mnt/image

    mount xiange-sqroot-X86_64-2023.07.18 /mnt/image -o ro


6) mount hard disk partition and copy all files to hard disk:

    mount /dev/XXX /mnt/xiange_hd
    cd /mnt/xiange_hd
    cp -a -r /mnt/image/* .

    caution: -a option is required, it will preserve file privilege,

    progress can be viewed with "watch -n 1 df -h /dev/XXX", the total size of Xiange Linux is about 9.1GB.

 7) Install grub.

     for MBR partition:

     grub-install --target=i386-pc --boot-directory=/mnt/xiange_hd/boot --recheck /dev/sdX

     for GPT partition:
     //mount EFI boot partion to /mnt/boot
    mount /dev/EFIboot mnt/boot

  grub-installefi --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/mnt/boot --boot-directory=/mnt/xiange_hd/boot --recheck /dev/sdX

  7) setup grub.cfg

  for MBR partition:

  menuentry 'Xiange Linux x86_64 6.3.7' {
insmod gzio
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
insmod search_fs_uuid
echo 'Loading Xiange Linux x86_64 6.3.7...'
linux /boot/vmlinuz-x86_64-6.3.7 root=PARTUUID=XXXXXX rootfstype=ext4 rw
initrd /boot/intel-ucode.img /boot/amd-ucode.img

}

PARTUUID of you hard disk partition can be retrieved by blkid.

for GPT partition:

menuentry 'Xiange Linux x86_64 6.3.7' {
insmod gzio
insmod part_gpt
insmod ext2
insmod search_fs_uuid
echo 'Loading Xiange Linux x86_64 6.3.7...'
linux /boot/vmlinuz-x86_64-6.3.7 root=PARTUUID=XXXXXX rootfstype=ext4 rw
initrd /boot/intel-ucode.img /boot/amd-ucode.img
}

reboot and enjoy.
you can add chainloader for Windows system if you have it installed in other partitions.