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Do you remember "Wubi Ubuntu Installer"? This project is both a replacement and an improvement of Wubi. You will be able to install your Debian (or derived) distribution on a PC without repartitioning it, simply by using a secondary/external boot device (like a USB drive).

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# Buddy Linux

## Introduction

Do you remember [Wubi Ubuntu Installer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wubi_(software))?

This project is both a replacement and an improvement of **Wubi**, obviously with its pros and cons.

You will be able to install your [Debian](https://www.debian.org/index.it.html) or derived distribution (I have used [Linux Mint Mate 18.3 64 bit](https://linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=248)) on a PC without repartitioning it, simply by using a secondary/external boot device.

### PROs

- The [Grub 2](https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2) bootloader can be installed on any device partition, external or internal.
- You can host your loopback device files on any partition type, not only on NTFS ones.
- Loopback device files partecipate to a [LVM](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/LVM) physical volume cluster, so after a successfully installation, you can increase your logical volume size as you need (by booting with any Linux Live Distribution to extend it).
- [Dracut](https://dracut.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page) can be choosen (it is the default one) as _initramfs_ infrastructure. By its implementation of the [Systemd Shutdown process](https://www.systutorials.com/docs/linux/man/8-dracut-shutdown/) the loopback devices are safely released without any data loss.
- Your OS can be upgraded to all future distributions (Wubi were pinned on a not upgradable Ubuntu release).

### CONs

- A bit of Linux knowledge is required to follow instructions.

## Pre-requisites

- Boot from a Live Ubuntu or derived distribution.
- Insert a USB drive for bootloader, then umount it (if you want to boot from an external device).

## Clone repository

```bash
sudo apt-get install git

git clone https://github.com/antonio-petricca/buddy-linux.git
cd buddy-linux
```

## Become friend of the install script

The automated **install** script will guide you through the whole setup process.

You should simply follow the instructions provided by it. Even if something will go wrong, due to an error or by a negative answer to some question, you can resume the setup from the line number printed out by the script (_--resume_).

Here is the parameteres list...

```bash
install [OPTIONS]

Executive arguments:

-h | --help                   : this screen.
      -c | --clean                  : clean already performed steps.
      -r | --resume                 : resume execution from a given line number.

Mandatory arguments:

-b | --boot-device            : boot (USB) device (eg: /dev/sdc).
      -u | --host-uuid              : loop files host device UUID (got by blkid).
      -f | --host-fs-type           : host device filesystem type (default: "ntfs-3g").
      -s | --loopback-file-size     : loopback main file size (in Gigabytes).
      -w | --swap-file-size         : swap file size (in Gigabytes).

Optional arguments:

-g | --boot-device-grub-index : boot device grub index (eg: 0 for '(hd0,msdos1)'; default: 0).
      -p | --boot-partition-index   : boot partition index (default: 1).
      -i | --initrd-tool            : InitRD tools => 1 = initramfs-tools, 2 = dracut (default: 2).
      -o | --host-fs-options        : host device filesystem options (default: "noatime,rw").
      -d | --loops-dir              : host device loopback files root relative folder (default: ".linux-loops").
      -v | --volume-group-name      : volume group name (default: "vg_system").
      -l | --logical-volume-name    : root logical volume name (default: "lv_root").
```

## An example is worth a thousand words

Suppose we want to take advantage of Linux on our company notebook equipped with Windows that we absolutely cannot repartition.

For the same reason we cannot make a dual boot system.

We have to gather some information to pass to install script, so...

### Get the UUID of the host disk

The host disk is the notebook internal drive partition where we want to create the (first) loopback file where we will install our Linux.

```bash
$ sudo blkid | grep -i ntfs

/dev/sda1: LABEL="ESP" UUID="E00C-5421" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="EFI system partition" PARTUUID="fb4ed2b9-80ee-4585-ba9a-98ad5fff9577"
/dev/sda2: LABEL="DIAGS" UUID="6C3A-F782" TYPE="vfat" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="90215d40-b38b-4491-b8da-0aa0b1e49f22"
/dev/sda4: LABEL="WINRETOOLS" UUID="4CE43CC1E43CAED8" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Basic data partition" PARTUUID="9153f739-1837-4e62-94f7-0c303920be7b"
/dev/sda5: LABEL="OS" UUID="C69E53819E536947" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="1f2bc4d8-3919-4bd1-8d7f-14a16f1ea89e"
/dev/sda6: UUID="FCD2CC27D2CBE3CC" TYPE="ntfs" PARTUUID="2a28eaa5-f129-4a31-a0a2-71bbb25a1cf0"
/dev/sda7: LABEL="PBR Image" UUID="FCACE750ACE7044C" TYPE="ntfs" PARTLABEL="Microsoft recovery partition" PARTUUID="b4df6e39-9c55-4eb5-a374-113026760c60"

```

**/dev/sda5** is what we are searching for, so the UUID is **C69E53819E536947**.

### Get the (USB) drive device name

The USB drive is the disk where Grub will be installed and that will host the boot partition (/boot).

