Salix Live Xfce 13.37 RC2

[mimosa]

Also, this computer fails to boot from CD, giving a message that "this should never happen". It doesn't seem to be a normal BIOS - maybe one of these new anti-Linux ones? It boots OK from the USB though: F12 to select "USB HDD". But when I select the CD from the same list, it fails. Sorry this probably isn't very informative, but the nature of such failures is it's hard to collect data.

[Shador]

What computer? What CD? What USB? What exact message? This is a problem which I can try to fix (I can't guarantee you that I can), but I need information from you. Without that information there's absolutely nothing I can do.

1. What would be helpful to me is if you did an install of 13.37 with install-on-USB.sh on the "bad" stick. When finished run

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lilo -M /dev/sdX mbr

This installs another mbr loader which is possibly more robust.

2. If that doesn't help try booting the stick in qemu (qemu -hda /dev/sdX) or VirtualBox. But it's more straighforward with qemu. If you don't want to try that, please try at least the next thing.

3.

You could try running 'grub-install --boot-directory=/media/<your stick>/boot /dev/sdX'. That's the way grub2 was installed alone (i.e. without syslinux) with 13.1.

It would be very helpful to me, if you at least tried 1 and 3.

[Akuna]

It would be very helpful to me, if you at least tried 1 and 3.

If still relevant and needed, will also do it on Thursday when I'm back home. But not possible for me ATM.

[mimosa]

Sorry for the delay getting back to you; pretty busy here. The CD is the RC2. I'm not sure how to identify this computer's setup. On boot it presents a screen full of advertising for the motherboard, listing options at the bottum to enter setup and F12 to select the boot device. USB-HDD boots the stick, but CD leads to that error I mentioned. In both cases, there is some more output before you get to Grub. I've never seen anything like this before, so I wonder if it may be the replacement for BIOS. This is quite a powerful machine mainly used by my nephew to play video games, running Windows 7.

I'll try options 1 and 3 (and see if I get round to 2).

I take it 3 is not subsequent to 1, that is, I will wipe the stick again, copy the files, *not* run the install script, and try that command. Or can I just run grub-install even after successfully doing test (1)?

Regarding the internet problem I mentioned in another thread, I think there may be some kind of password involved, and I give up. The relevance of that is that I am writing to you from outside Salix still ... so it's harder to provide output from any tests.

[mimosa]

3) fails, saying /usr/sbin/grub-probe cannot stat 'none'; that was after running install-on-USB.sh. Will now go back and try the lilo -M command.

Incidentally, the last thing I see before the Windows bootlaoder (or else Grub) is:

Verifying DMI pool data

EDIT

1) fails saying "/dev/sdb1 is not a master device with a primary partition table"

... to recap, this is the same stick (formatted as fat16) which booted happily with 13.1 Live - now deleted, of course. I didn't reformat, I just copied /salixlive and /boot from the other working 13.37 RC2 stick over the top of those folders, and copied the .live file to the stick's /

[Shador]

What's the exact grub-install command you executed? Maybe the same mistake as with lilo.

fails saying "/dev/sdb1 is not a master device with a primary partition table"

Yes that's because you used the partition. I wrote in my post /dev/sdX, So that means sda, sdb, sdc, ... Don't know how I should make this any clearer.

I take it 3 is not subsequent to 1, that is, I will wipe the stick again, copy the files, *not* run the install script, and try that command. Or can I just run grub-install even after successfully doing test (1)?

You can do either. But the way you actually did it could possibly cause problems unless you did script, grub-install, SCRIPT, lilo. But because it failed, it doesn't matter.

I've never seen anything like this before, so I wonder if it may be the replacement for BIOS.

EFI? They have a legacy BIOS mode usually so that should be no problem, unless the firmware is buggy. I booted myself the livecd in bios mode on (U)EFI.

Sorry for the delay getting back to you; pretty busy here.

No problem. Same here.

[mimosa]

I suspect it was the same mistake both times - sdb1 for grub as well as lilo. I don't think you could make it any clearer, but it's still an easy mistake. However, I should know better! I'll have another go tomorrow morning - script, lilo, test booting, script, grub, test, right?

[Shador]

script, lilo, test booting, script, grub, test, right?

Exactly.

[mimosa]

The lilo method worked and the stick booted. The grub method produced the same error, and the stick no longer booted (presumably, because I ran the script between these attempts). That was a surprise, and I wonder if I may have got something wrong:

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grub-install --boot-directory=/media/foo/boot /dev/sdb

Or could it be the space in the device label? The script now copes well with that; on the command line, the space appears as '\ ' - I used tab autocompletion when typing the grub command.

There remains the failure of the CD to boot on this machine. Or at least, it gets some way before saying "this should never happen".

EDIT Here is what it says, shortly after displaying seven penguins:

Finding salix Live v.xfce-13.37-32 device

...

Could not find the distro to boot

File searched: salix-xfce-13.37-32-rc2.live

Content searched: 65b70335dda0e5c14bbf52e55aa498e5

This should never happen ... etc.

EDIT

I was just able to boot from the CD by plugging in the Salix USB while choosing language and keyboard. It then apparently found the .live file there - as well as the persistent file.

I don't think this is a bad burn - at least, the CD booted successfully on my machine at home.

[Shador]

Oh, now I see this happens after the bootloader/boot menu during salt startup. I was thinking it happened earlier during grub, which is the part I mainly developped. For Salt JRD is the expert.

I was just able to boot from the CD by plugging in the Salix USB while choosing language and keyboard. It then apparently found the .live file there - as well as the persistent file.

Yes, that's exactly what happens. When booting like this can you check whether the cdrom device is visible and what device it is assigned (like /dev/cdrom)? The first should work with thunar, while the latter is visible from the output of the mount command. I guess that the cdrom is not visible at all or at least not early enough or somehow Salt misses it.

Or could it be the space in the device label? The script now copes well with that; on the command line, the space appears as '\ ' - I used tab autocompletion when typing the grub command.

It seems grub-install doesn't properly support spaces. Anyway, it's enough for me to know that the lilo MBR loader works. So you don't need to try that again. We have to check whether it's worth switching to the lilo one as it seems much more robust although it requires yet another tool which is especially for the windws cmd version problematic.