4 ms·

I know this doesn't answer your question directly but is there a reason you can't use a USB stick? If you can I can give pointers on how to create a live USB im

by drvdevd 10y ago

I know this doesn't answer your question directly but is there a reason you can't use a USB stick? If you can I can give pointers on how to create a live USB image. Also is there a particular OS or Linux distro you're trying to boot?

Bluescreens 10y ago
Yup, skipped out on that info. Mb. Basically what I did previously was use Distroshare to create an iso, which could then be burned to USB using Unetbootin. Unetbootin did its own magic, but it worked. Now I have a two partition USB-stick, one with /boot & /EFI, the other holding the e.g. ubuntu-16 iso. The default one from Canonical boots just fine, but not my custom version. I did it that way because I thought it'd be handy. If you could give pointers on how to create a live USB image, I'd greatly appreciate it ;). Also, it's all Ubuntu (16.04 & 14.04).
- Senji 10y ago
  Try Yumi https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/ https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/
  - Bluescreens 10y ago
    Took a looksy, doesn't seem to be doing the job :(. It's a Windows tool, I'm running Ubuntus so that's not making it more reliable I guess.. Did peak into the source-code of the UEFI-beta version. Seems they are also using grub2 the way I am generally. (basically the grub-install --target=x86_64-efi type /boot & /EFI folders). That's the part that _is_ working for me. It seems that my casper/filesystem.squashfs is missing a few mystery 'things'. You have any cluess regarding that?
    - Senji 10y ago
      It just works for me. As far as I know it uses recompiled linux tools to do its job on windows. Yumi used to have a linux version, but it seems to be under rewrite. You could try using wine I guess?
    - drvdevd 10y ago
      Ok so what I'm reading is that: 1) you can get EFI to load grub but 2) actually loading the live system image isn't working So given those assumptions my next question is: Is the kernel and initramfs loading? If you're not sure try: * holding shift to display the grub boot menu on power up * hitting 'e' to edit the default boot menu * removing 'splash' from the kernel command line so you can observe boot messages * continue booting by hitting ctrl+x See if you can glean some more info from that
      - drvdevd 10y ago
        also, if you can pastebin your boot/grub/grub.cfg file that'd be helpful too
        Bluescreens 10y ago
        menuentry '[loopback]ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64' { set isofile='/ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso' loopback loop (hd0,2)$isofile linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz.efi boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile locale=en_US.UTF-8 initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz } This works.
        drvdevd 10y ago
        Ok so one immediate point that I notice here is that if you look closely at this grub configuration, you'll see that the EFI boot Kernel and initrd are not loaded from an EFI partition, but rather taken from the ISO itself: > loopback loop (hd0,2)$isofile > linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz.efi Whereas above, for Ubuntu 16.04, you appear to be trying to use a separate fat32 EFI partition to load vmlinuz.efi So, just to test, you should try to do what Ubuntu 14.04 is doing, but keep your EFI parition to load grubx64.efi. Make sense? So your partiton layout on this USB stick will be as follows: Partlabel: gpt (hd0,gpt1): FAT32 (type: EFI system) - has path/to/grubx64.efi (hd0,gpt2): ext4 (type: Linux) - has boot/grub/grub.cfg - has ubuntu-16.04-WHATEVER-REALNAME-HERE.iso ---- And the grub.cfg now has a new menu entry as follows: menuentry '[loopback]ubuntu-16.04-desktop' { set isofile='/ubuntu-16.04-WHATEVER-REALNAME-HERE.iso' loopback loop (hd0,2)$isofile linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz.efi boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile locale=en_US.UTF-8 initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz } Let me know if that solution works for you? [Edit] I think the issue with all of this here is the other scripts/parts of Casper that get loaded normally using the ISO. Its annoying, but casper is the ubuntu way. There are better ways to boot a live system off EFI but this would be the quickest path

by drvdevd 10y ago

Bluescreens 10y ago

Yup, skipped out on that info. Mb. Basically what I did previously was use Distroshare to create an iso, which could then be burned to USB using Unetbootin. Unetbootin did its own magic, but it worked. Now I have a two partition USB-stick, one with /boot & /EFI, the other holding the e.g. ubuntu-16 iso. The default one from Canonical boots just fine, but not my custom version. I did it that way because I thought it'd be handy. If you could give pointers on how to create a live USB image, I'd greatly appreciate it ;). Also, it's all Ubuntu (16.04 & 14.04).

Senji 10y ago
Try Yumi https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/ https://www.pendrivelinux.com/yumi-multiboot-usb-creator/
- Bluescreens 10y ago
  Took a looksy, doesn't seem to be doing the job :(. It's a Windows tool, I'm running Ubuntus so that's not making it more reliable I guess.. Did peak into the source-code of the UEFI-beta version. Seems they are also using grub2 the way I am generally. (basically the grub-install --target=x86_64-efi type /boot & /EFI folders). That's the part that _is_ working for me. It seems that my casper/filesystem.squashfs is missing a few mystery 'things'. You have any cluess regarding that?
  - Senji 10y ago
    It just works for me. As far as I know it uses recompiled linux tools to do its job on windows. Yumi used to have a linux version, but it seems to be under rewrite. You could try using wine I guess?
  - drvdevd 10y ago
    Ok so what I'm reading is that: 1) you can get EFI to load grub but 2) actually loading the live system image isn't working So given those assumptions my next question is: Is the kernel and initramfs loading? If you're not sure try: * holding shift to display the grub boot menu on power up * hitting 'e' to edit the default boot menu * removing 'splash' from the kernel command line so you can observe boot messages * continue booting by hitting ctrl+x See if you can glean some more info from that
    - drvdevd 10y ago
      also, if you can pastebin your boot/grub/grub.cfg file that'd be helpful too
      - Bluescreens 10y ago
        menuentry '[loopback]ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64' { set isofile='/ubuntu-14.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso' loopback loop (hd0,2)$isofile linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz.efi boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile locale=en_US.UTF-8 initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz } This works.
        drvdevd 10y ago
        Ok so one immediate point that I notice here is that if you look closely at this grub configuration, you'll see that the EFI boot Kernel and initrd are not loaded from an EFI partition, but rather taken from the ISO itself: > loopback loop (hd0,2)$isofile > linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz.efi Whereas above, for Ubuntu 16.04, you appear to be trying to use a separate fat32 EFI partition to load vmlinuz.efi So, just to test, you should try to do what Ubuntu 14.04 is doing, but keep your EFI parition to load grubx64.efi. Make sense? So your partiton layout on this USB stick will be as follows: Partlabel: gpt (hd0,gpt1): FAT32 (type: EFI system) - has path/to/grubx64.efi (hd0,gpt2): ext4 (type: Linux) - has boot/grub/grub.cfg - has ubuntu-16.04-WHATEVER-REALNAME-HERE.iso ---- And the grub.cfg now has a new menu entry as follows: menuentry '[loopback]ubuntu-16.04-desktop' { set isofile='/ubuntu-16.04-WHATEVER-REALNAME-HERE.iso' loopback loop (hd0,2)$isofile linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz.efi boot=casper iso-scan/filename=$isofile locale=en_US.UTF-8 initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz } Let me know if that solution works for you? [Edit] I think the issue with all of this here is the other scripts/parts of Casper that get loaded normally using the ISO. Its annoying, but casper is the ubuntu way. There are better ways to boot a live system off EFI but this would be the quickest path