How to Make a Bootable Flash Drive using ISObooter

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nooby
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#81 Post by nooby »

took me days but finally a hasty error report.

So now today I have tested 4 different isos on a 4GB USB
and to me IsoBooter is magnitudes easier to handle than Easy2Boot.

Took me very long time to get how E2B wants me to
behave. Sorry I am just different I trust it is the best
for those who love E2B. I love Isobooter So to each his own.
Thanks to rcrsn51 for providing it .

Hasty report. Both of them fail with same isos.
Could be something I set up wrong but
the consistency tells me it is rather something
with these isos and not how one boot them with IsoBooter.

Porteus lxde has this error message at boot and then lock itself
xterm: Cannot load font ....
The other Porteus works wel.

slitaz requests events from the kernel and lock.

those I have decided to keep and that works well are
CrunchBang, Netrunner, Mint Linux LXDE, SolydXK OS
and Zorin OS

I also failed with Suse and Redhat and Mageia but
that was so long time ago me fail to remember
what did happen. I am too lazy to test them again.

Edit after reading answer from rcrsn51. So maybe my Mageia
booted but I failed to mnt the HD for to write changes to html files?
And me misremembered it to be a total failure. I deleted the file
so too lazy to go through it again sorry :)
Last edited by nooby on Wed 27 Feb 2013, 08:45, edited 1 time in total.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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rcrsn51
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#82 Post by rcrsn51 »

Thanks for testing.

ISObooter tries to simulate booting off a physical CD/DVD disc. But there's no guarantee that every distro will work that way.

FWIW, I tried Mageia 1 and it worked for me.

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d4p
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#83 Post by d4p »

@rcrsn51

wow, Isobooter is very nice tool!

I see the isobooter menu.lst: partnew (hd0,3) for temp buffer.
If I run isobooter on my usb drive with a lot of partitions, will created temp buffer overwrite one of my partition?
is there any possibility to create partnew somewhere else, where I want?

Thanks

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rcrsn51
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#84 Post by rcrsn51 »

The partition (hd0,3) is not a buffer. It is just an entry in the partition table that points into the ISO that you have selected. It doesn't use any actual space on your drive. Every time you pick a new ISO, it points somewhere else.

You can change it to another unused primary partition, but it doesn't work with logical volumes.

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headfound
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#85 Post by headfound »

Wow! I'm impressed :)
I used Isobooster yesterday to set up an old pc for my dad. Its only got an ooold 4gb(!) IDE drive, so as per instructions I formatted to fat32, set flag to boot, copied isobooster to the drive, ran it, copied two iso's and ran isobooster again, then put the drive back in and everything worked perfectly!
Savefiles created and worked as normal.
This is such an easy way to set up a pc, thankyou so much!
Download a better Computer :)
[url=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rDTLJYDHX3g]Puppy Linux Song[/url]
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rcrsn51
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#86 Post by rcrsn51 »

headfound wrote: then put the drive back in
Glad to hear that it worked for you. But I'm a bit confused by your procedure. Did you remove the hard drive and connect it to a Puppy machine by a USB adapter?

Could you have simply left the drive in place, booted off a Puppy CD and installed ISObooter via a flash drive?

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headfound
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#87 Post by headfound »

rcrsn51 wrote:Did you remove the hard drive and connect it to a Puppy machine by a USB adapter?

Could you have simply left the drive in place, booted off a Puppy CD and installed ISObooter via a flash drive?
Yeah, sorry I used a usb adapter as the old pc has no optical drive.
The best way to do it would be to boot from cd, download isobooster and set up the drive while running live (actually it would be pretty handy to have isobooster included with puppy!).
Download a better Computer :)
[url=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rDTLJYDHX3g]Puppy Linux Song[/url]
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rcrsn51
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#88 Post by rcrsn51 »

Excellent. It never occurred to me to use ISObooter as a kind of one-click hard drive installer. But it would certainly be an easy method for giving someone a multi-Puppy setup.

keniv
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#89 Post by keniv »

Hello All

I used the grub4dos method as outlined in the first post to boot the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.iso from a 16GB USB flash drive. The reason for choosing grub4dos is that I have used it successfully to boot a number of frugal installs of different Puppies from another flash drive. I would like to be able to boot both Ubuntu and the Puppies from the 16GB flash drive. The Ubuntu iso boot works but there is no persistent storage. Is it possible to set up persistent storage when booting in this way? If it is could somebody please tell me how it is done.

Regards,

Ken.

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rcrsn51
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#90 Post by rcrsn51 »

There are three methods described above - the original GRUB2 way, the original Grub4Dos way and the new ISObooter way. Which are you using?

The ISObooter way cannot provide persistence with Ubuntu. But the original Grub4Dos way can. Just follow the same procedure as with the GRUB2 way.

keniv
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#91 Post by keniv »

Hello rcrsn51

I am using the grub4dos method.
the original Grub4Dos way can. Just follow the same procedure as with the GRUB2 way.
This method suggests adding the word "persistent" to the "linux" line in the grub.cfg file. In grub4 dos there is no grub.cfg file only the menu.lst. The menu.lst file does not contain the "linux" line that is

Code: Select all

linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu.iso noeject noprompt splash --
but does contain the similar line

Code: Select all

kernel /casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu.iso noeject noprompt splash  --
Should I add "persistent" to this line. Should I add the "(loop)" as well. If not can you tell me what to add to the entry that I have in my menu.lst which is currently as follows.

