larch - latest news

gradgrind · 2007-04-13 07:36:43

lilsirecho wrote:

I do not get the syslinux menu at start-up.
The system displays;
boot= could not find kernel image:LINUX
Thus; syslinux is not starting.....
Perhaps it is the order of the items within the flash device......

Baffling, I'm not sure what to suggest. What does fdisk say about your usb-stick?

It might be worth trying GRUB, or maybe some other linux distribution which can be booted from flash, to check the hardware/BIOS.

lilsirecho · 2007-04-13 07:56:44

Perhaps it is my misunderstanding of the flash setup.

In one referfence to the flash device, your notes require it to be partitioned.

I have mine partitioned as a single partition, active.

Is this the cause of the problem?

gradgrind · 2007-04-13 08:14:26

lilsirecho wrote:

Perhaps it is my misunderstanding of the flash setup.
In one referfence to the flash device, your notes require it to be partitioned.
I have mine partitioned as a single partition, active.
Is this the cause of the problem?

If you mean something like /dev/sda1, then it should be ok. What is the output of fdisk?

lilsirecho · 2007-04-13 08:25:13

I ran ....fdisk -l /dev/sda1.....

It listed data on four partitions and complained they were non linux....

Ran it again:

result...[root@n6re ~]# fdisk -l /dev/sda1

Disk /dev/sda1: 1040 MB, 1040171008 bytes
32 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1984 * 512 = 1015808 bytes

Disk /dev/sda1 doesn't contain a valid partition table
[root@n6re ~]#

Qtparted lists it as active and fat32.

Don't know who to believe!!

lilsirecho · 2007-04-13 08:40:41

Latest run of ...fdisk -l /dev/sda1 gives the following garbage..... repeated when re-entered a couple more trials..

[root@n6re ~]# fdisk -l /dev/sda1

Disk /dev/sda1: 1040 MB, 1040171008 bytes
32 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1023 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1984 * 512 = 1015808 bytes

This doesn't look like a partition table
Probably you selected the wrong device.

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1p1 ? 1522439 1522695 253319 e4 SpeedStor
Partition 1 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(190, 120, 0) logical=(1522438, 25, 51)
Partition 1 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(544, 125, 44) logical=(1522694, 5, 24)
Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda1p2 ? 507340 1509340 993984023 98 Unknown
Partition 2 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(1010, 16, 43) logical=(507339, 24, 10)
Partition 2 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(205, 205, 22) logical=(1509339, 24, 55)
Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda1p3 ? 855155 1822849 959953209 7d Unknown
Partition 3 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(252, 139, 46) logical=(855154, 3, 54)
Partition 3 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(367, 195, 2) logical=(1822848, 28, 25)
Partition 3 does not end on cylinder boundary.
/dev/sda1p4 ? 1867843 1872038 4161546+ 0 Empty
Partition 4 has different physical/logical beginnings (non-Linux?):
phys=(0, 10, 0) logical=(1867842, 2, 5)
Partition 4 has different physical/logical endings:
phys=(0, 0, 0) logical=(1872037, 5, 31)
Partition 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.

Partition table entries are not in disk order
[root@n6re ~]#

gradgrind · 2007-04-13 08:43:30

lilsirecho wrote:

I ran ....fdisk -l /dev/sda1.....
Qtparted lists it as active and fat32.

You should run ... fdisk -l /dev/sda

I get (for a working device):

Disk /dev/sda: 513 MB, 513802240 bytes
16 heads, 62 sectors/track, 1011 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 992 * 512 = 507904 bytes

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *           1         394      195393    e  W95 FAT16 (LBA)
/dev/sda2             395        1011      306032   83  Linux

You can ignore my second partition, but your first partition should be fat16 (type 0e). qtparted also reports fat16. I don't know how yours got to be fat32, because mklarch uses sfdisk to set the type for the selected partition. I would suggest you use cfdisk or qtparted to make sure you have partition type 0e and then reinstall larch to it.

lilsirecho · 2007-04-13 08:51:22

Ok, I will work on that and see what gives....Thanks for the help.

lilsirecho · 2007-04-13 09:13:23

Re-did the qtparted and it came out as fat16 after giving me fits for a dozen or so fat32 results.

