Arch Linux

ipatch

Member

Registered: 2014-05-14

Posts: 26

How to setup a live USB stick using the latest archlinux 201405

Hello, long time reader, first time poster.  I recently purchased a new computer, and I would like to setup arch linux as host OS, so I can see if I could build a LFS system from the Arch Linux live USB drive.  When I run the following command "dd if=/arch.iso of=/dev/myDisk" it successfully creates a USB drive that is bootable on the new computer (it's using EFI) and the system boots into a shell prompt.  However, when running the above command, my host OS (OS X) on my other computer doesn't recognize the drive, so I can add files or do anything with the remaining 15.5GB of storage on the drive.

I came across this document, => https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/US … tion_Media which I must say is very well documented (kudos).  So I mounted the Arch_Linux_2014.05 ISO and copied the files to freshly formatted (FAT 32) USB drive, and inserted into the new computer, and it see's the EFI boot option, when I hold down the "option" key when the computer boots up (that's good).  However, it doesn't bootstrap the Linux kernel or the Arch Linux base system for that matter.

I came across this forum post, => https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=135046 where a member was discussing editing some files to get his USB drive to boot.  I wasn't sure if this forum thread was still relative as it a couple years old.

Finally, the reason I prefer the mounting of the ISO, and copying the files is so that 1) my host OS on my old computer (OS X) can read the USB drive. 2) I can add files to the USB drive without having it locked down.

Thanks for reading, and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Awebb

Member

Registered: 2010-05-06

Posts: 6,688

Re: How to setup a live USB stick using the latest archlinux 201405

Was dd if=path_to_arch_iso of=/dev/sdyourstick not an option for some reason. This is what I always do.

ipatch

Member

Registered: 2014-05-14

Posts: 26

Re: How to setup a live USB stick using the latest archlinux 201405

Was dd if=path_to_arch_iso of=/dev/sdyourstick not an option for some reason. This is what I always do.

The above command you mentioned creates a ISO 9660 filesystem that is not properly mountable on OS X system, which I mention in my question

ukhippo

Member

From: Non-paged pool

Registered: 2014-02-21

Posts: 366

Re: How to setup a live USB stick using the latest archlinux 201405

Did you install syslinux onto the stick, like the wiki says? Just copying the iso contents and editing the .conf files is not enough.

ipatch

Member

Registered: 2014-05-14

Posts: 26

Re: How to setup a live USB stick using the latest archlinux 201405

Did you install syslinux onto the stick, like the wiki says? Just copying the iso contents and editing the .conf files is not enough.

I didn't see anywhere in these instructions about installing syslinux to the USB drive.

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 12,603

Re: How to setup a live USB stick using the latest archlinux 201405

You can't add files to it or do anything with the extra space anyway. You either need to install Arch to the drive or make your own ISO using ArchISO.

ukhippo

Member

From: Non-paged pool

Registered: 2014-02-21

Posts: 366

Re: How to setup a live USB stick using the latest archlinux 201405

Did you install syslinux onto the stick, like the wiki says? Just copying the iso contents and editing the .conf files is not enough.

I didn't see anywhere in these instructions about installing syslinux to the USB drive.

http://imgur.com/vei6sIN

That's only the first part; if you carry on reading it says “install syslinux...”

ipatch

Member

Registered: 2014-05-14

Posts: 26

Re: How to setup a live USB stick using the latest archlinux 201405

Well, I've made some progress, I successfully have grub booting and reading the menuentry specified in the grub.cfg file, but it's still not booting the ARCH_201405.iso file.

I installed grub2 to the USB flash drive with the below command,

grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=/mnt/usb --boot-directory=/mnt/usb/boot --removable --modules=part_gpt --bootloader-id=grub

then I installed the grub.cfg file with the below command,

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

The grub.cfg looks like the following, https://ghostbin.com/paste/gx4xc

Last edited by ipatch (2014-05-17 20:15:03)

ipatch

Member

Registered: 2014-05-14

Posts: 26

Re: How to setup a live USB stick using the latest archlinux 201405

After fooling around with the grub.cfg I finally got it to boot.

The menu entries I added to the grub.cfg look like the following,

menuentry "[loopback]arch_201405.iso" {
  set isofile="arch.iso"
  loopback loop (hd0,1)/$isofile
  linux (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz archisolabel=ARCH_201405 img_dev=/dev/sda1 img_loop=$isofile earlymodules=loop
  initrd (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/archiso.img
}

menuentry "[loopback]arch_2014.04.01-dual.iso" {
  set isofile="archlinux-2014.04.01-dual.iso"
  loopback loop (hd0,1)/$isofile
  linux (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/vmlinuz archisolabel=ARCH_201404 img_dev=/dev/sdc1 img_loop=$isofile earlymodules=loop
  initrd (loop)/arch/boot/x86_64/archiso.img
}

I added the archlinux-2014.04.01-dual.iso file to the USB flash drive because apparently there is a bug with the 201405 version of archlinux using fat32 and booting into a live environment, https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/40217