So,

```bash
$ lsblk

NAME                MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sdb                   8:16   1   7,5G  0 disk
└─sdb1                8:17   1  1000M  0 part /media/817697da-efa5-49da-baeb-ca175d9b587b
sda                   8:0    0 931,5G  0 disk
├─sda4                8:4    0   750M  0 part
├─sda2                8:2    0    40M  0 part
├─sda7                8:7    0     7G  0 part
├─sda5                8:5    0 922,7G  0 part
├─sda3                8:3    0   128M  0 part
├─sda1                8:1    0   500M  0 part
└─sda6      8:6    0   459M  0 part

$ sudo umount /dev/sdb1
```

Thus, **/dev/sdb** will host the Grub bootloader, and **/dev/sdb1** the boot partition (_--boot-partition-index 1_).

### Define the remaining parameters

Our notebook is equipped with a 1 Tb SATA disk (formatted as NTFS) and 8Gb of RAM, so we choose:

- **250 Gb** for the (first) loopback device file.
- **16 Gb** for the swap file (2 x installed RAM).
- **ntfs-3g** file system type.
- **Dracut** as initramfs infrastructure (better shutdown process handling).

### Run the install script

Is time to go...

```bash
$ sudo ./install  \
  --host-uuid C69E53819E536947 \
  --boot-device-grub-index 0 \
  --boot-device /dev/sdb \
  --boot-partition-index 1 \
  --host-fs-type ntfs-3g \
  --loopback-file-size 250 \
  --swap-file-size 16
```

Pay much attention to the Ubiquity step and at parameter **--boot-device-grub-index** (which usually should left at default value, depending on your hardware layout), then enjoy with your Linux setup!

## Disaster recovery

Using your buddy linux, the boot drive, especially if it is a USB device, may fail, so you should have a valid restorable backup.

### Backup your boot drive

The **boot-drive-backup** script provides you a simple script to backup your boot device into a **tar.xz** file. That file can be restored by the script **boot-drive-restore**.

Here is a simple usage example:

```bash
$ ./boot-drive-backup

boot-drive-backup [Compressed boot image file basename]

$ sudo ./boot-drive-backup ${HOME}/Dropbox/my-boot-drive
```

It will create a file named **my-boot-drive.tar.xz** (e.g. which you can store on DropBox or preferred cloud), that you may provide to **boot-drive-restore** to restore your boot drive, or clone a new one.

### Restore drive

In order to restore the boot drive onto the currently mounted boot device, please look at the following example:

```bash
$ ./boot-drive-restore

boot-drive-restore [Boot device] [Boot partition mount point] [Boot image compressed file name]
```

So, using then data gathered from the installation example, and assuming our backup file is **${HOME}/Dropbox/my-boot-drive.tar.xz**, we should restore our boot device by running this command:

```bash
$ ./boot-drive-restore /dev/sdb /boot ${HOME}/Dropbox/my-boot-drive.tar.xz
```

## Clone / Create a backup boot device

A bit more tricky, but more useful, is to create a backup boot device.

It may be accomplished by following the following rules:

- Take a new (USB) drive.
- Destroy all partitions (e.g. by **GParted**).
- Create a new, at least 512Mb size, ext4 partition.
- Flag it as **BOOTable** (else you will get an **"Invalid partition table"** warning at boot time that you may skip by pressing **ESC** key).
- If you wish, partition remaining space as you need (for other use cases).

Now run the **boot-drive-restore** script as follow (assuming that the backup device maybe **/dev/sdc**, mounted on **/media/my-2nd-boot-drive**):

```bash

$ sudo ./boot-drive-restore /dev/sdc /media/my-2nd-boot-drive ${HOME}/Dropbox/my-boot-drive.tar.xz

...

$ sudo umount /media/my-2nd-boot-drive

```

## Tips & Tricks

### NTFS driver update

I suggest you to keep the [NTFS-3G driver](https://www.tuxera.com/community/open-source-ntfs-3g/) updated to the latest release (if you need it).

### Improve NTFS performances

As you may know the **NTFS-3G** is a [FUSE](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/FUSE) driver, which is not the best in terms of performances (because of the calls from _User Space_ to _Kernel Space_).

To improve your file NTFS file system access you should use the Paragon NTFS3 native driver shipped since kerne 5.15.0.

### Extend Logical Volume

This is a trivial task, but not impossibile for anybody!

You may add as much space as you need by creating new loopback files by following the instruction provided (for the first "_0-index_" one) into the **README-EXPERTS.md** guide, at **System loop files setup** paragraph (look at **dd** command).

In order to do this you have to:

- Boot your preferred live distribution.
- Create one ore more additional loopback files (as stated above).
- `$ losetup -f {{NEW_LOOPBACK_FILE(S)_FULL_PATH}}`.
- Install **system-config-lvm**.
- Initialize new files.
- Add new files to the _Virtual Group_.
- Extend the _Logical Volume_.
- Reboot your **Buddy Linux**.

## Known issues

- Paragon driver not included in **initramfstools**.

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