It made a big difference.. I booted on the flash drive USB-HDD in one minute and 32 sec to kde desktop in copy-to-ram mode with a 700MB Larch3.4 live flash drive boot with a memorex 2GB flash drive.

I will try again with the patriot flash drive to see if it is the problem.

I appreciate the Larch system more and more as I struggle with these lil devils!!!

Many thanks for the help and advice.

I am really happy with the result!!!

EDIT: The 1GB patriot flash was faster than the memorex and is half the size. I booted to c2r 700MB live in the patriot drive in 55 seconds to kde desktop (sound).

I had estimated that would be the result of a good flash drive.

I post from the patriot boot.....

Last edited by lilsirecho (2007-04-13 09:41:03)

gradgrind · 2007-04-13 10:06:59

Glad that one got sorted out, but it's a bit strange that it came to have the wrong type in the first place ...

lilsirecho · 2007-04-13 16:24:02

If it can be fubar I can do it!

My latest boot with the patriot xporter....boot normal boot in ~30 seconds!

It runs cleanly with 307MB in ram with the exporter mounted as is required in this boot mode.

Again, thanks much for your patient support!

I am hoping to find a flash drive with hafnium chips before the year is out. I have 2GB in ram with this mobo. Gigabyte 81865GME-775-RH Pentium D 2.4GHZ....

Shagbag · 2007-04-13 17:05:19

gradgrind wrote:

Shagbag wrote:
I'm trying to put a Live version of Arch onto USB and I've followed the instructions for larch.
I thought I would start off with a default profile, see how that works. So I just copied the default profile and edited the locale.gen and rcconfx files for and en_GB locale and a uk keymap. I then ran ./mklarch -u -d path-to-my-customised-default-profile.
I now see that everything has been completed and I have a 1GB+ /home/larchbuild/ArchImage folder. I must have done something wrong here. My USB drive is completely empty and the above ArchImage folder is not compressed.
Sorry for being a n00b at this but can someone please tell me what I need to do?
From your description it's not very clear what could be going wrong. I would suggest you try it again and then copy the ouput from the terminal (I assume you are using an xterm/Konsole/whatever which remembers enough lines) into a mail to me.

I did what you suggested and tried again, but this time I opted for the 'mini' profile. I narrowed down the problem: it was the guy behind the keyboard. When it asked me if I wanted to continue and create a LiveCD at /home/larchbuild/ArchImage, I said 'no' because I didn't want a LiveCD - I wanted a USB install. I now realise I was taking things at face value when I should have been concentrating on what the message meant. A trap for newbies and I got caught. Once I realised the error of my ways it was no problem. It installed to USB without a hitch and I rebooted from it. Great job, gradgrind.

Just try to install the 'default' profile now...

EDIT:
I've just read lilsirecho's (now fixed) problem with his flash device. I don't think it's related, but I thought I should mention a 'newbie' problem I had with the abovementioned 'mini' install. I had to reconfigure the drive geometry of my USB stick. It's a cheap 1GB PNY 'Attache'. Its initial C/H/S was 3936/16/32 and I kept on getting an error about it being too large and the scripts requiring <1024 cylinders. I ran fdisk /dev/sda and went in to Expert Mode ('x') and adjusted the Heads from 16 to 32 and the Sectors from 32 to 62. This automatically dropped the Cylinders to 1015. After that, there was no problem. Again, this is more for information purposes in case anyone is reading this.

Last edited by Shagbag (2007-04-14 14:26:28)

Shagbag · 2007-04-13 17:45:39

Running 'default'
No problems experience whatsoever this time. Once again, great job gradgrind!
I tried 'c2r' but had lots of errors which I attribute to the lowly 512MB of RAM on my laptop.
I tried 'with swap' and booted to a working GUI in 1m10sec (USB2.0).
Typing this from that install!

Question: is it difficult to make a Gnome or XFCE based profile? I booted with a 'mini' install and then pacmanned xorg xterm and xf86-video-ati without any problems. However, when I tried to pacman -S gnome I got some error about exo being dependent upon gtk2 which was 'not in the package set'. I got a similar message when I tried to upgrade pacman - 'fake root... not in the package set'. What's the best way to go about making a Gnome profile?

lilsirecho · 2007-04-13 18:19:35

Just a note regarding the capabilities of San Disk 2GB disk.