Code: Select all

title Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Desktop ISO 
 find --set-root /ubuntu.iso 
 map /ubuntu.iso (0xff) 
 map --hook 
 root (0xff) 
 kernel /casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu.iso noeject noprompt splash  -- 
 initrd /casper/initrd.lz
I intend to partition the USB flash drive and format the second partition as ext4 and label it as "casper-rw" as you suggest. Can you tell me if there is anything else I need to do.

Regards,

Ken.

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rcrsn51
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#92 Post by rcrsn51 »

Add "persistent" to the "kernel" line.

nooby
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#93 Post by nooby »

I wanted to try this on Zorin linux Lite that is only 650MB
but the isobooter only had this code

Code: Select all

title zorin-os-6.2-lite
partnew (hd0,3) 0x00 (hd0,0)/zorin-os-6.2-lite.iso
map --heads=0 --sectors-per-track=0 (hd0,0)/zorin-os-6.2-lite.iso (0xff)
map --hook
root (0xff)
chainloader (0xff)

So not the more expanded one that keniv retell

So Zorin being based on Ubuntu I got surprised.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=zorin
Zorin OS is an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution
designed especially for newcomers to Linux.
so where to add the persistence there would this work?

Code: Select all

title zorin-os-6.2-lite
partnew (hd0,3) 0x00 (hd0,0)/zorin-os-6.2-lite.iso
map --heads=0 --sectors-per-track=0 (hd0,0)/zorin-os-6.2-lite.iso (0xff)
map --hook
root (0xff)
kernel /casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/zorin-os-6.2-lite.iso noeject noprompt splash persistent --
 initrd /casper/initrd.gz
chainloader (0xff)

I often see these -- in the end of a boot code.
I never heard an explanation for them? Is it for parsing too long lines
to prevent the parser to drop instructions due to too long line?

Edit after testing to add the word persistent to the line as indicated above

It boots the same as without it but it does not save any changes
either of Date and Time or Loudspeaker volume or coding of
browser or what homepage to use or setting of keyboard map
so what can be tested now that that did not work?

Don't one need a casper-rw file so the program for persistence
can find it and use it for changes?
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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rcrsn51
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#94 Post by rcrsn51 »

@nooby: Read my comment here.

[Edit] I looked at this again and got Ubuntu to work with persistence on ISObooter.

You need either a second flash drive or a second partition on your ISObooter drive. Format it as ext4 and label it "casper-rw"

Boot it with this kind of menu.lst entry:

Code: Select all

title ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386
partnew (hd0,3) 0x00 (hd0,0)/ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386.iso
map --heads=0 --sectors-per-track=0 (hd0,0)/ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386.iso (0xff)
map --hook
root (0xff)
kernel /casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386.iso noeject noprompt splash persistent --
initrd /casper/initrd.lz
Note that the "kernel" entry is on one long line.

I also followed the procedure for creating a new Ubuntu user.

nooby
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#95 Post by nooby »

Thanks yes I knew it needed something like what you explain here
Format it as ext4 and label it "casper-rw"
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

keniv
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Location: Scotland

#96 Post by keniv »

Hello rcrsn51
Add "persistent" to the "kernel" line.
I have done this and am now able to boot ubuntu with "persistence". So far I have downloaded an installed 581 updates. I have also installed VLC and Flashplayer. Downloading and installing these seemed very slow. I thought this might be something to do with demand on the repositories as I also installed addblock and flashblock in Firefox and this seemed about normal or a difference in speed between a flash drive and an hdd. All I have done is still there after rebooting several times. I have also added my two favourite Puppies as frugal installs to the fat32 partition and both are booting properly. I am very pleased with this. Thanks for your help in getting it working.
I did wonder how often ubuntu writes to the flash drive. Is it possible to do with ubuntu what can be done with puppy and only allow saving to the flash drive at shutdown or even elect not to save at all?

Regards,

Ken.

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rcrsn51
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#97 Post by rcrsn51 »

Writing to a flash drive is definitely slower then writing to a hard drive. And some flash memory is slower than others. You can test this yourself by copying a large file, like an ISO, to both media.
I did wonder how often ubuntu writes to the flash drive
Does your drive have an LED indicator light? I expect that it is blinking constantly.

Be aware that flash drive setups are much easier to corrupt than hard drives. I wouldn't be saving any important data in your Ubuntu home directory.

keniv
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Location: Scotland

#98 Post by keniv »

No there is no LED on this one and I suspect it is not very fast as it was cheap. Thanks for the warning about possible corruption of the flash drive.

Regards,

Ken.

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d4p
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#99 Post by d4p »

@rcrsn51

Before I have already total about 230 multibootable Linux liveos include windows, dos & android on 500 GB usb external HD with multiple partitions.
I move everything to 2Tb external HD with 10 partitions (some ntfs, vfat, ext3 and one for partnew partition) and put 20 additional isos which bootable with partnew methode but unfortunatly the 20 isos will not boot on old pc pentium 4 (2 Gb rambus).
Without partnew methode all isos, flat files (frugal), imgs just work fine on that machine. I think Partnew methode is not for old computers???.
At the moment I dont have another old computer for testing.

Grub4dos is the best multi-boot manager ever.

nooby
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#100 Post by nooby »

Grub4dos is the best multi-boot manager ever.

In some other thread there is opinion to skip
grub4dos and instead use some other loader.

I know too little to get what is good and bad about them.
I use Google Search on Puppy Forum
not an ideal solution though

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