I have Larch3.4 installed in it along with .avi files and .jpg files. It boots in normal mode in 32 sec to KDE desktop and takes a minute longer to boot copy-to-ram.

The additional files do not affect the boot and are available for use after boot-up(no wasted space!).

My original problem stemmed from the incorrect use of QT PARTED. I didn't select CREATE . The look of the display of the data faked me out after running FORMAT!
At least, I was consistent in making the same mistake many times!!!!!!

Boot time to CLI must be fantastic!!

I will be testing swap extended ram using tmpfs with this setup using various elements as swap devices. The first will be a 2GB flash device.

My mistrakes may help others to decode their problems.....

gradgrind · 2007-04-14 11:12:46

Shagbag wrote:

Running 'default'
No problems experience whatsoever this time. Once again, great job gradgrind!
I tried 'c2r' but had lots of errors which I attribute to the lowly 512MB of RAM on my laptop.
I tried 'with swap' and booted to a working GUI in 1m10sec (USB2.0).
Typing this from that install!

I can't remember the exact figures but RAM size needs to be ~1.5 times greater than larch size to make c2r workable .

Shagbag wrote:

Question: is it difficult to make a Gnome or XFCE based profile? I booted with a 'mini' install and then pacmanned xorg xterm and xf86-video-ati without any problems. However, when I tried to pacman -S gnome I got some error about exo being dependent upon gtk2 which was 'not in the package set'. I got a similar message when I tried to upgrade pacman - 'fake root... not in the package set'. What's the best way to go about making a Gnome profile?

Do you mean you did pacman -S in the live system? Maybe you didn't do pacman -Sy first. But I'm not sure that this is the best way to do what you want - you would be downloading a lot of packages into RAM, and if you then do a session save the overlay will be very big.

It should be easy enough to create a gnome or xfce profile - it just might need a bit of time to configure it to your liking (as always). My recommendation would be to determine which packages you need (one way or another ...) and build a larch USB stick with these (in 'addedpacks' in the profile). Then boot into this and do the configuration stuff in the live system, then do a session-save on shutdown. If you want to preserve your configuration stuff for later builds you could then unpack and tidy up the new overlay files and copy the relevant bits to the overlay directory in your profile. Alternatively, while running the live system you can see what changes have been made by looking at the unionfs write-branches. You could extract the bits you want to preserve from there.

I hope that helps a bit ...

gradgrind · 2007-04-14 11:16:39

lilsirecho wrote:

Boot time to CLI must be fantastic!!

I think it's not so fantastic, the main speed up when booting from USB-stick seems to be in starting xorg etc., I guess because of the many files involved and the fast seek time. Watch how quickly X starts!

raymano · 2007-04-14 13:11:27

Hi,

Is it possible to create a cdbootwithusb command, similar to usbboot, that makes a very minimal bootable CD with just the bootstrap, but puts everything else on a USB key? Once the CD boots up the machine and passes the rest to the USB key, would be nice for the CD to automatically eject.

If you give me some direction I would be happy to write it.

I'm asking for this because I have another machine that has a USB port but can only boot from CD. Using a combination would speed up using Larch quite a bit instead of doing everything off of a CD. This makes the CD drive available to the user on such machines without having to do a c2r. Writing back the session to the USB device would also be much simpler than writing it back to a multi-session CDR.

Also most machines that I have ran into have the CD drive specified as their first boot device in the BIOS by default. This CD/USB combo boot, in most cases, eliminates the need for a user to fiddle with BIOS settings.

Thanks,
Raymano

Last edited by raymano (2007-04-14 13:29:18)

gradgrind · 2007-04-14 17:58:57

raymano wrote:

Hi,
Is it possible to create a cdbootwithusb command, similar to usbboot, that makes a very minimal bootable CD with just the bootstrap, but puts everything else on a USB key? Once the CD boots up the machine and passes the rest to the USB key, would be nice for the CD to automatically eject.
If you give me some direction I would be happy to write it.
I'm asking for this because I have another machine that has a USB port but can only boot from CD. Using a combination would speed up using Larch quite a bit instead of doing everything off of a CD. This makes the CD drive available to the user on such machines without having to do a c2r. Writing back the session to the USB device would also be much simpler than writing it back to a multi-session CDR.
Also most machines that I have ran into have the CD drive specified as their first boot device in the BIOS by default. This CD/USB combo boot, in most cases, eliminates the need for a user to fiddle with BIOS settings.
Thanks,
Raymano

That should not be too difficult. The CD will only need the isolinux boot stuff plus the kernel and larch.img - it doesn't matter what else is on it so long as there is no system.sqf.

After a larch build you can remove the unwanted stuff in the cd directory and then run mklarch again, this time with the -i option (and not -u !). That should build your boot CD iso.

To get the CD to eject you could use cdrecord (or eject, if you add it to the package list). Just put the command somewhere in the boot sequence, say in rc.local.

It might also be possible to get this working with just a GRUB boot disk, which would be even cooler, but I'm not so sure about that one. Maybe you'd like to try it.

raymano · 2007-04-14 18:11:26

Thanks gradgrind. I'll give it a shot and let you know. I like your grub boot cd idea as well.

raymano · 2007-04-14 18:42:48

WORKED LIKE A CHARM!
That was just too easy

Here's what I have on the CD:

$ ls -lR /mnt/sr0_cd/
/mnt/sr0_cd/:
total 2
dr-xr-xr-x 2 root root 2048 2007-04-14 12:21 isolinux

/mnt/sr0_cd/isolinux:
total 4245
-r--r--r-- 1 root root   96992 2007-04-14 12:21 bkgd.jpg
-r--r--r-- 1 root root   10764 2007-04-14 12:21 isolinux.bin
-r--r--r-- 1 root root    2048 2007-04-14 12:21 isolinux.boot
-r--r--r-- 1 root root     568 2007-04-14 12:21 isolinux.cfg
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 2224142 2007-04-14 12:21 larch.img
-r--r--r-- 1 root root   99784 2007-04-14 12:21 memtest
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root root  115104 2007-04-14 12:21 vesamenu.c32
-r--r--r-- 1 root root 1795583 2007-04-14 12:21 vmlinuz

The CD size is only 4.5 megs. And actually come to think of it, as long as the kernel is the same, it can be used with any larch created USB key.

Simple is Brilliant!

Thanks Gradgrind.

raymano · 2007-04-14 23:35:50

gradgrind wrote:

It might also be possible to get this working with just a GRUB boot disk, which would be even cooler, but I'm not so sure about that one. Maybe you'd like to try it.

GRUB BOOT CD IS ALIVE TOO!

There are two ways you can make this work with a grub cd. You can put the larch kernel and initrd image on the cd to boot from which makes a 4.5 meg cd. Or you can use the kernel on the USB key and end up with ~600KB on the CD only. The second approach is less portable than the first because in the grub menu.lst file you have to specify the USB device number which might change from machine to machine.

Here's a step by step (In this case I have shown both approaches on the same CD):

1) make a work directory somewhere. Lets call it iso.

$mkdir iso
cd iso
mkdir -p boot/grub

2) Copy vmlinuz and larch.img from the USB key to boot/grub/
3) Copy the grub cdrom boot stage file to boot/grub. I am using grub gfx and got mine this way:

cp /usr/lib/grub/i386-pc/stage2_eltorito boot/grub/

4) In boot/grub create a menu.lst. Mine looks like this:

timeout   5
default   0
splashimage /boot/grub/arch.xpm.gz
color light-blue/black light-cyan/blue

title LARCH USB Using Kernel on CD
kernel /boot/grub/vmlinuz quiet
initrd /boot/grub/larch.img

title LARCH USB Using Kernel on USB
root (hd1,0)
kernel /vmlinuz quiet
initrd /larch.img

Note that I am also using a grub splash image arch.xpm.gz which I have copied into boot/grub. You can do this if you are using grub-gfx. For regular grub you can leave it out.

5) change directory to the parent of the iso directory we had created and issue the following command:

mkisofs -R -b boot/grub/stage2_eltorito -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table -o grub.iso iso

6) Burn the newly created grub.iso to a CD and boot from the CD with the USB device pluged in.

Once the kernel and initrd load you can eject the CD.

Last edited by raymano (2007-04-14 23:38:42)

gradgrind · 2007-04-15 04:22:23

Great! Thanks for the contribution.

I guess the version with kernel and initrd on USB will only work if the BIOS/GRUB recognize the USB device as a hard drive, which I guess is the same requirement as being able to boot directly from the USB device?

raymano · 2007-04-15 05:30:56

gradgrind wrote:

Great! Thanks for the contribution.
I guess the version with kernel and initrd on USB will only work if the BIOS/GRUB recognize the USB device as a hard drive, which I guess is the same requirement as being able to boot directly from the USB device?

My pleasure.

My other computer is not able to boot from a USB device (its BIOS doesn't support it) but it can still mount it as a hard drive. So the version with kernel and initrd on USB will work on it as well. My BIOS is just unable to boot from it. It's actually a 7 year old Pentium III Toshiba laptop with USB 1.0. The version with kernel and initrd on USB works on it without a glitch.

This approach basically gives new life to all old hardware with USB ports and BIOS that only supports boot from CD.

P.S. If you'd like to make this a wiki entry or addition to your web site please feel free to do so.

Last edited by raymano (2007-04-15 06:04:00)

gradgrind · 2007-04-15 07:24:54

raymano wrote:

My other computer is not able to boot from a USB device (its BIOS doesn't support it) but it can still mount it as a hard drive. So the version with kernel and initrd on USB will work on it as well. My BIOS is just unable to boot from it. It's actually a 7 year old Pentium III Toshiba laptop with USB 1.0. The version with kernel and initrd on USB works on it without a glitch.

That surprises me somewhat ... on my old machines GRUB only finds (hd0), so it can't boot from (hd1).

Shagbag · 2007-04-15 08:04:59

If I may suggest something...

AFAIK there is no standard for booting from USB. It depends on your BIOS. I'm not just talking about having a boot from USB option in the BIOS (which is, of course, a prerequisite) but what drive geometry the BIOS will look for.

I have three machines and none of them boots the same USB stick.

I learnt from experimentation that my VIA EPIA N10000 (AwardBIOS v6.00PG) will only boot a USB stick that has 32 sectors per track. Any combination of cylinders and heads will work, but the sectors per track must be no more than 32. I don't know if this effects performance (I'm not a technical guy by any means) but I do know that it won't boot any USB stick unless I've run it through cfdisk and changed its geometry.

My IBM Thinkpad T40, on the other hand, won't boot a 32 sectors per track USB drive. I haven't experiemented with it much but I know that it will boot a USB stick with 62 sectors per track.

My Alienware Area-51 m5550 won't boot either of these geometries.

I need to do more experimentation to determine the range of possibilities for my Thinkpad and Alienware laptops, but it's a PITA that I have to run multiple USB sticks. Thanks gradgrind, for ./mklarch -iup mini !

lilsirecho · 2007-04-16 15:35:48

Boot time c2r is now 55 seconds in my machine...35 seconds in normal boot.

Arch Linux

#101 2007-04-13 07:36:43

Re: larch - latest news

#102 2007-04-13 07:56:44

Re: larch - latest news

#103 2007-04-13 08:14:26

Re: larch - latest news

#104 2007-04-13 08:25:13

Re: larch - latest news

#105 2007-04-13 08:40:41

Re: larch - latest news

#106 2007-04-13 08:43:30

Re: larch - latest news

#107 2007-04-13 08:51:22

Re: larch - latest news

#108 2007-04-13 09:13:23

Re: larch - latest news

#109 2007-04-13 10:06:59

Re: larch - latest news

#110 2007-04-13 16:24:02

Re: larch - latest news

#111 2007-04-13 17:05:19

Re: larch - latest news

#112 2007-04-13 17:45:39

Re: larch - latest news

#113 2007-04-13 18:19:35

Re: larch - latest news

#114 2007-04-14 11:12:46

Re: larch - latest news

#115 2007-04-14 11:16:39

Re: larch - latest news

#116 2007-04-14 13:11:27

Re: larch - latest news

#117 2007-04-14 17:58:57

Re: larch - latest news

#118 2007-04-14 18:11:26

Re: larch - latest news

#119 2007-04-14 18:42:48

Re: larch - latest news

#120 2007-04-14 23:35:50

Re: larch - latest news

#121 2007-04-15 04:22:23

Re: larch - latest news

#122 2007-04-15 05:30:56

Re: larch - latest news

#123 2007-04-15 07:24:54

Re: larch - latest news

#124 2007-04-15 08:04:59

Re: larch - latest news

#125 2007-04-16 15:35:48

Re: larch - latest news

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